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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Grading SCARLET Footage

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Daniel Kunz

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I just came across this piece:
http://www.cinematography.net/epic-alexa-f3.htm

and i downloaded a few of the matching exposures from both alexa and epic.
I took them into photoshop and simply ajusted a gradient curve to get a pleasing image.

i can't grade the epic footage to look nearly as natural as the alexa... :mellow:
can anyone give me some advice?
I would like to know how you would do it. Use your prefered grading software or whatever and post some jpegs here.

Is there some advice as to how you would grade your EPIC/Scarlet footage so that it retains the maximum of DR yet results in the most naturally pleasing image?

thank you!
 
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/577/43085015.jpg/This is what i come up with:
simple test:
gradiation curve: set to auto contrast + set grey point (for white balance)
copy background layer add highpass-sharpening set to 0.5 pixels set layer to overlay

how comes the footage looks so grainy in the shadows? isn't it supposed to be less grainy because of the 5K?

52966641.jpg
36921289.jpg
93486424.jpg

43085015.jpg
 
1) You're not supposed to use Photoshop to grade.

2) NEVER use a DPX to do grading with a REDCAM, use only the R3D file. Some ppl convert to DPX and then do grading : HUGE mistake.
 
I'm too lazy to download the files right now - but are any of those pictures from Alexa?

They look okay over here - looks like an automatic contrast adjustment in photoshop.

Not "great" but pretty "normal-ish"

also - are you sure some of the "grain" in the black of the card isn't the actual texture of the card being resolved?
 
Benoît-Joan Clariana-Roig said:
1) You're not supposed to use Photoshop to grade.

2) NEVER use a DPX to do grading with a REDCAM, use only the R3D file. Some ppl convert to DPX and then do grading : HUGE mistake.
Click to expand...


1) PS is a powerful tool to work with an image, and it is not the cause of the issue described.

2) R3D carries more room for image manipulation, but DPX is not the cause of the issue described.

:)
 
you can "right-click" the images and click on "show image" to open them in 1080p.
yes the 2 pictures with no "hdr-on" paper are from the alexa. incredibly clean in my opinion.

@Dan, if you had read the post you would see that indeed it is a "automatic contrast adjustment in photoshop"...
it's just to illustrate what the images are.

@Benoit. i know i never grade in photoshop, but it was just to illustrate what would happen if i would do some normal 3-way CC-ing. And i heard Jim say something about DPX and it not beeing a good way to do grading, but that thread was deleted a few hours ago.
 
Benoît-Joan Clariana-Roig said:
1) You're not supposed to use Photoshop to grade.

2) NEVER use a DPX to do grading with a REDCAM, use only the R3D file. Some ppl convert to DPX and then do grading : HUGE mistake.
Click to expand...


+1 on that. If you have to do anything outside of R3D space, make sure you land at least your first light correction in RCP or a color suite that supports Redcode and then export.

Also to note, this is not as apples to apples as it appears as these were clearly not shot on the same lens. The angle of incidence is also different between the Epic and Alexa, which could contribute to some variation if you are just going by the numbers.

There's a better way to do this and it starts by eliminating all potential variables.
 
How are you white balancing? What is your gamma setting on the r3d files?

White balance, start with a "neutral" gamma like redlogfilm, adjust curves. Output.

By the way, I read what you said about autocontrast, that's why I said that, because it definitely looks like it. How could you do that and expect it to turn out any other way. Also, if these are your grades, im not sure how photos 1 and 2 are "much more natural" than 3 and 4. Looks like different grades from the same camera practically. It's all in your curves.
 
that's exactly what i'm interested in. is there anyone here with some grading experience who can turn both of these images "on" ? (pun intended)
Does someone know why there is so much noise in the shadows of the epic? is it because of B-Stream of HDRx applied to the whole image not just the highlights?
 
By the way: this is how i would grade the image in photoshop...

s-curve
hue-shift in the yellow and red channel
a little noise-reduction

95847557.jpg
 
and this is how it looks graded from the alexa:

s-curve
a tiny bit of noise-reduction

what i find is that there is no need to adjust the yellow and red hue to get naturally acceptable skin-tones.
how do you RED-owners do it then? do you have a hue-shift in RCX?

53936801.jpg
 
does anyone here have experience with grading and is willing to take a shot at grading one of those files to show off?
 
Daniel Kunz said:
does anyone here have experience with grading and is willing to take a shot at grading one of those files to show off?
Click to expand...

I do. Do you want a correction or a grade?
 
Hi Phil, thanks for replying, i would love to see a correction and then a grade. especially of the Epic framegrabs.
thank you very much!
 
Okay. I did this pretty quickly, but it gets the job done. Top row are variations on normal corrections I use. In post often we keep things flat for use with LUTs and what not, but I also applied a more film like correction as well as a bit of more natural.

The next blocks are all stylized grades from After Effects, Magic Bullet Looks, Photoshop, Baselight, Premiere Pro, and Colorista. None of the sculpture heads are clipping, but I played it close with a couple of the grades.

epicDPXGrade.jpg


Now the real kicker here, and I need to stress this hard, this is absolutely not the best way to do this. Any suite such as RCP, Scratch, Baselight, etc. that can support Redcode Raw with give you better results than what this DPX file contains.

I use RCP for first light corrections and even final grades and then export the material for post studio use. If I have "control" over everything it's mostly an RCP correction, color grade, Premiere Pro edit workflow. I will say that the exported DPX, EXR, and TIFF files from the newest RCPX build have less noise when using the reduce noise slider than what can currently be found in the Red Premiere Pro import plugin. I hope they update that in the future.

Second thing. This is a strange test and there's a light greenish/yellow thing happening here that I can't explain. I can see something happening along the left side of the wall that confuses me. It's an observation and can be corrected out, but it is mysterious nonetheless.
 
Sorry no disrespect but no one of you guys is making a good grading out of this picture.

the image straight out of the Epic is really good for Grading, But grading is a professionnal job , not an amateur one .

give that job to a real artis colorist .

You can not be in all the kitchen, even a great cook can t be alone in the kitchen of a big restaurant


www.madjidelayari.com
 
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