Muddy and boring colors

[Christoffer Glans]

I'm trying to figure out why this is happening almost every time in Resolve. Whenever I see something shot on Dragon it's always crisp and sharp and with nicely saturated colors. But whenever I put it through my resolve, the colors becomes somewhat "patchy" and "muddy"; putting in more saturation just "patches" the image more. I know that these shots where taken at around T1.7 and T2.0, but the CN-Es are quite sharp, so I would have expected a little more sharpness for debayered and downscaled 6K at full premium and scaling set to "sharp". Is there something "missing" in the Resolve Lite version? Something that isn't visible on the comparison chart between the full version and the lite version?

I'm not really getting why it is like this. Many times the bad looks also gets "enhanced" on export, so I'm never getting the crisp look that my calibrated monitor shows.

These shots were taken with the intention of being quite "normal" in their looks, so there might be some flatness due to that, but I still feel that it's not really optimal and the scopes show the image expanding to peak white and pitch black, which means the contrast is all there when looking at it mathematically.

 

[David Battistella]

What color space are you grading in?

Are your renders set to full debayer?

What reference frames would you compare these too, IE, look you want to achieve?

David

 

[Mike Nagel]

Ur grading screen prob shows RGB 10-bit... in other words full 10-bit color information with no color sub sampling (444)... once u export to a codec u lose visual quality plus it's just 8 bit plus color subsampling... DVR export is light years ahead of latest PP media encoder which has huge issues, but DVR is not oerfect... u can export to DPX master seq and hammer it through handbrake...

 

[Mike Nagel]

Also, if u export to h264, play it in QuickTime, VLC and WMP... u'll see just one of them will have ur blacks right... this is why it looks "flat"...

 

[Christoffer Glans]

What color space are you grading in?

Are your renders set to full debayer?

What reference frames would you compare these too, IE, look you want to achieve?

David

For this I used DRAGONcolor2 and RedGamma4 in order to speed up the workflow, on top of that I pushed everything to span between pure white and pure black. I didn't have a reference, this is more of a general note, with this as an example. I keep getting "flat" results, even though I push contrasts and everything. It's like I'm never reaching that "crisp" feeling, even when pushing the image to it's limits.

Ur grading screen prob shows RGB 10-bit... in other words full 10-bit color information with no color sub sampling (444)... once u export to a codec u lose visual quality plus it's just 8 bit plus color subsampling... DVR export is light years ahead of latest PP media encoder which has huge issues, but DVR is not oerfect... u can export to DPX master seq and hammer it through handbrake...

This is directly from the Resolve export. I didn't use media encoder. I always export to 10bit or more but the result is the same through DNxHR444, DNxHD185x, DPX, TIFF16bit, UncompressedRGB etc. But this should affect sharpness really, the "softness" is almost always too much, I've noticed this on Alexa material as well, shot at T4.0.

Also, if u export to h264, play it in QuickTime, VLC and WMP... u'll see just one of them will have ur blacks right... this is why it looks "flat"...

This is not a player issue and not H264.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Have you tried exporting a frame, importing what was exported back in, and then doing a composite using Subtract (to show where the pixels are different)?

I would expect that if you exported a frame from RCX, then did a subtract between original R3D media and the exported frame, it would be all black (regardless of whether you subtract R3D from export or export from R3D).

 

[David Battistella]

How about posting an R3D of that shot?

I think that lighting and lighting contrast ratio has something to do with it as well, also as well as how much you are willing to push the grade and blow stuff out, etc. Some "invisible" power windows can help you bring the focus to where you want it in the frame.

But it's hard to have it both ways, that soft flat look which seems to be quite popular.

Maybe also post a screengrab of what you are seeing in resolve and how that is not translating.

