Coloring "washed out" RED ONE footage

[Bryce Lansing]

I've been working on this project on and off for over a year, and I can't seem to do fix it.

We shot these clips on the same day, ND filters were used on all, although I believe the ones with no problems were with IRND filters, and the washed out ones were with a standard ND. That explains the slight red/magenta tint, but the main problem is that I cannot get the greens back very well to match the rest of the film. It is only this scene. I exported from RED-CINE-X as-is, and I've been coloring the sequence in Apple Color. I managed to mess with the red a bit to get it to an even color balance, but the greens still look so desaturated, it doesn't match the feel of the rest of the film.

Is there something else I can do to solve this problem? Is there something I can do IN REDCINE-X to fix it before I export? Or anything in Color that I can do to fix it? Below are some examples of the shots before any grading.

Two examples of good color/greens:

Two examples of what I'm assuming is IR pollution, and washed out greens

 

[Marc Wielage]

There's a couple of ways to approach this problem:

1) try to isolate the greens and bring the saturation up. That'll be tough, given that the greens are all over the map in terms of luminance.

2) bring the saturation up on everything, then bring the fleshtones, yellows, and blues slightly down in saturation. Not that hard to do.

Bringing the mids and blacks down will immediately put a lot of this in a better starting place prior to any color correction at all. That might require a modified LUT, a custom curve, or similar approaches. Getting blacks, whites, and mids normalized is mandatory before adjusting color, in my experience. Doing that, plus an overall minus-magenta (plus green) adjustment in mids would follow, then maybe some secondaries. Hard to say without having the material right in front of me, but I've dealt with far worse stuff.

Having access to a good colorist and good tools would be the two biggest solutions. Color would not be my first choice for this.

 

[Tony Bacak]

go and download DaVinci Lite an you'll be surprised how easy it is to get the colors back
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/

if you upload a short r3d file where i can download, i'll do a preset for you
best ones from here

 

[Bryce Lansing]

Thanks guys for all the feedback and tips! What would be the best way to upload an r3d file? and would there be any way to cut one down to get the size down? Most are takes of the full scene.

 

[Alan Rencher]

I would blame the operator... It sounds like the error of someone who would steal sandbags from mirror boards without table-topping them, or someone who would wire a cable backward and short a camera out...

PS - change your display name to your actual first and last name... forum rules!

Take it easy, Doctor.

 

[Bryce Lansing]

HAHAHAHA! Oh man.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Matrix

Matrix

I use a 9 value matrix in my programs CC rather than just increasing Chroma vs. Luma as you can get cleaner color that way since increasing the Chroma just makes the color errors stronger, where as adjusting the matrix changes the overlap ratios of the Bayer filter.

The Red, Green, and Blue filters on the sensor are not saturated, in fact they are very weak pale blue, pale green, and pale pink.

Any IR leaking will mix more far red into the green and blue as well.

By subtracting red and blue from the green, you can make the greens cleaner and brighter.

When shooting in woods the leafs filter the light and make a green cast on the actors, so likewise by subtracting green from the red and blue you can increase the saturation of the red and blue to remove the washed out look everything gets with the transmitted and reflected green light off the leafs.

And so on. You can make people look more tan by mixing the red and green and subtracting blue.

None of those matrix adjustments change the white balance, which is always held netural by having the matrix values of positive and negative value always sum to be equal to 1.0 for the red, green, and blue output.

My new image processing program DANCINEC.EXE (tm) can batch process TIF 16bpc (48bpp) and 10bpc and 16bpc DPX. You can output those from REDCINE-X (tm) and then run them through DANCINEC.EXE (tm) to enhance the color and reduce noise as well as improve sharpness on shots that are a bit soft or have lens issues such as distortion and CA and such. DANCINEC.EXE (tm) is a "free" add-on to my "freeish" DI system, the grading is still done in DANCAD87.EXE (tm), but you can edit the matrix values in the *.KCC file that controls the color correction with notepad.exe if you don't want to fiddle with the CAD program.

 

[Jörgen Persson]

I answered your question that was posted on another forum:

http://www.coloruser.net/forums/3/topics/514

Here's a quick grade of the jpeg:

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Hm...

I'd have guessed you would gey 80% there with an auto WB on his shirt in the RAW file...

Magenta/Green are oposites on the colorwheel...

But that's just a quick guess

If you posted a r3d snap (hit the snapshot button with r3d on it) from rcx, we could take it beyond guesswork

Cheers!

looks like a fun shoot

Gunleik

 

[Scott Crawley]

Once you get your blacks aligned (-red) there should be room to add magenta and yellow back to the mids. Adding yellow will do a lot to pump up the greens.

 

[Jake Bastian]

I use a 9 value matrix in my programs CC rather than just increasing Chroma vs. Luma as you can get cleaner color that way since increasing the Chroma just makes the color errors stronger, where as adjusting the matrix changes the overlap ratios of the Bayer filter.

