ADDING VIVIDNESS "INSTANTLY" TO RED FOOTAGE ???

[George D.]

I know I've addressed this before, but I'm looking for further advise and help on the footage I get directly from our Red-One Camera. If this question annoys you, please do not bother to answer it.

When I download the footage into our PC, and access all the takes via Red-Cine X, the thumbnails are beautiful in color, in contrast, and in their vividness. But, when I bring one up to full screen to watch it, it is dull, low contrast, lousy color, and has no vividness at all.

I realize this is because it is RAW and is adjustable, but since we do wildlife, we shoot a "lot" of shots, and to have to adjust each and every one just to check it out is waaaaaaaaaaay to time consuming.

Is there a quick-and-dirty way to instantly adjust the takes en mass, or whatever, so they look like the thumbnails? This would greatly facilitate the elimination process of bad shots, especially since the shooting ratio with wildlife is so very high. Later in post we can do the final adjusting.

Any help or advise is appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

.

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

It's pretty easy to create a look inside RedCine-X (look presets). You could make a general one that boosts contrast, saturation, etc. and there's a button to apply that look to the entire timeline. Maybe give that a try?

 

[Johnny Friday]

George,
...not much you can do on this.....I shoot 99% nat hist. and what you will learn is a shot is a shot...you DON'T need to see how saturated it is to know if it's a good shot or not. Bottom line if it's in FOCUS and EXPOSED properly, then you're fine.....move on to the next shot. Basically you are only appeasing yourself to see the shot with more saturation and popping colors. This said...when you go to review your shots in say RCX after a day of shooting...if you want to see the colors more saturated....then choose the color and gamma settings thus:
*Redcolor
*Redgamma
....this will give you a bit more saturation. Then, if you have shot many similar scenes, go even further on say Shot #1 and put an S curve on it to darken the shadows and bring up the mids and highlights to your liking, THEN, add sharpening at about +2 or +3, add a bit of contrast and pull down the shadow slightly and BASICALLY, get the shot to pop the way you want it to....then save that LOOK in your LOOK settings, then you can apply it to every other shot--it at least gives you a starting point to adjust the other shots.

But don't be afraid/worried that you don't see a nicely saturated and popping shot. What you will or should learn from this with RAW....as i have....is a saturated shot is NOT what you want out of the gate......in fact, i've now learned in my workflow to go with a very flat unsaturated shot and later in RCX choose Redcolor 2 and Redlogfilm to get a very flat plane and transcode out to prores and THEN work with that shot in COLOR to have more range with your coloring....

You will be fighting the whole idea and process of shooting RAW by continuing to look for what you used to see in most other cameras that add saturation and sharpening....The shot is the shot and that WILL NOT CHANGE. You either got it or you did not and saturation is not necessary to know if it's a good shot.

best.....

 

[mikeburton]

I would suggest using Scratch Labs. You can create a more contrasty/ saturated or "punchy" grade on the first image and apply it downstream to all your clips in less than a minutes time. If you find this quick contrast look works well for most all clips you shoot you can export a LUT and just apply the LUT to your footage every time you start a new construct in Scratch ( a construct is like creating a new timeline in FCP for example). The software is $4,995.00 but it's great for previewing and saving entire jobs in one place creating rushes / transcodes, works with the Redrocket and has all the primary grading adjustments including curves to make nice one light grades utilizing all the RED metadata including the RDM as well as can conform edits back to R3D for finishing on a Scratch 6 finish system.
It now also runs on Mac and PC and I believe you can get a demo license to try it out if you email assimilate or talk to a local sales rep.
Super easy learning curve too. BTW - I'm not affiliated in any way with Assimilate I just love working with their products and own Scratch Labs myself.

 

[David Battistella]

Is there a quick-and-dirty way to instantly adjust the takes en mass, or whatever, so they look like the thumbnails?

.

Yes.

IN the look presets of RC-X set the shot the way you want it to look. For Punchy, Generally I do this:


1. SET ISO
2. REDCOLOR 2
3. REDGAMMA 2
4. Set white balance
5. Pop the saturation to 1.2
6. Put an S curve in the cureve control to drop the blacks slightly and raise the whites.
7. SAVE THE LOOK (call it punchy)
8. Select all the clips in the bin
9. Apply the look to "all clips in bin"

All of your shots will now have the punchy look. some of them might need a tweak here and there, but this can help get a baseline.



David

 

[Florian Stadler]

Raise contrast and saturation settings in your camera in the video menu. You will still record RAW but your dailies will be instantly more contrasty and saturated.