Grasping and Understanding Coloring Images

[M Most]

I don't fully take this as an backhanded insult, though I'm aware it was.

It really wasn't. My comment was in response to a number of posts in this thread that seemed to be based more on current hearsay than actual historical fact or perspective. I felt that adding a bit of that perspective might be valuable. Hopefully it was.

 

[M.Halsell]

M Most. Will you be doing a ACES workflow writeup on your blog at any point?

 

[jake blackstone]

Regardless of the technology process being DI, telecine, tape to tape, color timing and with the artist being called, telecine operator, colorist, colourist, grader or color timer, the process remains pretty much unchanged since the begging of times. First you create the look and then you propagate it. Until recently this process survived pretty much intact. Lately this process slowly started to evolve with the line between color, edit and VFX becoming more blurred. Colorist now can be asked to do some very basic VFX- beauty fixes, object removal, adding flares and camera flashes etc. With the advance of new software packages, like Fusion/Resolve, Flame Premium, Nuke/Avid/BLE, Adobe PPro/AE/SG this process will only accelerate. I wonder what we'll call this process then?

 

[Marc Wielage]

In other words, you need to match shots so they all flow from one to the other. Then spend 10,000 hours perfecting the skill and you're done...

I always say, it took me 10,000 hours just to become a mediocre colorist. After my second 10,000 hours, then I started to become halfway decent.

With respect to the original post in this thread (I just went back and re-read it), I would suggest forgetting about lift, gain, gamma, and separate correction of those ranges. Assuming you're working with log coded images (i.e., using RedLogFilm to interpret the RAW image), you might want to try a log grading approach, which simplifies at least the base grading significantly. Alexis explains this quite well in his book, but basically you want to work with only exposure and contrast to achieve the basic channel balance to bring out the photographic intent. By doing all of your balance using only an Exposure control (Offset in Resolve and some other systems), and controlling your contrast with a combination of the Exposure (offset) control and a Contrast control you should achieve a much more accurate base grade, and do it simpler and faster. You will need to place a "normalizing" LUT after that base grade, but if you're using RedlogFilm that is simply a log to video LUT.

I routinely use no LUTs at all and get to where I need to go manually, just with the existing knobs that are there. We had no LUTs in the 30+ years of color-correcting film negative to video, and I can still take a RedLogFilm or Arri Log-C image and knock in some curves and contrast to get everything where it needs to be.

To the o.p.: there are numerous tutorials and courses out there on the net. Check out the ones offered by Alexia Van Hurkman (who also wrote the Resolve manual), by Warren Eagles, and by Patrick Inhofer. All three have different points of view, but each sheds valuable light on what goes into being a good colorist. The three single important things to learn (to me, anyway) are:

1) how to deal with people and find ways to solve their problems

2) how to come up with a reasonable starting point to get you through a project

3) how to keep every shot looking consistent and pleasing from start to finish.


All three are very important, and none can be learned overnight. I might add a fourth:

4) understand conforming, workflow, and the challenges of different camera formats.


Things used to be very simple in the old days, but they're infinitely more complicated today. But it's possible to learn the basics, you can learn color correction just as you'd learn any skilled craft, and it's a question of experimenting and discovering what works and what doesn't. The key is to find out how to do the work fast, so you're not wasting any time... but you also take enough time that there aren't any compromises (or none that affect the project).

 

[M Most]

Colorist now can be asked to do some very basic VFX- beauty fixes, object removal, adding flares and camera flashes etc. With the advance of new software packages, like Fusion/Resolve, Flame Premium, Nuke/Avid/BLE, Adobe PPro/AE/SG this process will only accelerate. I wonder what we'll call this process then?

Editing.

 

[M Most]

.... it's possible to learn the basics, you can learn color correction just as you'd learn any skilled craft, and it's a question of experimenting and discovering what works and what doesn't. The key is to find out how to do the work fast, so you're not wasting any time... but you also take enough time that there aren't any compromises (or none that affect the project).

