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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 :)

How to mess up skintones

Great tips, Jeremy. Thanks again.

I'll make sure to pay specific attention to that when I'm testing my post workflow.
 
I have also seen on older RCX and Camera builds things get wonky when saving a look in RCX for the camera, maybe similar to the OP's issue. Once again this is on older builds and shouldn't be a problem if you are up to date, but I have seen a look created with redcolor3 and redgamma3 as the color science in RCX, "saved current look for Epic/Scarlet".... Applied the look in-camera, all the settings came across except the color science which defaulted to redcolor 2 and redgamma 3..... Then shot a clip, brought it back in to RCX to only find that now it was set to REDcolor and REDgamma.... Loaded the redmag back into the camera and it was back to RC2 and RG2.

Keep your builds current :)
 
Loads of choices for iso around here. But most stick to eight hundered. I usually keep it at 800 in bright light to protect the highlights and 320 to reduce grain but sticking with 800 is pretty safe all the way through. Seems to work. I try not to ask to much of the camera in the dark especially. Not that it performs bad or anything , its just that I usually find images to be nicer when I light suitably (of course ! - no rocket science there ). I usually dislike more than a just a little grain so I try to be careful as much as possible.

For the other question - You might find some discrepancy in the dynamic range if you shoot charts and tests but I usually dont notice any discrepancy when shooting normally.
 
Matt Dufilho said:
Great tips, Jeremy. Thanks again.

I'll make sure to pay specific attention to that when I'm testing my post workflow.
Click to expand...

I had my first RED shoot a few months back and it was pretty fun. Going from a camera like the FS700 to a RED is like driving a family car to a race car. Both get you there, but with the RED It's fast, heavy, may hurt you a couple of times. But once you watch back your footage, there's no going back.

Good luck with your shoot!
 
Matt, just keep in mind the ISO setting has no influence on your RAW data, it just changes the look how it is displayed and the values of your histogram is following this displayed look. Same goes for the color temp. Just think of the RED sensor being a daylight balanced ISO 320-640 film. You may starve the blue channel when using "meta 3200K" with higher ISO setting. Coming from a DSLR workflow this seems to be strange in the first place but in fact you will find it much easier to work with the RED RAW very soon. I´m sure you won´t look back once you´ve seen your first results. Enjoy your ride!

One thing to add, while you can alter and correct many technical things in the RAW workflow you won´t be able to replace a proper styling and lighting setup and that is what I feel missing most in this screengrabs posted in this thread.

Cheers, Ulf
 
jake blackstone said:
Here is what I don't understand.
The proliferation of Resolve Lite made it pretty much the weapon of choice for an overwhelming number of users wanting to grade their own material. From that group of people the majority of those users are pretty much way over their head. Although trying to save some money by "do it yourselves" crowd is perfectly understandable, the result pretty much almost always is pretty underwhelming. So, why not try to be a bit smarter? Why not use your Resolve Lite for conforming, save the project and then just hire a professional colorist for an hour or two to open your project and let him set the main looks. You then can go home and copy and paste the rest. Is it a perfect solution? Of coarse not. But is it better, than what is done now by inexperienced "do it yourselves" users? I would think so...
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Here in Montreal the business is coming back - every time they replaced us with some random guy with a lowball or $0 rate, it was bad experience. Those guys did not exist when Resolve was $100 000 - then a thousand desperate (and for the most part incompetent) losers emerged from the woodwork, all at once. Producers wanted to believe these people could deliver as good results, and that those results would now cost $0 After a zillions bad outcomes clients are learning, slowly.
 
My two cents:

From reading these forums I have learned, among other things:

1. A low-contrast filter is the easy way to improve skin tones if you're picky (a fixed LC filter is the 'secret' to the Alexa's image). No need for plug-ins.

2. For colour temperature, use filters to avoid noise in the blue or red channels. The WB setting on your camera is fool's gold.

These guidelines would apply, I think, to all digital cameras.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
My two cents:

From reading these forums I have learned, among other things:

1. A low-contrast filter is the easy way to improve skin tones if you're picky (a fixed LC filter is the 'secret' to the Alexa's image). No need for plug-ins.

2. For colour temperature, use filters to avoid noise in the blue or red channels. The WB setting on your camera is fool's gold.

These guidelines would apply, I think, to all digital cameras.
Click to expand...

