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Grading tutorial using Premiere and AE CS6 exclusively - or is that even workable?

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Les C.

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I'm trying to come up with a workflow that makes sense with R3D files.

I want to be able to de-noise with NeatVideo, use 3rd party effects like BeautyBox, and keep using R3D's without transcoding until the final output stage.

Speedgrade has no nodes, may not be totally debugged, and if I use it natively with R3D's, I can't use NeatVideo on the R3D files as the first stage - as I'd have to output in some other format, and then use NeatVideo.

Resolve - I really like, has nodes, has it's own de-noiser (how does it compare to NeatVideo), but I'd still have the same problem where I'd have to output in some format other than R3D's to apply 3rd party effect (NeatView, etc.)

So, I'm curious if there are any tutorials where the grading is done within Premiere and AE exclusively.

Using trackers with masks to enhance areas of interest, etc. - all the things you can do in BlackMagic.

Or, am I just spinning my wheels, worrying too much about staying in R3D during the entire process?

I know some others are de-noising 1080p output from the free version of Resolve as the last stage.

Buying the full version of Resolve would allow me to do that at 4K.

Any thoughts or comments?
 
This is not dissimilar to my workflow Les, though at present I have been using colourista II. However I intend to explore Speedgrade when i go on subscription for CS6 very soon as
I was under the impression that while it Speedgrade doesn't use nodes like Resolve, it' uses adjustment layers instead, much like AE, and you can also mask and track etc?
Am I wrong? Can someone else chime in on this?

There's a few grumbles around about EDL vs a send to Speedgrade option, but i too want simple as possible and love the flexibility of Raw right through, and so would prefer to stay in CS6 and I'm sure while Resolve is still considered superior, the way Adobe are moving and shaking it's only a matter of time before SG becomes pretty outstanding also.

Oh, and all the opinions I have heard/read seem to weigh in in favour of Neatvideo as having pride of place for denoising.
 
The problem is that, to work with SpeedGrade using R3D's, you have to do your edits in Premiere, then send the R3D's to SpeedGrade.

You can't apply any effects in Premiere that get past onto the R3D's sent to SpeedGrade.

Coming out of SpeedGrade, it's no longer R3D.

To me, this is a major issue.

I might as well use Resolve, which is more powerful with nodes, pretty much the same workflow - and a bit more battle tested (I read about blue screen issues with SpeedGrade)
 
You can, but it gets rather messy. I think Stu Maschuwitz does it, but he's a bit of an AE/Compositing whiz kid. The problem I've found is that I end up applying so many layers to each clip that it ends up getting quite unruly... For example, secondaries would have be done in their own layer, per edit, so if you import a timeline with a bunch of edits into AE it can get out of hand with each shot having their own set of layers. That said, dynamic link sends the composite back to Premiere fairly intact (based off the original .r3ds) so you don't transcode at all...

I was under the impression that SpeedGrade would be the same, but it sounds more like Final Cut/Apple Colour, where it renders coming out of Colour before being sent back to FC. If that's the only way you can do it, then the implementation of SpeedGrade is somewhat antiquated out of the gate.

The way it should be (in my opinion) is as corrections and adjustments (primaries, secondaries, vignettes, etc.) are being made in SpeedGrade, the clip in premiere is reflecting those changes on the fly. That way you're only rendering once out of premiere to your deliverable, remaining in .r3ds the entire time prior to that... Is that not how it is?
 
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Mike P. said:
The way it should be (in my opinion) is as corrections and adjustments (primaries, secondaries, vignettes, etc.) are being made in SpeedGrade, the clip in premiere is reflecting those changes on the fly. That way you're only rendering once out of premiere to your deliverable, remaining in .r3ds the entire time prior to that... Is that not how it is?
Click to expand...
No, you render from SpeedGrade. You can't remain in R3D's back and forth.
 
Les C. said:
No, you render from SpeedGrade. You can't remain in R3D's back and forth.
Click to expand...

Here's something to consider - .look files from SpeedGrade work in After Effects.

It might be possible to grade with R3D in SpeedGrade and load up the grade in After Effects (to the native R3D file) in the form of a .look file. (This is not possible in Premiere currently, however)

I haven't tried it and I may be misunderstanding the .look functionality. Even if it works as I understand, obviously it is not the most elegant solution, you will likely lose the performance of SpeedGrade, and there might be other limitations, but just a possibility that is worth exploring.
 
One thing to keep in mind about .look files in After Effects: The Apply Color LUT effect just applies the color lookup table (LUT) part of the .look file; there are other aspects of the .look file that don't come across into After Effects. One of the SpeedGrade guys is going to do a writeup on our team blog about how to work in SpeedGrade with this limitation in mind if you're intending to go to After Effects.
 
@ Liam

Hey long time no talk, I have CS6 still test driving however Speedgrade I noticed seems to basically be designed as the last stop before final out. It is no a go with "bouncing" back & forth between to 2 apps. I may be wrong here so anyone with me knowledge than me please correct me. But from reading others observations & my own limited experience this appears to be correct. Speedgrade appears to be a work in progress which is fine, it just needs time.
 
Todd Kopriva said:
One thing to keep in mind about .look files in After Effects: The Apply Color LUT effect just applies the color lookup table (LUT) part of the .look file; there are other aspects of the .look file that don't come across into After Effects. One of the SpeedGrade guys is going to do a writeup on our team blog about how to work in SpeedGrade with this limitation in mind if you're intending to go to After Effects.
Click to expand...