With the availability of cheap - excuse me, free - software these days, there is room for those who simply want to develop a basic skill set to get their own material looking the way they want it, and those who want to specialize and make a living at it. The former requires a bit of learning and practice. The latter requires that and a lot more, including what I would call talent. When I was first starting out (I won't say when that was......) I thought I wanted to be a camera operator, in live broadcast. That was what I was fascinated by from the time I was 4 years old. It's also something I never actually got to do in this business, in part because I wound up in post production. But how I wound up as a telecine operator (and later, a "colorist") was through discovery. I was in a position to watch someone doing telecine work every night for about 6 months, and when he went on vacation, I was offered the opportunity to do it myself. I laced up the film, sat down at the controls, and started running it and correcting it. And lo and behold, I found that doing this was one of the easiest things I had ever done. I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to divide it into a series of steps, I just was able to do it. To me, that's what "talent" is - something you find incredibly simple and easy, and everyone around you seems to find really difficult. There's no explanation for it, it just is. If one is fortunate enough to discover they have a talent, and finds themselves in a position to use that talent to make a living, that is the ultimate combination. I can safely say that the "best" colorists I know (and I know many, if not most of the ones in that category) would probably tell you a similar story about themselves - that they found that doing this work was not only satisfying, but came naturally. Now, needless to say, education in the arts, color theory, and the like are also very important, and really do help to separate the "average" skilled colorists from the "great" ones. I've worked very hard throughout my life to learn all I can about everything that comes along in our business, and it's allowed me to have a long career but still stay current at all times. There is no substitute for continued hard work. But "talent," that can't really be bought. Either one has it or they don't. The greatest athletes - the LeBron James, Kobe Bryants, and Tiger Woods of the world - all share some things in common. They all have talent that they discovered and were able to exploit. And they all work harder than everyone else. I've often mentioned Stefan Sonnenfeld here, because he also fills those criteria. He's got an immense amount of talent, but he also works harder than just about everyone he's ever employed or worked with.

I think we've gotten a bit off topic, and I'm probably the most guilty of that because the original question wasn't about making a career out of this, but simply understanding it well enough to do personal work, or at least that's what it sounded like. So forgive the rant, but it seemed like a good opportunity to say a few of these things. Move on, nothing to see here......

 

[M Most]

M Most. Will you be doing a ACES workflow writeup on your blog at any point?

Perhaps. But there's really very little difference between that and a "normal" log DI type workflow. Its just a difference in terminology and color spaces. An input LUT becomes an "IDT," log working space becomes "ACEScc," and the output LUT becomes an "RRT/ODT." On some systems - Baselight comes to mind - these things are packaged for you and all you have to do is select your working spaces. On others, you need to be more specific. But there is nothing inherently different in the approach from what we've been doing for a long time.

If I ever do post such an article, though, I can safely say it will not be Red specific. So if you're looking for that, you might be disappointed.

 

[PatrickFaith]

I was taught color theory in that I first learned contrast and framing, then slowly added layers of single colors (both additive and subtractive ) in layers. Nowadays seems people learn all this together and have a hard time getting the dna of color, thus have a hard time evolving a image. This also involved classes in classical optics.

 

[Phil Holland]

Sorry Mike. Likely read to much into that first line perhaps.

Anyways, back on task.

Just something I found moderately recently that somebody did with my old Dragon .R3Ds I had online for a bit:

Landing a pleasing aesthetic is both tricky and not tricky. Just depends on how far you want to take it. Personally, this example above is way off the mark as my model has turned into a laser eyed demon of some sort.

This however:

For me is dense, vibrant, and rich. Which is where my target was particularly for the painted model.

Throughout the piece I exposed very specifically and was able to more or less do light tweaks on most individual shots, though most were targeting this general aesthetic.

 

[Marc Wielage]

With the availability of cheap - excuse me, free - software these days, there is room for those who simply want to develop a basic skill set to get their own material looking the way they want it, and those who want to specialize and make a living at it. The former requires a bit of learning and practice. The latter requires that and a lot more, including what I would call talent.

Very true. Many people other than me have pointed out that what some see as the "democratization" of tools has also led to a downward spiral of facility rates and fees for experienced craftsmen... and that goes for cinematographers, colorists, sound mixers, editors, and VFX people. It does make you reflect on the days only 9-10 years ago when HD cameras sold for $150K+ and DPs could easily get $5000 a day (sometimes many times that). The problem I see is, when the camera cost is cut by 2/3, producers start asking why the labor can't go down as well... when life doesn't work that way.

When I was first starting out (I won't say when that was......) I thought I wanted to be a camera operator, in live broadcast. That was what I was fascinated by from the time I was 4 years old. It's also something I never actually got to do in this business, in part because I wound up in post production.

Ah, that's not too far away from my story. I was a video camera operator for 4 years in the 1970s, came to LA, couldn't get into the union, so I "temporarily" got into color-correction as a sideline just until I could get a gig as an operator. Unfortunately, more than 30 years went by, and I finally realized, "ah -- I think my dream of going back to running camera is not going to happen." But it's been an interesting journey. And understanding lighting and camera from the production side is helpful to know when doing color in post, since I can immediately sympathize with the DP and come up with the solutions they're looking for.

I laced up the film, sat down at the controls, and started running it and correcting it. And lo and behold, I found that doing this was one of the easiest things I had ever done. I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to divide it into a series of steps, I just was able to do it. To me, that's what "talent" is - something you find incredibly simple and easy, and everyone around you seems to find really difficult. There's no explanation for it, it just is.

