Ready to get serious about color correction, need advice!

[Patrick Hogue]

Thanks for the detailed write up! So would you suggest that I find the extra money to purchase the CM250? I would like to also use the monitor on set, and rental income is always a bonus. I'm sure the 171 is more than capable but the OLED is tempting!!!!

The extra real estate of the 25" screen goes a long way if you have many people crowded around it on set.

Also, is there a qualitative difference between calibrating at home or calibrating at the factory? Is one objectively better than the other?

Sure. The factory calibration will likely be measurably more accurate but the home calibration will be perceptually the same or close to same. My 2nd CM250 was calibrated by FSI in January. I bought the Lightspace calibration bundle from FSI in March and calibrated my older CM250. Side-by-side they very, very close. A slight tweak to the peak luminance and they were a match.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. Can you rephrase?

Usefulness of the tools you can purchase, quantize, compare and repair completely depends on the utilization and state of the one that came with birth.

Work in the dark - reduced objectivity to contrast and environment, increased eye strain

Work at night in general - affecting sensibility, stamina and bias

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

To add to Hrvoje's notes, the top colorists in the biz are typically very aware of the variable performance of their eyes. Since we are only fully aware of our own visual experience, we lack the comparative reference of what our eyes would have perceived at 10am vs 10pm. As I noted earlier, to have a fighting chance of perceiving contrast/color properly, the relationship between ambient light/environment and the output from the display itself needs to be balanced/neutralized.

Cheers - #19

 

[Stephen Eufaula Kuns]

I have a white, gray, and black still frame in my system and a gray card with an OTT light handy, just to keep my eyes honest.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

As I noted earlier, to have a fighting chance of perceiving contrast/color properly, the relationship between ambient light/environment and the output from the display itself needs to be balanced/neutralized.

Cheers - #19

Much more important than the last 10% of accurate calibration.

--

In general, the viewing environment is very critical. It does also matter wether your viewing monitor is attached to a wall or with a considerable distance to a day-light lit white screen that quietens your eyes and allows for some perspective and rest. As Hrvoje rightfully out lines: grading is a exhausting process that needs awful lot of concentration, experience and the right environment. Speaking on the phone, talking to the client, time pressure and so on will lead much easier to a mediocre result than gear that is not the best of the best.



Hans

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

The extra real estate of the 25" screen goes a long way if you have many people crowded around it on set.






Sure. The factory calibration will likely be measurably more accurate but the home calibration will be perceptually the same or close to same. My 2nd CM250 was calibrated by FSI in January. I bought the Lightspace calibration bundle from FSI in March and calibrated my older CM250. Side-by-side they very, very close. A slight tweak to the peak luminance and they were a match.

Great to know. Thank you for the answers!!!

Usefulness of the tools you can purchase, quantize, compare and repair completely depends on the utilization and state of the one that came with birth.


Work in the dark - reduced objectivity to contrast and environment, increased eye strain


Work at night in general - affecting sensibility, stamina and bias

To add to Hrvoje's notes, the top colorists in the biz are typically very aware of the variable performance of their eyes. Since we are only fully aware of our own visual experience, we lack the comparative reference of what our eyes would have perceived at 10am vs 10pm. As I noted earlier, to have a fighting chance of perceiving contrast/color properly, the relationship between ambient light/environment and the output from the display itself needs to be balanced/neutralized.


Cheers - #19

I always assumed that colorists worked in completely black, or nearly black rooms. However from your two statements it sounds like that was a wrong assumption? If so, that does throw a slight wrench in my plan, but it's not the end of the world. There are other paths I could take.

 

[M.Halsell]

I always assumed that colorists worked in completely black, or nearly black rooms. However from your two statements it sounds like that was a wrong assumption? If so, that does throw a slight wrench in my plan, but it's not the end of the world. There are other paths I could take.

As a general rule, neutral walls are preferred in grading suites, also suggested to have ambient lighting of 6500k. Avoid colors that will impact your color perception and bias the way you grade. Also, if there is a window in the room or suite, the change of color temps thru out the day can change your eye's color objectivity.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I always assumed that colorists worked in completely black, or nearly black rooms. However from your two statements it sounds like that was a wrong assumption? If so, that does throw a slight wrench in my plan, but it's not the end of the world. There are other paths I could take.

We do work in completely black rooms for projection, but for flat screen displays there's typically some small amount of ambient light, carefully controlled to avoid spill and glare. The BBC and ITU have standards for ambient "Bias Lights" in back of the monitor just to give you a sense of illumination and a 6500° reference white. I can go either way, but it's nice to have when possible.

SMPTE has a Recommended Practices document: RP166-1995: ‘Critical Viewing Conditions For Evaluation Of Color Television Pictures’, and this goes into some detail on bias lights and viewing angles. (Note this is from 20 years ago, so these ideas have been around for a long time.) ISO has a similar document, ISO 17121:2000: 'Cinematography -- Work stations used for film and video production -- Requirements for visual and audio conditions'.

