After Effects - recommended Color Settings and Color Management

[James B.]

Hi
Can anyone share their preferred Color Settings in AE?
I always turn 32 bpc on but not sure about Color Management( ie defining a Workspace color profile).

Unless you are outputting to film or tv, it really doesn't seem as though it's worth the hassle.

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

AE Color Management

AE Color Management

Color settings are to a large degree artists choice. But to get you started in the professional direction, you could look a look at Stu Maschwitz's ProLost Blog Linear Color discussion:

http://prolost.com/display/Search?searchQuery=ae+color&moduleId=3375884

 

[James B.]

Thanks . Yes saw Stu's postings. Will give them another read. Love his blog, but sometimes think he has a way of obfuscating what should be a little more straight forward.

 

[Todd Kopriva]

It's important to separate discussions of color management from color correction/grading. The latter is the artist's choice. The former is not.

Color management is entirely about making sure that the colors look the same on all devices; that's it. It's a technical, not artistic, matter.

Here's an overview of color management that also links to several useful resources.

I especially recommend this white paper, which provides an introduction and step-by-step instructions.

If you’re using color management, you should interpret RED files as HDTV (Rec. 709). We actually added an interpretation rule in After Effects CS5 to do this automatically.

As far as choosing a working color space---you need to make sure that you're performing color operations in a space with a large enough gamut. The white paper mentioned above makes recommendations for various scenarios, including digital cinema.

 

[James B.]

Thanks Todd for the clarification.
Reagrding Stus postings, they refer to AE7. Would most of that information still pertain to the latest AE(and would you recommend me using the linear profiles he has provided or, use built-in ones)?

 

[Todd Kopriva]

Stu's math and arguments in favor of using linear color are still valid. The controls in After Effects are a bit different now than they were then. We introduced color management and linear color in After Effecs 7 (which is why Stu was going on about it so much), but we've refined things since then.

Here's the current set of recommendations an instructions about linear color.

 

[James B.]

Thanks!
So my understanding is that with Color management enabled, you should usually select 'linearize working space' to improve the quality of most compositing effects and blend modes...

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

For the record, I disagree with Todd's characterization that color management is not an artist's - or artistic - choice. Every choice you make in your post-production pipeline/color management will affect your result. Some by necessity, some by mistake.

To argue that there is no choice between an 8-bit finishing pipeline and 32-bit linear color is missing a crucial point - most jobs simply cannot handle the system overload (which is to say $) of 32-bit linear finishing. As the artist - I choose where and how to spend my time and my system time.

Turn on 32-bit, lin Srgb then do your comps and discover that many of your plugins don't work, that the key looks worse and that the render will be done 18 hours after your job is due, then you'll see my point, I think.

Todd, in your view, is there a "right" answer as to which color space a person must interpret their Red footage in? Of course there isn't. If James if finishing a project for print, do I HAVE to interpret my Red footage in Rec.709 even if I like the look of RedLogFilm for this project? Of course not. Even if I'm delivery something for TV, must I? In fact, no.

If you are integrating multiple systems into a larger project, Adobe Color Management can be helpful. But like any rules, learn them then throw them aside.

And for the record, colors will never look the same on all devices. That is a rabbit hole. We try, we might get close for some, but ultimately we fail. LCD vs. Plasma? Don't look the same. iPhone vs. HTC? Don't look the same. One year old CRT vs. new CRT? Don't look the same. Though I guess I applaud Adobe for trying.

These days mostly we complain about Quicktime gamma shift...

 

[D Fuller]

For the record, I disagree with Todd's characterization that color management is not an artist's - or artistic - choice. Every choice you make in your post-production pipeline/color management will affect your result. Some by necessity, some by mistake.

To argue that there is no choice between an 8-bit finishing pipeline and 32-bit linear color is missing a crucial point - most jobs simply cannot handle the system overload (which is to say $) of 32-bit linear finishing. As the artist - I choose where and how to spend my time and my system time.

Turn on 32-bit, lin Srgb then do your comps and discover that many of your plugins don't work, that the key looks worse and that the render will be done 18 hours after your job is due, then you'll see my point, I think.

Ummm... I see your point, but it really is a bit confused. Color management really has nothing at all to do with the question of 8-bit finishing vs 32-bit finishing. You can think of color management as a lut, and you can use it completely separate from the linear work space. It can be an 8-bit lut or a 16-bit lut or whatever your workflow needs, but it really does help to keep things looking the same (or much closer to the same) on different devices. Of course, it does require calibrating things if its going to work.

By your argument, we should just throw up our hands and accept that everything is out of our control. Why bother to calibrate monitors? Why bother with all those pesky color charts? Why all this fuss about grading? It's all going to look like some random bunch of crap anyway.

 

[Todd Kopriva]

I suppose that by definition, since Mark is an artist and he's choosing to use color management tools for certain purposes, then---ipso facto---it's an artist's choice.

All that I can do is tell you how the software is designed and what it is intended to do. The color management features (specifically, the use of ICC color profiles to characterize inputs, outputs, and a working space) are specifically for the purpose of making colors match between devices.

Regarding color bit depth choice: That's not a color management setting. It's a color precision setting. Working at a higher depth gives more precision and loses less information in color operations.

 

[D Fuller]

Well yes, that's true. Randomness can be an artist's choice too.

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

Ok, ok, I overstated the point a little. Long live color calibration. We all strive to achieve it and it makes us better people. I'm reacting to the old joke that we sit in a bay at color correction and look at a $20,000 monitor and then nobody ever sees it that way again.

James asked about "color settings" - that's a broad term. It seems to me that selecting a color space is not color management and it isn't grading pre se. That's the only point I was trying to make. It's up to the end user to decide how you're going to go about it.

Apologies for stirring the pot.

 

[James B.]

Picked up 'Adobe After Effects CS5 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques' last nite.
http://goo.gl/ZYFSN
The older foreword by Stu Maschwitz in which he eloquently argues over the importance of 'making it look good' over 'making it look real' is priceless. Perhaps the subject for another thread!

An excerpt
http://goo.gl/JVIK4

 

[D Fuller]

Ok, ok, I overstated the point a little. Long live color calibration. We all strive to achieve it and it makes us better people. I'm reacting to the old joke that we sit in a bay at color correction and look at a $20,000 monitor and then nobody ever sees it that way again.

No worries. Easy to overstate the point. Gotta be careful, though there are a lot of impressionable young ears around here... ;-). (my great aunt used to say that)

James asked about "color settings" - that's a broad term. It seems to me that selecting a color space is not color management and it isn't grading pre se. That's the only point I was trying to make. It's up to the end user to decide how you're going to go about it.

Apologies for stirring the pot.

We might be having a semantic problem here. Selecting a color space is certainly not grading, and selecting a color space in the sense we use the term with RedCine is not color management at all. But in the color managed world, selecting a color space (also called a color profile) that is calibrated to the device--display, projector, printer, camera, whatever--is exactly what color management is. Basically a LUT tuned to each device. They're not perfect, of course, but they go a long way toward reducing the variation from one to the other.

 

[Kwan Khan]

Thanks Todd