Question about RAW and color correction

[Gopher77]

From the first I heard of RAW it was my plan to shoot that way. Obviously it's going to take some time for the NLE's to support this feature, but once there I think RAW will become the standard. Now a few things I've wondered about is white balance, will the temp be in the metadata even if shooting RAW. It's hard to tell outdoors on a sunny day just how blue you are. Secondly will there be an SDK kit or some way that redcine could become a plugin for NLE's and finally, I know the red team has said there is no keyframe capability in redcine or red code, but I hope they'll consider that in a future or pro version.
This is how I envisioned the work flow, Shoot RAW, keep it as a digital master. Output the lowest res, 720p version with some standard LUT applied, cut, evaluate and plan custom tweaking of the LUT to achieve the desired look. Apply the new LUT and EDL and output at 720p to evaluate. If happy output at final resolutin, add graphics, composites, vfx etc.

[donatello b]

"If you use batch settings, it might not work out that well, because you may want a very different exposure settings for day shots versus evening shots"

you can have different LUT's for different scenes ... and i would think that as we get to know our REDs we'll have a folder full of LUT's for all kinds of lighting situations & different "looks" and will be sharing them here under a new thread ...

[Tom Lowe]

Jeez, I would be really surprised if an NLE supported RAW editing. Isn't it a given that the RAW will have to be processed into a more standard file type like Quicktime, AVI, a Cineform intermediate, etc, before editing? I mean, not even Photoshop can deal with RAW. You have to use a plug-in to make adjustments before it will even open in Photoshop, let alone trying to work inside an NLE.

I could be totally wrong about this. Graeme?

[Chris Kenny]

Jeez, I would be really surprised if an NLE supported RAW editing. Isn't it a given that the RAW will have to be processed into a more standard file type like Quicktime, AVI, a Cineform intermediate, etc, before editing? I mean, not even Photoshop can deal with RAW. You have to use a plug-in to make adjustments before it will even open in Photoshop, let alone trying to work inside an NLE.

This is the approach Photoshop takes, but take a look at Aperture. It works natively with RAW files. It's internally decoding and possibly caching non-RAW versions, of course, but the user doesn't see any of this. The user can go back and make changes to the RAW processing settings even after doing other things to the image, because Aperture doesn't really make any changes to the original image; adjustments, cropping, patching, etc. are essentially stored as metadata. In other words, it stores a series of operations to perform on the image, rather than simply performing the operations and saving the resulting bitmap. This allows the user to go back and change any prior decisions (including the RAW processing settings) without having to undo successive operations.

In principle there's no reason an NLE or a grading environment couldn't work with Red's RAW footage the same way.

[Tom Lowe]

This is the approach Photoshop takes, but take a look at Aperture. It works natively with RAW files. It's internally decoding and possibly caching non-RAW versions, of course, but the user doesn't see any of this. The user can go back and make changes to the RAW processing settings even after doing other things to the image, because Aperture doesn't really make any changes to the original image; adjustments, cropping, patching, etc. are essentially stored as metadata. In other words, it stores a series of operations to perform on the image, rather than simply performing the operations and saving the resulting bitmap. This allows the user to go back and change any prior decisions (including the RAW processing settings) without having to undo successive operations.

In principle there's no reason an NLE or a grading environment couldn't work with Red's RAW footage the same way.

Interesting. But isn't editing even simple 4K wavelet-compressed footage like the Cineform intermediate or basic Quicktime 4K footage hard enough on the processor as is? It seems like trying to drop unprocessed RAW footage into your NLE might cause your processor to melt down! You'd be asking for a lot of processing power, would you not?

[Gopher77]

No NLE supports it right now, probably be a couple of years before they do. But most still photographers that I know shoot raw and finish in photoshop. I think the first NLE that gets that kind of capability up and running will be way ahead of the game. Shoot I'd even buy a Mac if FCP we're the first.

But I think it's still a practicle workflow right now. With a raw DM you can always come back and reconform color, white balance and resolution. I can't imagine a situation that would be of convienece. We are just at the tip of the RAW iceberg here, imagine the possibilites that will come as the technology matures.