Alexis Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook has an entire chapter on the components needed to build a grading room, and there's some good ideas there as far as ambient lighting, monitor placement, control configuration, GUI monitors, and so on. I would add that it's a good idea to get noisy drives and servers out of the room if possible, and also make sure the monitor is optimally positioned for both colorist and clients. There is a trend by some users to use one monitor for the colorist and another monitor for the clients, but I kind of wince at that because of the risk of people seeing two slightly different pictures and wondering which is accurate.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

As a general rule, neutral walls are preferred in grading suites, also suggested to have ambient lighting of 6500k. Avoid colors that will impact your color perception and bias the way you grade. Also, if there is a window in the room or suite, the change of color temps thru out the day can change your eye's color objectivity.

By neutral walls do you mean 18% grey? My walls are skintone colored. I have a feeling that isn't the worst color in the world to have on a wall right?

Alexis Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook has an entire chapter on the components needed to build a grading room, and there's some good ideas there as far as ambient lighting, monitor placement, control configuration, GUI monitors, and so on. I would add that it's a good idea to get noisy drives and servers out of the room if possible, and also make sure the monitor is optimally positioned for both colorist and clients. There is a trend by some users to use one monitor for the colorist and another monitor for the clients, but I kind of wince at that because of the risk of people seeing two slightly different pictures and wondering which is accurate.

It looks like a lot of my questions have already been answered in this handbook. I'm definitely going to push this to the top of my reading list! Behind REDUSER of course

 

[Phil Holland]

I've had 2 color suites thus far. I went as far as painting the room to 18% Gray, but I also had "client lights" for general sit downs and ambient room lighting for my color sessions.

If the room is lit nicely with ambient any neutral color will work fine. I'd avoid white if you can, but even still with the correct ambient light and room size it's not really a factor.

 

[M.Halsell]

By neutral walls do you mean 18% grey? My walls are skintone colored. I have a feeling that isn't the worst color in the world to have on a wall right?

Thru out the day eyes having a tendency to drift or compensate for saturated levels of color (computer screens or other reference materials). Keeping as much neutral environment around you as possible, is just a practical solver to get the eyes to recalibrate back to neutral. When doing marathon stretches of grading, this 'reset' becomes critical, otherwise in review you will probably find the work has lost color objectivity.

And as mentioned, once your get reasonably setup, take your work into a professional environment to compare results. The entire exercise is about confidence checks along the production chain. Leave as little as possible to happenstance.

The rest is is hundreds and hundred of hours of repetitive work to build up muscle memory, workarounds and trouble shooting prowess.

 

[Marc Wielage]

The rest is is hundreds and hundred of hours of repetitive work to build up muscle memory, workarounds and trouble shooting prowess.

I would also say it helps to take about 10,000 hours to give you the experience on what not​ to do in color correction. My joke is that it took me 20,000 hours to become a mediocre colorist. But that was back in the 1980s.

 

[Phil Holland]

I would also say it helps to take about 10,000 hours to give you the experience on what not​ to do in color correction. My joke is that it took me 20,000 hours to become a mediocre colorist. But that was back in the 1980s.

While not my full time gig these days I wish you could see my face back in the early 2000s when I was dealing with color wedges on or off LAD target, essentially inventing a way to color calibrate lightboxes within our studio and others to discern wedges and match clips, and dealing with the strange color variances between projectors and the damn tint of certain screens at other studios. The displays were easy enough to deal with across the studio back then.

On Cat in the Hat I had 5 people giving me color notes on the film. Until I had them all in the same room they were all a little crazy off in some direction and in the process one of those individuals discovered he was colorblind.

The struggles were very real. So much has improved in the last decade though. It's easier to wrangle the cats and the cat cages are indeed more available than ever, but an interesting side effect of the progression is also the rather strange concept of just ignoring the cats all together occasionally.

It does blow my mind what the cost of things was back then versus now however. Certainly no matter the price of the hammer, an experienced hand gets the job done "as expected".

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Thru out the day eyes having a tendency to drift or compensate for saturated levels of color (computer screens or other reference materials). Keeping as much neutral environment around you as possible, is just a practical solver to get the eyes to recalibrate back to neutral. When doing marathon stretches of grading, this 'reset' becomes critical, otherwise in review you will probably find the work has lost color objectivity.


And as mentioned, once your get reasonably setup, take your work into a professional environment to compare results. The entire exercise is about confidence checks along the production chain. Leave as little as possible to happenstance.


The rest is is hundreds and hundred of hours of repetitive work to build up muscle memory, workarounds and trouble shooting prowess.

Thank you for the answer. So what I think I'm hearing from everyone is, while it is technically possible to do what I'm trying to do, it is no way ideal because I will not necessarily be able to trust the decisions that I making. However, I can mitigate some of the issues by getting a properly calibrated screen and using the bias light that Blair recommend.


I think I'm going to try this all that out, and see if I can deliver a smaller project (probably the trailer to one of the features) and do it to everyone's satisfaction. If I can, fantastic! I'll try a longer test next, (probably the first act of one of the features). If all goes well, I'll dive into the feature! If not, I'll return/sell some, or all of the gear and use it to hire a professional colorist lol.

I would also say it helps to take about 10,000 hours to give you the experience on what not​ to do in color correction. My joke is that it took me 20,000 hours to become a mediocre colorist. But that was back in the 1980s.