David



David

 

[Mike Nagel]

This is directly from the Resolve export. I didn't use media encoder. I always export to 10bit or more but the result is the same through DNxHR444, DNxHD185x, DPX, TIFF16bit, UncompressedRGB etc. But this should affect sharpness really, the "softness" is almost always too much, I've noticed this on Alexa material as well, shot at T4.0.
.

are the levels correct (on the exported image sequences) or does this only concern the perceived sharpness ?

how do u view the exported files ? in which player or application ? are u validating the exports on the same grading screen used in Resolve ?

I assume u do check both "force to highest quality" check boxes on the delivery page... ?

 

[David Battistella]

The only other questio I have is about lighting. Was this shot lit? Or is it available?

The shots will always seems a bit punchier when it's lit. The wide aperture can get you a decent exposure but by using fixtures you are going to increase the reflectivity of the scene and things will pop. You can still have a natural look, but the images will pop more.

David

 

[Scott Crawley]

I see that the colors are not deeply saturated as you say but my first thought is that there is nothing wrong. These frames do not appear to contain any colors that should be vibrant or deeply saturated. Their design is predominantly black and white. There is some dark blue on one of your subjects and that is not a deeply saturated color. There are some smaller accents of dark red and some other blues but none of them appear to be details of import, so my suggestion would be to limit their saturation anyway.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't see anything wrong with the image, the contrast looks normal, the saturation looks normal. If you want, you could add more color to the faces if you want a more "tan" look but other than that, the grading seems good for what was shot -- blacks are black, whites are white, it's not muddy.

 

[jussi rovanpera]

You can set the OLPF Comp to High in the camera raw settings, that will sharpen the image. Then you could also set the blur radius to around 0.45, that will sharpen the image as well.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

How about posting an R3D of that shot?
I think that lighting and lighting contrast ratio has something to do with it as well, also as well as how much you are willing to push the grade and blow stuff out, etc. Some "invisible" power windows can help you bring the focus to where you want it in the frame.
But it's hard to have it both ways, that soft flat look which seems to be quite popular.
Maybe also post a screengrab of what you are seeing in resolve and how that is not translating.

I will get come back with an R3D if I manage to find the time
I'v already used some power windows, but too much and it starts looking "fake".

are the levels correct (on the exported image sequences) or does this only concern the perceived sharpness ?
how do u view the exported files ? in which player or application ? are u validating the exports on the same grading screen used in Resolve ?
I assume u do check both "force to highest quality" check boxes on the delivery page... ?

This is not so much a player issue or levels issue, but more of the perceived "fidelity" of the image and sharpness. I have all the settings set to full quality and force full quality. The perceived sharpness or "muddiness" is that I've seen kitchen scenes in this light before and they feel like they have a lot more "depth" even though the lighting is almost the same (practicals and some panels outside the window).

The only other questio I have is about lighting. Was this shot lit? Or is it available?
The shots will always seems a bit punchier when it's lit. The wide aperture can get you a decent exposure but by using fixtures you are going to increase the reflectivity of the scene and things will pop. You can still have a natural look, but the images will pop more.
David

It's a mix of practicals and lighting. Thing is that it's more to do with how the colors blend with eachother, almost feels like they aren't debayering correctly, even though everything is correct in Resolve.

I see that the colors are not deeply saturated as you say but my first thought is that there is nothing wrong. These frames do not appear to contain any colors that should be vibrant or deeply saturated. Their design is predominantly black and white. There is some dark blue on one of your subjects and that is not a deeply saturated color. There are some smaller accents of dark red and some other blues but none of them appear to be details of import, so my suggestion would be to limit their saturation anyway.

Yeah, might be it, but do you mean that because of this, the "muddiness" appears since there aren't enough contrasts between the colors when processing the image? Because the muddiness is more about how the colors blend together I think, or the perceived look of that.

 

[Mike Nagel]

I'm getting confused whether this is about the look of the export or the look of the grade within Resolve... ;-)))

if this is about the export:

export to lossless (e.g. DPX 16-bit - u can just do one frame) and evaluate on the same screen that u graded on and got a 1080p preview in DVR... it should match very, very closely... if it does then everything else is due to downstream because u're going to codec and u're downsampling bith depth etc

if the lossless export does not look the same on the same screen then there is an issue with the DVR export and/or ur settings...

it is very important that u validate on the same screen.

