Protecting blacks and matching reference

[Scott Talbot]

Hey everyone,

So I'm doing an exercise right now that I'm trying to match the look from a movie using footage I personally shot.

My straight forward question is how do I change the color of the shadows without effecting the black color? In otherwords... keeping the blacks... black.

But also I would like to share the reference I'm going off to see if anyone has any tips to what work was done on it.

Thanks!

 

[Patrick O'Sullivan]

Two easy fix options in Resolve.

1. Luma key the shadows in a node before the overall tint node. Make your tint then go back to the shadow node and correct just in the lower (blacker) regions.
or
2. Using the log controls set the range on the low range to a number that only effects the blackest part of the image and then re-correct whatever cast you influenced in the shadows.

Just target the blacks in zone 2 for your tint and you should be good to go.

 

[Marc Wielage]

We can't tell what was done by looking at the final without looking at the original image. (At least, I can't.)

A reasonable, balanced pictures with lots of contrast and dense blacks should not be a difficult thing to create, assuming the image is well-exposed. Matching shots depends so heavily on the lighting and the skill of the DP, it's hard to say. In some cases where somebody has gone in months later on a reshoot and shot new cutaways, we've had to degrade the old material in order to match the new material, because they were so wildly different. (I call this "backing up to meet the shots in the middle.") As long as the cut is imperceptible, and the overall look tells the story, it works.

I have had occasions where the DP or director was insistent that the new shot precisely matches the old, and I've had to break it to them: "you can't get there from here." We can get close, but sometimes it's just not possible, especially if the new material is (say) 5 stops different from the old.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Juan posted a thread recently with links to an entire demo with source files and LUT's. He does exactly this.

Here is the thread: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...ial-Shot-on-Epic&highlight=Summer+blockbuster