Editing Color of Separate Clips

[Matt Brooks]

Hello, this may be a rather basic question but I am new to the world or R3D footage. I have cut short clips from a longer master shot and put them in my sequence. When I go to edit color through the RMD on one clip it also changes the color of any other clips in my sequence that were cut from the same master clip. I assume there is a setting in Premier I am missing. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Hello, this may be a rather basic question but I am new to the world or R3D footage. I have cut short clips from a longer master shot and put them in my sequence. When I go to edit color through the RMD on one clip it also changes the color of any other clips in my sequence that were cut from the same master clip. I assume there is a setting in Premier I am missing. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Davinci Resolve handles the task of color grading very well in many ways, including in the way you need. There must be a hundred reasons why I ultimately stopped using Premiere and started using Resolve (both for grading and for editing). This was one of them. But there were many, many other reasons, too.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Unfortunately, each file has its own RMD file that covers the entire clip.

So even if you bring the file into PP, and then chop it up on the timeline into two separate clips, you still only have one R3D file which contains one RMD file. So if you change the RMD settings, it will effect all uses of that clip.

The best way to accomplish what you want to do is by "normalizing" your clips with the Raw Controls. And then tweaking the clips further using the color grading controls found within whatever program you are using.

However, if, for whatever reason, you HAVE to color correct using just the raw controls, and you need the flexibility you described, what you have to do is to duplicate the selected shot on your hard drive, then load that new file into PP. So that way there are two versions of the clip, and you can make two disparate looks, as the two files will have separate RMD files.

Hope that helps!

P.S. For any serious color grading work I would highly suggest looking towards Resolve. While it won't get you around this RMD issue, the color grading controls are so powerful they make the Raw controls significantly less important. So this becomes a non-issue.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

[...]
P.S. For any serious color grading work I would highly suggest looking towards Resolve. While it won't get you around this RMD issue, the color grading controls are so powerful they make the Raw controls significantly less important.

Ah, but it does get you around this issue, because the RMD is just a starting point that clip-specific RAW parameters can override. The PremierePro people decided, arbitrarily, that the concept of a master clip was somehow an important new concept and that they should inextricably link RAW processing to the RMD of the master clip. Resolve does not make this error. It can, of course, follow camera meta-data as gospel, but makes it super-easy to override all RAW parameters on an edit clip-by-edit clip basis. So you can fiddle with ISO, white balance, whatever, as lighting conditions, etc. change during a long take.

 

[scott pommier]

I got around this by saving a copy of the R3D clip with a unique name. So if you need three different grades on a single clip you would save two additional copies. add a version number, or a letter or whatever you like. That said, "learn how to use Resolve" is on my list of 2019 goals.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I got around this by saving a copy of the R3D clip with a unique name. So if you need three different grades on a single clip you would save two additional copies. add a version number, or a letter or whatever you like. That said, "learn how to use Resolve" is on my list of 2019 goals.

There formerly was a "save with version" setting for the Raw panel adjustments in past version of Resolve, but I'm not sure if it was retained for Resolve 15. I solve this by doing only a very basic overall setting with the Raw controls (basically as Log3G10) and doing everything else with the Resolve color controls. It's rare that I would need to actually dig in and change color temp, ISO, and exposure within the Raw controls for a single clip.

I had a case about a year ago where we did have a simultaneous indoor/outdoor setting where a camera moved from outdoors to indoors, with both a big color temp change and an exposure change. I wound up optimizing each clip on a separate track (duplicating one), then using a carefully-tracked split screen to ease the transition through a wall and a short corridor. The end result was flawless and actually fooled the DP -- he thought he'd precisely covered the change in camera until I showed him the before & after. But as I told him, "the audience will buy it, and that's all that counts."

 

[Scot Yount]

There formerly was a "save with version" setting for the Raw panel adjustments in past version of Resolve, but I'm not sure if it was retained for Resolve 15. I solve this by doing only a very basic overall setting with the Raw controls (basically as Log3G10) and doing everything else with the Resolve color controls. It's rare that I would need to actually dig in and change color temp, ISO, and exposure within the Raw controls for a single clip.

I had a case about a year ago where we did have a simultaneous indoor/outdoor setting where a camera moved from outdoors to indoors, with both a big color temp change and an exposure change. I wound up optimizing each clip on a separate track (duplicating one), then using a carefully-tracked split screen to ease the transition through a wall and a short corridor. The end result was flawless and actually fooled the DP -- he thought he'd precisely covered the change in camera until I showed him the before & after. But as I told him, "the audience will buy it, and that's all that counts."

Love reading this stuff.

 

[Dermot Shane]

this is a place where ACES can be a huge help as it works with the sensor data in linear light, adusting exposure, temp, tint in the RAW panel or adjusting in the gradeing tools resualts in the same end game

works ok-ish in Resolve due to artist responce being a bit sub-optimal, works brilliantly in Nucoda and Baselight as their tools scale the artist's input to match the working colorspace

 

[Matt Brooks]

Such a simple fix. I knew there was an easy way around my problem but I was just getting stumped. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Matt Brooks]

Great advice, thank you!