Looking for davinch roundtrip workflow with the highest colour space

[marcus adolf]

Hi Everyone,

I'm hiring a freelance colourist right now and they have requested to received my project as a prores file rather than the full project with all the assets separately. (I haven't done much, but the few times I've sent out for colour, I've just mailed a hard drive)

My question is what is the best way to get them the full depth. I'm working in adobe premiere and the footage already has its first pass of colour with a rec709 lut and tweaking basic features in the r3d raw tool in premiere. I already assume that just exporting a 4444 file with maximum depth and render quality no previews (per the sticky note at the top of the thread. help btw!) is close but I'm worried the raw settings I played with and the lut/changing of colour spaces will screw up his workflow or not get the best results.

What are other people doing when they are finished cutting in premiere and sending to a colourist in prores?

Thanks in advance for the help.

(screenshots of my colour space, gamma curve, and output settings)

 

[Patrick Tresch]

But why Prores...? Do they have such a slow computer? How can they work when you have dissolves or supperpose? Is your project soo complex so that they can't conform it?

 

[Dermot Shane]

i ALWAYS ask for the cam orig + XML + ref Qt
if it's a complete and total conform nightmare, only then would i ask for media managed files, does not happen often tho
no big deal running cam orig on my machines, but as Patrick points out, it may be to work inside their hardware's comfort zone

 

[jake blackstone]

We really have no idea about the complexity of the project discussed. Also, there is a consideration of the budget. Of coarse having original camera assets with XML/AAF/EDL is ideal, but every project is different and I have done plenty of perojects using transcoded R3Ds to Prores 444 or Prores 444XQ. Said that, personally, in cases of using pre-reconformed timeline, I would always request a Premiere project with camera files, so I would do the Prores prepping myself. Obviously, that also can be problematic, as many still edit using transcoded material, so in that case the only proper avenue is to go back to the camera files and hope that all repos, speed changes etc come through. Based on camera settings you provided for your export, I would certainly advise you not to use these settings for exporting. Encoding your material using Rec-709 color space which is smaller than RWG, can cause some loss of DR during grading. In fact, Baselight will immediately notify you, that using Rec-709 material with a wide gamut color space timeline like RWG, ArriWideGamut, E-Gamut etc, may cause some loss of DR.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Burning in gamut and gamma significantly limits the material for grading and locks in many subtle image properties as a starting point related to range and precision. Also, conversion from compressed raw is already a generation loss. 12 bit Prores 444 from that route is not the same density as Prores directly from the sensor bypassing compression.
Consult with your colourist before these decisions and consider handing over raw OCF.

 

[Björn Benckert]

If he use resolve. I would do the following.

1. Burn out a 4444 quicktime of your premiere timeline.
Also export a XML.

2. Download resolve learn how to do a proper conform. Using the r3d´s. Set all clips to Ipp2 with ipp2 luts in a rec709 timeline. And add your 4444 prores on a seperate layer below, for reference or emergency use. Add sound etc from premiere as a reference mix down.

3. Do a media management with relink with r3d trims onto a "to grade drive" where you also export the resolve project and a used luts folder.

If the colourist gets the above he should farilyeasy be able to open your saved project and he should be working creatively with colors very quickly.

All colonist can work with 8k r3d´s in resolve no matter computer speed etc. Just lower the debater and bit setting while working to get realtime playback. Then when rendering all out you swap to full debayer 16bit.

What Hrvoj says is right, grading ontop of a burnt in gamut is far from optimal.


I saved shit load of days with costly colonist by lining up the. resolve projects before handing them the stuff. Sure possibly you dont get it all right but its not really optimal to have a guy that cost 5k a day to sit and make sure stuff is in sync, no clips missing etc. And if you do it yourself you learn something. Keeping organised is possibly not a need for smaller projects but when doing longer formats its quite a valuable know how.

 

[Marc Wielage]

All colonist can work with 8k r3d´s in resolve no matter computer speed etc. Just lower the debater and bit setting while working to get realtime playback. Then when rendering all out you swap to full debayer 16bit.

I would beg to differ. 8K R3D's are still a problem with a lot of systems, particularly in real-time with a lot of nodes (particularly any NR).

We generally will conform all the original 8K R3Ds set to IPP2, RedWideGamutRGB, Log3G10, make sure all clips are off, color management bypassed. We render out a 4K 12-bit ProRes 444 from that, and I think the results are reasonable.

For 4K/5K/6K originals, we generally stick with the R3Ds end-to-end, and in general they work OK on our system. Perhaps by the end of the year, we'll have a beefier system that can handle 8K directly.