Best tools for 4K colour correction

[Krishius]

Hi there!

I wanted to ask, what programs can be used for 4K RED RAW colour grading and final rendering/outputing?
I'm quite newbie in colour correction, so the only software I now at the moment are Apple Color and Assimilate Scratch witch support only resolution up to 2K (for RED RAW). I just want to know what kind of tools are used by "the great masters of DI". Or maybe they don't use RED RAW for colour correction and convert it to something else (and then grades it)?

And one more question - which resolution is the most popular in DI/finishing for printing on 35mm film - 2K or 4K?

Thanks!

 

[Uli Plank]

2K is still the standard used widely for film-out, independent of being scanned from film or shot digitally. Up to now, 4K is only used in few cases, like some SFX for example.

AFAIK, only the grading tools you already mentioned can access the REDCode files natively at this time. Well, Adobe can as well, but their software is not really a grading tool in the usual sense.

 

[M Most]

Hi there!

I'm quite newbie in colour correction, so the only software I now at the moment are Apple Color and Assimilate Scratch witch support only resolution up to 2K (for RED RAW).

Scratch is resolution independent. You can render to 2K, 4K, or anything else you want. The only 2K limitation is in live playout during conforming and color correction, due mostly to the use of dual link HD-SDI as the video transport.

Color, on the other hand, actually is resolution limited.

 

[David Taylor]

Speedgrade from Iridas is another good choice. It is also fully compatible with CineForm files up to 4K spatial resolution.

 

[Tashi Trieu]

Autodesk has been working with the SDK to bring Redcode support to the 32-bit Windows version of Lustre.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

SpeedGrade 2009 has the Red SDK implemented. I'm currently using beta versions and it works nicely in a daily workflow with tight timings. Unfortunately Red's SDK is CPU only, hence Iridas' brilliant RAW RT Engine 2.0 does not work with Red R3Ds yet. Meaning: 4K grading is quarter resolution only, rendering though is possible in any resolution.

You are not using a grading system only because it can read R3D's in 4K resolution RT (no one can do that currently). There are many reasons why one prefers one system over the other.

I use SpeedGarde since almost 2 years. The application matured to a solid and very capable software, especially if we talk about colour manipulation. And David is right, it does work nicely with CineForm.
By the way, Cineform's transcodes are the nicest and most convenient I ever used off R3Ds. The higlights are preserved and the black stays at 40 and the modrate log curve looks "vibrant" enough for offline editing and is an excellent foundation to grade off.

Personally, I find grading off the RAW meaningful and with Iridas' RAW RT Engine very convincing when shooting with Arri D21, Phantom HD or SI2K. When Red's new SDK will allow to read the R3D RAW files directly a huge step to higher resolutions in real time is done.


Hans

 

[John Tissavary]

Hi there!

I wanted to ask, what programs can be used for 4K RED RAW colour grading and final rendering/outputing?
I'm quite newbie in colour correction, so the only software I now at the moment are Apple Color and Assimilate Scratch witch support only resolution up to 2K (for RED RAW). I just want to know what kind of tools are used by "the great masters of DI". Or maybe they don't use RED RAW for colour correction and convert it to something else (and then grades it)?

And one more question - which resolution is the most popular in DI/finishing for printing on 35mm film - 2K or 4K?

Thanks!

For a purely 4k uncompressed grading workflow I like Baselight best, and Pablo is very nice, too, though I haven't used it much. Baselight 8 can do over 40 simultaneous streams of 4k uncompressed in realtime! That's just insane...

I also really like Nucoda Filmmaster and they've got the Red SDK implemented now as well. Since Baselight is primarily Linux, they're waiting for the Linux SDK to be released (should be soon), and they have a Macbook Pro version in beta that does R3D, but that's not the heavy guns for DI, it's more of an auxiliary tool.

But for grading from Red footage I'll take Scratch over all others.

To me the power & features of Baselight & Pablo don't make up for the convenience and excellent final results of debayering as the last step in the online process, though many other top notch colorists do use other tools and get incredible results.

With the SDK out there it's now possible to do this with other DI systems, but for now Scratch is the fastest: it's the only one that does r3d natively. The SDK will get further development and other vendors will eventually be able to provide the same performance as Scratch, but for the time being that's not the case.

In the end, the one thing that separates on DI suite from another is the colorist. Hardware and software may make certain things easier, but without a good colorist at the controls it doesn't mean a thing.


cheers,


JT