 

[David Battistella]

Have you tried processing this through a rec709 output LUT?

I agree with what others have said, that there is nothing "wrong" persay, but I get what you are saying about wanting the images to pop a bit more or seem sharper. Looks like the base lighting is soft reflected general fill with the practicals adding to a "natural" look.

But I guess what I am getting at is that the "sharper popped look" usually comes with a bit bolder lighting. If a scene is pretty evenly lit then things start to blend together, colors, subjects into backgrounds, etc. if you don't use your lighting to separate those elements.

I don't know the details or what the TOD called for in the scene, looks like you are going for early evening with the blue tones in the mid shadows, but then there is a lot of light coming through that window on the right.

A lot of this also depends on a reference, like, post any old similar shot of how you wanted it to look, or if it is close to how you want it to look then I would experiment more with the image pipeline and grade more based on how the rendered file will look, but it should hold over pretty exactly in resolve. Maybe compare a Prores output to a DPX output to see if there is a shift in percieved color and sharpness.

David

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I don't see anything wrong with the image, the contrast looks normal, the saturation looks normal. If you want, you could add more color to the faces if you want a more "tan" look but other than that, the grading seems good for what was shot -- blacks are black, whites are white, it's not muddy.

Thanks, means a lot coming from you since I usually don't do cinematography myself
But I think my issue is more about how the colors blend together, which feels like there's a loss in sharpness or color depth. I've seen many of these kinds of images, with a quite flat look overall, but with a much "punchier" look, but I've really pushed the grade to the limits between whites and blacks so it's hard to expand it further really without blowing up anything white in the scene. Budget-wise we had like nothing, so in this scene there's only the practical light above which is tungsten and a LED-panel with softbox outside to enhance the daylight some more (and make it look more like morning).

I have some night scenes which feels a bit "punchier", but I still feel like my images doesn't reach the "sharpness" and crisp look that I sometimes see in similar images from others. I've seen this with Alexa material as well when grading. It's almost like I have lower highlight peaks compared to others, so even when I pushed the highlights to their maximum, it never feels enough. Or maybe it's just my perception of my own cinematography/grading that's judgmental haha

 

[Mike Nagel]

forgot to mention:

obviously, if u're using an output/preview LUT in Resolve as a cLUT (cal LUT) then this will throw everything off, including sharpness and color accuracy as u're not having that cLUT active when looking at your export...

 

[David Battistella]

Contrast! Those two images you posted are all about contrast.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I've updated the grade somewhat with a few more power windows and such... maybe a little better now?

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

But I think my issue is more about how the colors blend together, which feels like there's a loss in sharpness or color depth. I've seen many of these kinds of images, with a quite flat look overall, but with a much "punchier" look, but I've really pushed the grade to the limits between whites and blacks so it's hard to expand it further really without blowing up anything white in the scene. Budget-wise we had like nothing, so in this scene there's only the practical light above which is tungsten and a LED-panel with softbox outside to enhance the daylight some more (and make it look more like morning).

I have some night scenes which feels a bit "punchier", but I still feel like my images doesn't reach the "sharpness" and crisp look that I sometimes see in similar images from others. I've seen this with Alexa material as well when grading. It's almost like I have lower highlight peaks compared to others, so even when I pushed the highlights to their maximum, it never feels enough. Or maybe it's just my perception of my own cinematography/grading that's judgmental haha

It is still unclear what you are referring to. Images look as they should considering light conditions. Sharpness and color are differrent image parameters and it is difficult to address the issue if the issue is something in your interpretation and cannot be shown. If you have reason to conclude Resolve is somehow affecting the material try posting grabs with different raw development routes.

Regarding color in those images - you have shots with two people standing next to empty white surfaces.
Bathed with a soup of tonalities, originating from mixed lighting with differing color spectrum coverage.
The scene seems to be the cause of your interpretation.