The Red, Green, and Blue filters on the sensor are not saturated, in fact they are very weak pale blue, pale green, and pale pink.

Any IR leaking will mix more far red into the green and blue as well.

By subtracting red and blue from the green, you can make the greens cleaner and brighter.

When shooting in woods the leafs filter the light and make a green cast on the actors, so likewise by subtracting green from the red and blue you can increase the saturation of the red and blue to remove the washed out look everything gets with the transmitted and reflected green light off the leafs.

And so on. You can make people look more tan by mixing the red and green and subtracting blue.

None of those matrix adjustments change the white balance, which is always held netural by having the matrix values of positive and negative value always sum to be equal to 1.0 for the red, green, and blue output.

My new image processing program DANCINEC.EXE (tm) can batch process TIF 16bpc (48bpp) and 10bpc and 16bpc DPX. You can output those from REDCINE-X (tm) and then run them through DANCINEC.EXE (tm) to enhance the color and reduce noise as well as improve sharpness on shots that are a bit soft or have lens issues such as distortion and CA and such. DANCINEC.EXE (tm) is a "free" add-on to my "freeish" DI system, the grading is still done in DANCAD87.EXE (tm), but you can edit the matrix values in the *.KCC file that controls the color correction with notepad.exe if you don't want to fiddle with the CAD program.

Is there a text you can recommend that will help me figure out color matrixing? It seems like this is my logical next step in things to figure out grading-wise. I'd like to be able to create my own rather than relying on someone else's equations...

 

[Marc Wielage]

Is there a text you can recommend that will help me figure out color matrixing? It seems like this is my logical next step in things to figure out grading-wise. I'd like to be able to create my own rather than relying on someone else's equations...

I think you would benefit much more from taking some sample footage to an actual working colorist and have them come up with some practical, real-world solutions. These problems are dealt with every single day of the week in post houses. Book a session for an hour or two, look at a handful of scenes, and ask for suggestions.

Who knows? You may find that an experienced colorist may actually be worth employing, even as a consultant. Or, at worst, they may have specific suggestions that will help get you where you need to go a hundred times faster than you could ever learn on your own.

 

[M Most]

Is there a text you can recommend that will help me figure out color matrixing? It seems like this is my logical next step in things to figure out grading-wise. I'd like to be able to create my own rather than relying on someone else's equations...

A color matrix is one approach. There are others, and good colorists use many different techniques to solve color problems. It sounds like you're just starting out and thinking you can self educate and come up with all the answers. I would agree with Marc that it might be very instructive to hand this to someone who does color grading for a living, has years of experience in solving these problems, and can give you the result you want very quickly. You might even learn from them..... :wink:

 

[Jake Bastian]

I think you would benefit much more from taking some sample footage to an actual working colorist and have them come up with some practical, real-world solutions. These problems are dealt with every single day of the week in post houses. Book a session for an hour or two, look at a handful of scenes, and ask for suggestions.

Who knows? You may find that an experienced colorist may actually be worth employing, even as a consultant. Or, at worst, they may have specific suggestions that will help get you where you need to go a hundred times faster than you could ever learn on your own.

A color matrix is one approach. There are others, and good colorists use many different techniques to solve color problems. It sounds like you're just starting out and thinking you can self educate and come up with all the answers. I would agree with Marc that it might be very instructive to hand this to someone who does color grading for a living, has years of experience in solving these problems, and can give you the result you want very quickly. You might even learn from them..... :wink:

This is definitely in the plans for me. The colorist profession is one that I have a lot of respect for, and that respect increases the more I learn. I just like the idea of having a solid foundation of knowledge so I can ask the right questions and learn as much as I can when with someone who really knows what they are doing so I read everything I can.

 

[Frank Martin]

true secondaries.

true secondaries.

You need as mentioned above to take that scene into Skratch Assimilate or Davincci Resolve , lustre, baselight etc. suite and grab the green as a secondary, then add more chroma to the green secondary. This way you wont have an odd green/magenta shift in Redcine or color, both excellent at creating first light but final grade needs a better color tool.
we built a 12-core w/ Pcie expansion chassis , red rocket, Flanders monitor, external raid and tangent control surface for less than 25,000$ and it runs Resolve increadibly well. It is a blast and you can build up your system over time.

 

[Justin Kirchhoff]

I think this is easier than most people are making it out to be. Bring down the mids in the Red channel just slightly and bring the Green mids up slightly. The results are pretty good. I also slightly brought down the blacks in all channels and brought the highlights up too.

 

[Jake Bastian]

I think this is easier than most people are making it out to be. Bring down the mids in the Red channel just slightly and bring the Green mids up slightly. The results are pretty good. I also slightly brought down the blacks in all channels and brought the highlights up too.

If only it were that easy to get rid of IR pollution. Doesn't really get the images to match.