Apple Color: Gamma & Color Space setting

[C_Skaff]

About setting the displau gamma to 2,2...

If you do so, just don't try to grade in the Viewer in FCP since that thinks it still need to da that LUT to make the 1,8 look like 2,2. meaning your picture will be twice as "dark".

Or am I wrong here guys? Is there a way to set the Viewer so it's not doing this 1,8>2,2 LUT?

Its almost so that when you work in Color/Shake/RedCine etc you select a calibrated 2,2 setting but when you take it back to FinalCut you change it to 1,8 so th e Viewer looks right.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

By the way... is ther a way to get a full screen output on a seperate monitor with RedCine/RedAlert?
Or should I use Color for that instead?

/carl

 

[Andrew Ravani]

Color and Final Cut Studio App + RED = AWESOME!

Color and Final Cut Studio App + RED = AWESOME!

I couldn't find a good spot to give the good folks at RED and the Christmas Elves at Apple a hearty thanks for the Studio plugin - but I gotta say - AWESOME! That plugin, released on the 20th of Nov has made my life so much easier and my work is now much more streamlined. I can bounce around from Final Cut to Color to Logic to Shake (I still leave Motion alone for all but the most mundane of chores) - and DELIVER.

.... on my LAPTOP. I am doing that RIGHT NOW. WOW! Yeah, its a top Macbook Pro laptop (at least it was two months ago...) but the disk attached is a measly 500GB FW800 drive for $168 total.

The project is a 10 minute movie with no artistic value whatsoever, but I shot it on RED and had scratch audio going in and separate audio recorded to a Sound Devices 4 ch mixer and a moderately successful Comtek by a talented location sound guy (great mics, great rates, PM me if you need a NYC Sound Guy - I would recommend him any day - has worked several times with RED). Word to the wise: Slate everything.

Anyway, on to the Gamma curiosity - I want to do Color (the App) based color correction and I have two 24" monitors hooked up to my MacPro. One is an older Dell LCD (Matte, smooth, medium contrast) and the other is a newer Gateway (glossy, hi contrast, punchy). Neither has very good controls for picture adjustment (my main gripe about them) and I need to have two radically different monitors to quickly test if the web based video stuff is palatable on different kinds of monitors.

So: Is there a proper monitor setting for either of these monitors that I can use to master to REC 709? Or would I be better off buying a separate output monitor that uses the REC 709 color profile and has a more complete gamut? My main concern is prepping material for two venues: digital projection and HD cablecast/broadcast.

Any qualified input regarding monitors and color profiles for color correction and RED is greatly appreciated. Thanks

~Drew

AND THANKS AGAIN RED TEAM AND APPLE!

 

[C_Skaff]

monitor for grading

monitor for grading

The best would be to buy a Sony CRT BVM. but they have a BVM-L that is led-LCD or get a Barco that one looks realy good.

But if you are using FCP Color i would gues you don't wana spend that kind of money. Think its about 20000€ ish

Have you tryed a probe to get it closer.
I manage to get a MacBook black very close to my Sony BVM20
considering what it is and can't do.

 

[M Most]

If you use RedCine to export DPX's to grade in a propper colorcorection (like Resolve, Luster etc etc) then you will probably want to export it as RedLog/RedSpace.

If you are exporting for a proper color correction in a Resolve or Lustre (or Pablo, or Baselight, or Nucoda Film Master, or Scratch, etc.) you will probably want to ask the finishing facility what they want rather than try to guess. You might also find that they would rather do the exporting themselves so that they can properly conform to your offline cut, know what they are getting, and have it match their normal work path for the particular deliverables they'll be creating. You might even find that they don't have to export because they're using a system that can work directly from the R3d files.

My point is that the do it yourself approaches should end when you're no longer doing it yourself. More often than not, you're likely to cause more work for the finishing facility and compromises in the final product. And yes, I speak from experience on this. And my guess is that others here who work in professional finishing facilities would tell you the same thing.

 

[C_Skaff]

Well, I partly agree with you on that.

I am a colorist working for about 6 years on DaVinci colorcorectors. First a 2K+ conected to a Spirit Classic, and since 3years-ish mainly on Resolve.

Shure, there are some systems out there that can deal with the r3d but not all.
And Yes, I would like to do the "R3D>DPX export" inhouse. But for us to charge the client the export time, would for some clients not be an option.
The big budget jobs don't have a problem letting us or a DIT-facility take care of the files. But since the camera is so cheap and avalible to a new market some of those are better off (economicly) doing it themself. But as you say: they should contact us in advance.

For a lot of projects shot on Red might be edited/onlined by the "low end" client on there own laptop. But since they trust a good colorist on an "big ass system" they might be willing to spend that extra money on a propper Grade rather then spending too much on the eporting and not having enough time to grade.

But as soon as Red releases the Linux SDK we can all play with the full RAW information without waving to spend time exporting DPX's.
We'll see what happens on Dec 3... I'm hoping for a SDK

 

[James W]

"mmost"
And my guess is that others here who work in professional finishing facilities would tell you the same thing.

"C_Skaff"
But since the camera is so cheap and avalible to a new market some of those are better off (economicly) doing it themself. But as you say: they should contact us in advance.

Just to add to the wise words from Mr. Most & C_Skaff above - always check with the post facility. Often a phone call could save hours or days of heartache. Communication is the key - with ever shifting goal posts that 'five minute chat' or 'five hour meeting' (some projects take a lot of planning!) will really be time well spent.