What always baffled me is when I had to train somebody -- and I think I had a part in training at least a dozen colorists in the last 20 years, some of whom are still working in the bidness -- and they couldn't grasp some fairly easy-to-understand concepts. In two memorable cases, we tried to train film color-timers from the lab, and some were completely befuddled and confused by the GUI, by menus, by knobs, scopes, workflow, and all the myriad of other things you have to grasp in post. I know some sad and awful stories by people who failed miserably at trying to get into digital color-correction, because it was just too overwhelming.

As Sparkle often said at Technicolor: "When we got on the color train in the 1980s, it was only going about 15 miles an hour, so it was easy to hop on; now, it's going about 200 miles an hour, so it's almost impossible to even get near the color train now. It's going much too fast for most people."

It always seemed fairly logical and intuitive to me, and I just accept that every 3 or 4 years, they throw out the color-correction software and we have to learn a new one. I think editors actually have it easier: if you knew Avid 20 years ago, you could pretty much pick up modern Avid in 2 or 3 days today. Not so easy for colorists.

 

[M.Halsell]

The acquisition and post industries are colliding, forcing participants to a have primary skill set and 1 or 2 secondary skill sets. At some level the there is a lot of overlap in the DI chain now. My constant lament is that the pay scale hasn't kept pace the pixel count and quality. Today's money is peanuts.

I think in the next 5 years, editorial and general color duties will fall into the same lap. My theory is that once any software package turns 10 versions old, the market for that service has matured, essentially no more margin for profit. Then the hunt starts over again on how to modernized, standardize, automate the process where it no longer becomes viable to call it a tradecraft. Hope Im wrong.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Oh I don't know... As long as it takes a knowledgeable and skilled person to get quality results there will always be a demand for those people. It is likewise and to a lesser degree true with artistry. I like to think that artistry will always be appreciated. The problem is that the folks who recognize and pay for it are fewer.

The acquisition and post industries are colliding, forcing participants to a have primary skill set and 1 or 2 secondary skill sets. At some level the there is a lot of overlap in the DI chain now. My constant lament is that the pay scale hasn't kept pace the pixel count and quality. Today's money is peanuts.

I think in the next 5 years, editorial and general color duties will fall into the same lap. My theory is that once any software package turns 10 versions old, the market for that service has matured, essentially no more margin for profit. Then the hunt starts over again on how to modernized, standardize, automate the process where it no longer becomes viable to call it a tradecraft. Hope Im wrong.

 

[M.Halsell]

Artistry meets reality

Artistry meets reality

Oh I don't know... As long as it takes a knowledgeable and skilled person to get quality results there will always be a demand for those people. It is likewise and to a lesser degree true with artistry. I like to think that artistry will always be appreciated. The problem is that the folks who recognize and pay for it are fewer.

Its hard to knock optimism. I agree there is something unique and careful about being an Artisan. I understand the intensity, patience and of value of the apprenticeship process on the way to becoming a journeyman. But, the paradigm worked much more politely in the analogue world.

Now we are digital. And across the board, anyone that is pushing pixels around, will always have this nagging feeling that they have to continuously look over their shoulder to check themselves relative to competition, to see how current they are. This digital stuff is great. I enjoy working with and looking at it just like the next man. But its shifty, doesn't command the same level of respect and response because the process is beginning to viewed as pedestrian.

I look at the industries that have been smashed because of the digital revolution. How can giving away software that once cost $$,$$$, not be a loss leader. If the bigger, well established companies are eating margin, doesn't it trickle down? It just shouldn't be a game of diminishing returns.

But the man wanted to know to how to make beautiful images, so I return the discussion thread back to its originally scheduled program.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Its hard to knock optimism. I agree there is something unique and careful about being an Artisan. I understand the intensity, patience and of value of the apprenticeship process on the way to becoming a journeyman. But, the paradigm worked much more politely in the analogue world.

Now we are digital. And across the board, anyone that is pushing pixels around, will always have this nagging feeling that they have to continuously look over their shoulder to check themselves relative to competition, to see how current they are. This digital stuff is great. I enjoy working with and looking at it just like the next man. But its shifty, doesn't command the same level of respect and response because the process is beginning to viewed as pedestrian.

I look at the industries that have been smashed because of the digital revolution. How can giving away software that once cost $$,$$$, not be a loss leader. If the bigger, well established companies are eating margin, doesn't it trickle down? It just shouldn't be a game of diminishing returns.

But the man wanted to know to how to make beautiful images, so I return the discussion thread back to its originally scheduled program.

Apprenticeship... It is a good response to the original question actually, and your point about the work being treated as pedestrian is also germane. It was difficult enough to find any training in the field much less a good apprenticeship when the job of the Colorist was treated with due respect. Finding a mentor currently seems nigh on impossible.