I agree but would add. Avoid low grade lighting sources, ie those with spikes or gaps in continuous spectrum. Id speculate most of the issues of odd skin tones origionates from poor lighting sources. If we raise the bar for capture we also need to raise it for our other tools we use too.
 
Robert Ruffo New said:
Here in Montreal the business is coming back - every time they replaced us with some random guy with a lowball or $0 rate, it was bad experience. Those guys did not exist when Resolve was $100 000 - then a thousand desperate (and for the most part incompetent) losers emerged from the woodwork, all at once. Producers wanted to believe these people could deliver as good results, and that those results would now cost $0 After a zillions bad outcomes clients are learning, slowly.
Click to expand...

After spending a ton of money on great talent, top gear, great locations, costumes, make up, hair etc, producers would destroy it all by trying to skip on color grading by hiring talentless, know nothing kid with zero experience, who just got his first Resolve set up in his bedroom. The same goes for all those DPs, who have no business grading. Go out there, shoot badass images and leave grading to the professionals. The same goes for all those directors and editors, who all of a sudden fancy themselves as a competent colorists. Their Magic Bullet and SpeedLooks infested work can bee seen a mile away in all of their amature glory. There are no shortcuts to learning color grading correctly. It takes a great eye and years of hard work to gain nessesary experience in order to become a good colorist. Thinking, that all you need to be able to produce beautifull images are just a couple of lights to go with that new shiny camera with great lenses, an ability to figure out the proper ASA, while using as many nodes in Resolve as your screen will fit. At the end you will end up with very mediocre results at best...
 
vv08.jpg
 
jake blackstone said:
After spending a ton of money on great talent, top gear, great locations, costumes, make up, hair etc, producers would destroy it all by trying to skip on color grading by hiring talentless, know nothing kid with zero experience, who just got his first Resolve set up in his bedroom. The same goes for all those DPs, who have no business grading. Go out there, shoot badass images and leave grading to the professionals. The same goes for all those directors and editors, who all of a sudden fancy themselves as a competent colorists. Their Magic Bullet and SpeedLooks infested work can bee seen a mile away in all of their amature glory. There are no shortcuts to learning color grading correctly. It takes a great eye and years of hard work to gain nessesary experience in order to become a good colorist. Thinking, that all you need to be able to produce beautifull images are just a couple of lights to go with that new shiny camera with great lenses, an ability to figure out the proper ASA, while using as many nodes in Resolve as your screen will fit. At the end you will end up with very mediocre results at best...
Click to expand...


I agree. When it comes down to getting work done at a high level of execution it's best to hire somebody or somebodies who know what they are doing. This in itself is one of the most important things to keep in mind. Nobody really enjoys watching anything past 6 seconds if it doesn't look good and doesn't meet certain visual standards.
 
There is a topic in another site about RED and skin tones.
It kills me to read such nonsense and worse they use movies like The Hobbit and Gatsby as an example.
Now honestly, doesnt this fall on the hands of the Director (and up) when it comes to the final look?
Haters will always be hatin' I guess :P
 
I sometimes wonder about grading and skintones. Are skintones always important? Sometimes the film has a look and the skin tones are off, but the look is still pleasant.
 
I agree Noel. Thats what I think as well. As long as the look is pleasing and cuts well with the rest of the film I think its good to go. Sometimes when everything looks "too perfect" I find it looks too much like a commercial/corporate. Still, yesterday I was re-watching Beautiful creatures just for the grading because I found it to be very pleasing without that too polished look I was refering too. Perfect skin tones and contrast all the way through.
 
Professional colorists bring far more to the table then being able to dial in a skin tone or creating a cool look. They are able to deliver consistency to a scene, matching angles, things that make the scene look seamless even when the original footage is not matched well. They are also able to work efficiently, getting the most out of their tools which in a demanding environment can be an absolute requirement. If I could hire a colorist on every job, I would do so without hesitation, despite owning Resolve and having a decent grading monitor. I'd rather employ someone who can do a better job than me.
 
+1

The panic stricken director can rest easy knowing that those two examples are not in anyway locked in stone. Pay cameraman, hire a colorist, move on, problem solved. Keep the drama in the film. I try not to be cynical, but I suspect part of the point of this thread was to throw a competitor under the bus. There I said it.

To Jack's point, 2012 was a newbie apocalypse. 2013 seems to be heading in a less spastic direction. That being said, I've got no problem with people working for a living at any level. You gotta start somewhere and we're all working up some kind of ladder. If there are high standards in place, people need to budget accordingly, hire the right people or roll the dice.
 
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