This is a super cool feature ... allows you to setup a look in speedgrade, but then just drop it on the composites in AE (and you don't have to move files around). The "looks" in AE6 are super easy to use, basically takes about 2 seconds to dropping LUT's into composites with the new AE effect ... where I build the LUT in speedgrade. It's super simple to do this and you don't have to leave AE. It's not probably something you would use on a major feature, but real nice for corporate work and shorts.

http://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/After-Effects-CS6-New-Features/101075-2.html it's the section 4 of that tutorial.
 
Lliam Worthington said:
This is not dissimilar to my workflow Les, though at present I have been using colourista II. However I intend to explore Speedgrade when i go on subscription for CS6 very soon as
I was under the impression that while it Speedgrade doesn't use nodes like Resolve, it' uses adjustment layers instead, much like AE, and you can also mask and track etc?
Am I wrong? Can someone else chime in on this?
Click to expand...

Correct, SpeedGrade uses adjustment layers, not nodes. When we designed SpeedGrade, we found layers to be more intuitive and basically just as powerful (unless you are talking really complex compositing setups, where nodes are cool).

Lin
 
Mike Garrick said:
@ Liam

Hey long time no talk, I have CS6 still test driving however Speedgrade I noticed seems to basically be designed as the last stop before final out. It is no a go with "bouncing" back & forth between to 2 apps. I may be wrong here so anyone with me knowledge than me please correct me. But from reading others observations & my own limited experience this appears to be correct. Speedgrade appears to be a work in progress which is fine, it just needs time.
Click to expand...

Hey Mike :) Hope you keeping well mate and thanks for the feedback.

Lin said:
Correct, SpeedGrade uses adjustment layers, not nodes. When we designed SpeedGrade, we found layers to be more intuitive and basically just as powerful (unless you are talking really complex compositing setups, where nodes are cool).

Lin
Click to expand...


Hi Lin. Thanks for the response. As an AE user the concept of working in layers is definitely appealing to me - because yes I feel it will be intuitive - as I'm sure many others will feel, and as you guys have obviously surmised. Nice job :) Looking forward to learning the software soon and benefiting from it's continued development.
 
Lin said:
Correct, SpeedGrade uses adjustment layers, not nodes. When we designed SpeedGrade, we found layers to be more intuitive and basically just as powerful (unless you are talking really complex compositing setups, where nodes are cool).

Lin
Click to expand...
If you told a Fusion, Nuke or Resolve user that nodes had been replaced by layers, they would move to another product.

Once you've used nodes, it's like working in DOS as opposed to a GUI.

There's really no reason that you can't offer a node interface for power users - and no downside if it is optional.

Mike Tiffee said:
have you seen this? http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?77990-Another-Adobe-Workflow-Video-(short-and-sweet)
Click to expand...
I just watched it. Very nice. I'd much rather use Resolve, but ... there's just no way to have a native R3D workflow from end to end using Resolve or SpeedGrade for that matter.

I'll have to experiment, and compare the differences between applying NeatVideo and some other 3rd party effects to a Resolve render - as opposed to applying them to R3D's if I keep the workflow native.

Maybe, if I buy the full Resolve package and output 4K, the difference will be negligible when applying the 3rd party plug-ins in AE, but ... frustrating that there's no way to 'get there from here' for a complete R3D workflow ... yet.
 
@ Les agreed. Here's to it getting here quicker than we hope.

For my workflow Colour correction is the weak link at the moment, I like to tweek bouncing around between platforms with CC never happening at the very end . Currently this workflow seems to be unviable . The closest I got was Colour on FCP 7 now no longer an option unless I want to transcode to Pro Rez from R3D.

I had high hopes with Smoke but saw some unfavourable reviews with R3D files. So hoping somewhere in the future this issue can be solved, quickly.
 
Mike Garrick said:
@ Les agreed. Here's to it getting here quicker than we hope.

For my workflow Colour correction is the weak link at the moment, I like to tweek bouncing around between platforms with CC never happening at the very end . Currently this workflow seems to be unviable . The closest I got was Colour on FCP 7 now no longer an option unless I want to transcode to Pro Rez from R3D.

I had high hopes with Smoke but saw some unfavourable reviews with R3D files. So hoping somewhere in the future this issue can be solved, quickly.
Click to expand...

As you're looking at alternatives, you might want to look at Fusion http://www.eyeonline.com/web/eyeonweb/products/fusion6/fusion6.aspx - which is used to grade and composite a lot of movies.

Fusion supports R3D RED Color 3 and RED Gamma 3 as of version 6.32 (March of 2012) - so they move VERY quickly to embrace the new formats from RED (hint hint Adobe).

I use it for compositing, and am trying to figure how it will fit into my R3D workflow. A number of users on PigsFly http://www.pigsfly.com/forums/ use R3D files.
 
Have a look at Color GHear for AE.
 
Mmmm after looking at the above Dustin Solomon's link using Color Finesse 3 within AE sounds promising , have downloaded a trial version & am kicking it around a little. Anyone had experience with this system..... or am I just better off using Resolve ?
 
@ Les
I don't think Color Finesse is free its a plug in for AE made by someone else it costs $550. i would be delighted if someone proves me wrong .....maybe I was having a man look.

@ Uli
I tried Colorghear, there's not a lot of info about the system apart from the PR videos. I also noted it was geared for DHSLR users. How do you find Uli if you're using it?
 
Mike Garrick said:
@ Les
I don't think Color Finesse is free its a plug in for AE made by someone else it costs $550. i would be delighted if someone proves me wrong .....maybe I was having a man look.
Click to expand...
There's a specific plugin version of Color Finesse (Color Finesse LE) that comes bundled with all copies of AE for free Mike :)
 
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