Gamma issues

[Rick Turners]

I'm working with R3Ds in Apple Color, rendering to ProRes4444 and trying to export TGA/DPX in FCP from there.

Everything looks great in Color on the broadcast monitor and in FCP.

However, as soon as I try to export the sequence out of FCP as TGA/DPX or even ProRes 422, I get a horrible gamma shift (darker).

The only fix I've found is to export Uncompressed 10Bit from FCP.

However, I need to deliver an image sequence.

Do I need to render out of Color in a different format/codec?
Is there some LUT/setting that the receiver of darker image sequence can apply to bring it back up to what I'm seeing FCP/Color?

Any help appreciated!

 

[Johnny Friday]

Rick,
first, what is your workflow...you doing as native or wrapped qt's OR are you transcoding from RCX to prores 4444 then working in color? Then suite 3? of course you have latest updates? There has been so much going on with gamma shifts etc...For me it came down to deleting all installed RED updates and reinstalling and VERIFYING the NEW uploads. There's a thread on this some place, but i have this issue for several years. NOW, i'd say i feel like it's 85% good.
more info....

 

[Mike P.]

It could also be quicktime, which does it's own thing in terms of gamma... in fact, apple are notoriously bad for gamma shifts (depending on the codecs and the software used.) What are you playing it back with?

 

[Rick Turners]

I'm running Color 1.5.3 and FCP 703

I suppose I could be using some older RED FCS installs?

I'm using the ClipFinder>FCP>Color workflow. (no RCX in pipeline)

I'm using an AJA Kona 3.



True.. QT could be doing it's own thing. Is it possible to tell QT to stop interpreting and just give me the source?

 

[Sidney L. Plaut]

well for prores there is a setting for "gamma adjust".

also matters if you in FCP export using quicktime conversion or quicktime movie... etc... Dont believe there is a real solution other than trying what works for you. But the gamma shift is Real.

 

[Johnny Friday]

well for prores there is a setting for "gamma adjust".

also matters if you in FCP export using quicktime conversion or quicktime movie... etc... Dont believe there is a real solution other than trying what works for you. But the gamma shift is Real.

i think you only have access to that setting in quicktime 7...if you have quicktime pro i don't believe it is there.

 

[Johnny Friday]

So here is a thread to check: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=49314

Now for the tools to clean up your red updates: redcode and FCP suite 3 updates and step by step instructions...go to this thread: http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=48297&highlight=log+transfer+problems

Do that step by step first. Then verify the changes within the folders. Restart: then of course do updates; restart and check your prores transcodes again. At least you get all updates working properly and you should experience some degree of better monitoring of prores. If not, then maybe check a different workflow....say transcode from RCX to prores 44444 and then import to color. but my guess is once you have all updates and you have proper monitoring you should see a difference. Although you won't have a perfect match with prores.

 

[Vico Martin]

Mr. Jobs, hear our plea and help us in the dark way....

Rick, Yeap, there is a LUT called FCP.mga in the "content" of FCP 6.0 that not fix the problem but helps. This is absolutely an Apple problem.

 

[Uli Plank]

I believe it's a problem with ProRes 4444, which can be YUV or RGB. Coming out of Color, it is RGB. FCP can't handle more than 8 bit RGB, and the conversion is pretty weak.

ProRes HQ works far better for me.

But OTOH Adobe CS5 is handling all flavours of ProRes pretty well.