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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 :)

R3D Stills

Tom Lewis

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* Does anyone know best software for - Building composite pictures from R3D stills, then animating them, then as an animation clip integrate into an R3D clip in AE, then render that to edit with in PR.

I did a test (R3D 5K FF) - an R3D still in RCXpro, built a composite in PS, saved as TIFF, the as CINEON & imported into PR to animate, then rendered it in AE, then while in AE added it to an R3D motion clip, then rendered output AVI lossless with setting on 'Best' (or is 'current settings' better) with FULL res & 5K ratio size. The finished clip appears to look the same quality as original R3D 5K FF clips. Can anyone in the know tell me if this approach is a good one or offer better solution?.

I really need to maintain quality as much as possible from R3D stills, to composites built in PS to integrated with R3D motion clips in AE, rendering to AVI to edit in PR.
 
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I just want to chime in on this and say I think it's crazy that Adobe in both Photoshop and Lightroom treat single frame R3D files as video clips so they are imported as 8-bit and cannot be manipulated like a raw still can.

RED, please bend Adobe's ear to this issue and let us use snapshot R3D files in a proper way. I don't want to have to output tiffs from REDCINE if I can just work natively.
 
Been a huge disappointment for me... But maybe I just love curves in RCX :) I do it there and in Resolve sometimes. Exporting TIFF from there I finish it in PS. But I imagine if you do some compositing with stills that could be a headache.
 
Hmmmm. Maybe I don't understand the issue exactly, but I just opened up an R3D still from Phil's Dragon footage and it opened up in Photoshop CC as RGB/16-bit.

rgb_16.png
 
The R3D importer for Adobe brings them in as 8 bit, but the Tiff exports out of RC-X are 16 bit. I just get the image really close to where I want it in RC-X and export the Tiff. No big deal. Those files are really malleable and you're not going to lose any quality in a Tiff. This is the same as my stills workflow. I export 16 bit 60 megapixel Tiffs out of Capture One Pro and retouch them in Photoshop. For stills, you just have to give up Raw at some point, and it's really not an issue for stills.
 
Thanks for that,
I'll have to look into it.
 
* Does anyone know best software for - Building composite pictures from R3D stills, then animating them, then as an animation clip integrate into an R3D clip in AE, then render that to edit with in PR.

I did a test (R3D 5K FF) - an R3D still in RCXpro, built a composite in PS, saved as TIFF, the as CINEON & imported into PR to animate, then rendered it in AE, then while in AE added it to an R3D motion clip, then rendered output AVI lossless with setting on 'Best' (or is 'current settings' better) with FULL res & 5K ratio size. The finished clip appears to look the same quality as original R3D 5K FF clips. Can anyone in the know tell me if this approach is a good one or offer better solution?.

I really need to maintain quality as much as possible from R3D stills, to composites built in PS to integrated with R3D motion clips in AE, rendering to AVI to edit in PR.

Why not build the whole thing in After Effects? If it is part of a larger Premiere project, then convert the source clip using the "Replace with After Effects Composition," construct the composite and animate the clip in After Effect, color correct, etc., then save and return to Premiere, finish your edit and export.
 
For stills, you just have to give up Raw at some point, and it's really not an issue for stills.

See, I think it's funny that with a RED system we have to give up raw for stills when RED were the ones who made raw motion capture and post so easy.

Yes, right now I will go through and export 50, 60, 100 tiffs from REDCINE and import them into Lightroom. But if Lightroom just worked with single frame R3D files like it does for almost every other camera's files instead of 650 gigs worth of data I'd have 65. Instead of baked-in tiffs I'd have raw images - capable of being improved by new color science and gammas down the line.

It just doesn't seem like a technological impossibility, just something no one has spent any time on which I don't understand seeing as how much RED touts how Epics and Dragons are shooting Vogue and whatnot all the time.

Yes, the current workflow "works" but it isn't elegant, and it doesn't mirror what they are doing on the motion side.
 
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