Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Need help grading Epic clip

Tom Lowe

Tom Lowe

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 5, 2007
Messages
8,520
Reaction score
1
Points
0
gradethis.jpg


I am trying to grade some shots I did out at Death Valley, but am having trouble bringing down the exposure in the sky, while at the same time increasing the exposure on the ground. In Adobe Camera RAW, there is a simple "Grad ND" feature that works fairly well, especially for shots with straight horizons (like I have here). You can even control color temp, exposure, etc, via the Grad ND feature, which comes in extremely handy. But I am struggling in RedCine-X to even do a simple, starting-point type of grade.

I would like the ground to be bright and white, with the clouds very pink, saturated and contrasty.

I wondered if some of you gurus around here might be willing to help me figure out some settings in RCX to improve shots like this?

Here is the Epic file: http://timescapes.org/gradethis.R3D

When I brought this image into Photoshop, for example, I was able to make some significant improvements with only one push of the "Auto Contrast" button....

gradethisautocontrast.jpg
 
Tiffen DFX has grads i use them everyday.

Also use curves in REDCINE to do the same thing as your second shot.
 
If you have any specific settings for that R3D file, please let me know. I would like to try them out. It's only a single R3D frame.
 
REDcolor2, REDgamma2, Saturation to 1.27, Contrast to .25, very slight "S" shape in the curves, lift at -.06, gain at .11 gets me pretty close. I left everything else as you shot it. Nice shot!
 
Justin, I opened that in RCX and it was completely garbled - no image at all.

Jake, any chance of posting a JPEG so I can see?
 
454 also.

Not too shabby, Justin!
 
The trouble is, I am trying to do countervailing things -- increase exposure and brightness of the ground, and tamping down exposure in the sky. Playing with midtones helps with the sky, but hinders the ground.
 
Redcine really won't do that. You need power windows. Or masks. You can do what you want in AE. If I get back to my office in time tonight, I'll give it a shot.
 
Yeah, you do need to do two passes and use a mask in Premiere or AE. That clear horizon line is a gift to do some pretty dramatic differences.

gradethis-sky.jpg
 
Are you able to do this in any program other than RCX? AE has masks you can make (I know CS5.5 isn't out yet, but I wasn't sure if AE was included in your *special package* from them) to do what you are looking to do...

EDIT: well shit, I'm a slow typer haha. Elvis's looks great.
 
I'm positive Tom is aware that what he is trying to do can be done in other programs. You don't create a reel like his without that basic level of knowledge - I believe the question was how to do it inside of RedcineX which right now, isn't possible, and given that it's a free program I don't know that it ever will be. (You can, I believe, get a decent first pass that you can run with outside RedcineX which is what he was asking - the grad ND feature was just an added bonus that would be nice to see, as would garbage mattes, luma mattes, and everything else you can do in grading applications you have to pay for.)
 
Jake Bastian said:
I'm positive Tom is aware that what he is trying to do can be done in other programs. You don't create a reel like his without that basic level of knowledge - I believe the question was how to do it inside of RedcineX which right now, isn't possible, and given that it's a free program I don't know that it ever will be. (You can, I believe, get a decent first pass that you can run with outside RedcineX which is what he was asking - the grad ND feature was just an added bonus that would be nice to see, as would garbage mattes, luma mattes, and everything else you can do in grading applications you have to pay for.)
Click to expand...

You're right, of course.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top