Totally agree! I'm a big believer in Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour theory!

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

While not my full time gig these days I wish you could see my face back in the early 2000s when I was dealing with color wedges on or off LAD target, essentially inventing a way to color calibrate lightboxes within our studio and others to discern wedges and match clips, and dealing with the strange color variances between projectors and the damn tint of certain screens at other studios. The displays were easy enough to deal with across the studio back then.

On Cat in the Hat I had 5 people giving me color notes on the film. Until I had them all in the same room they were all a little crazy off in some direction and in the process one of those individuals discovered he was colorblind.

The struggles were very real. So much has improved in the last decade though. It's easier to wrangle the cats and the cat cages are indeed more available than ever, but an interesting side effect of the progression is also the rather strange concept of just ignoring the cats all together occasionally.

Slightly off topic, but this is something that's always really bothered me. It seem like DP's and colorists go through sometimes Herculean efforts, to insure that we are delivering precise imagery, but quite literally no one else in the world will ever see it exactly that way ever again, after we deliver them? What the hell is up with that?

I just watched a really great demonstration with Steven Scott where he was demonstrating how they graded The Revenant. He showed a couple of elaborate mattes and mentioned he might have one of these incredibly intricate roto'ed mattes and all they'll do is remove a quarter point of magenta.

First, that, along with everything else from that demonstration, blew my mind. Then, it kind of made me a little upset, because he was, rightfully so I might add, proud of how intricate their work is. But, then I realized that almost no one in the world even has a chance at appreciating it because of this global calibration crisis.

It's 2016, we are on the cusp of self driving cars. Why does it seem like we've made little to no progress on this front?

 

[M.Halsell]

I would also say it helps to take about 10,000 hours to give you the experience on what not​ to do in color correction. My joke is that it took me 20,000 hours to become a mediocre colorist. But that was back in the 1980s.

You are absolutely correct, I was trying to avoid being discouraging or scare anybody. Glad you stated it correctly.

 

[M.Halsell]

It's 2016, we are on the cusp of self driving cars. Why does it seem like we've made little to no progress on this front?

Meticulous work is very time consuming and labor intensive. God is in the details. But to your point, theatrically the film was a huge success, and was enjoyed by a huge audience. The color treatment and other postwork lended to (not distracted) from the story.

I'm seeing the growing trend that the grading now is considered to be moving a contrast curve, maybe some NR and applying a LUT and call it a day. But believe me, the amount of broken down, busted looking, wrongly exposed, moire infested, IR contaminated, color casted, out of focus, you name it footage that has be spit polished in post to make it look like a million dollars is what professional colorist have to deal with day in day out. The solutions are hardly elegant. Other times, the client may request creative treatment that does require having masking and isolation acumen.*

Also to stated that if you fail to do your job proficiently, at some level is probably jeopardizing someone else's job.

Your next work is judged on what was done previously. That's why is called a body of work. And at some point inevitably, a job is going to come across the desk that will test the amount of discipline and serious training of the colorist.

 

[Marc Wielage]

On Cat in the Hat I had 5 people giving me color notes on the film. Until I had them all in the same room they were all a little crazy off in some direction and in the process one of those individuals discovered he was colorblind.

Oh, "color by committee" is always fun.

Slightly off topic, but this is something that's always really bothered me. It seem like DP's and colorists go through sometimes Herculean efforts, to insure that we are delivering precise imagery, but quite literally no one else in the world will ever see it exactly that way ever again, after we deliver them? What the hell is up with that?

Well, the answer is you can see a lot of those details even on a consumer set if a) you look for them and b) the consumer device is set up correctly. For the last 15 years, I've always had an IHF guy come in and line up my consumer displays, so when I see my own work on broadcast or Blu-ray, I won't run around the room screaming.

I just watched a really great demonstration with Steven Scott where he was demonstrating how they graded The Revenant. He showed a couple of elaborate mattes and mentioned he might have one of these incredibly intricate roto'ed mattes and all they'll do is remove a quarter point of magenta.

Steve does great work. Here's that video, which will give some of you some insight into what it's like to do a color-correction session involving a half-dozen people working around the clock for 8 weeks:

This approach can totally work for a $120M studio picture with a large staff and lots of time. Not necessarily applicable to a modest indie picture or even a TV series, particularly those without vast budgets and staffs. But it is eye-opening to see the degree of control Scott uses, approaching color completely from the point of view of VFX.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Slightly off topic, but this is something that's always really bothered me. It seem like DP's and colorists go through sometimes Herculean efforts, to insure that we are delivering precise imagery, but quite literally no one else in the world will ever see it exactly that way ever again, after we deliver them? What the hell is up with that?

This is normal. Consider how realistic is that every content delivery device can offer top accuracy in presenting the content.

It is in Creative's nature striving to create something as close to the vision as possible. When the vision exists. There are always limitations and this is normal and a continuous challenge. The extent of realizing that vision depends on the capabilities and utilization of tools in front of the Creative and the ones inside him. The technical part requires having a dependable point of reference, so when the content reaches the end user, the offsets to "original" are minimized.

When you listen to quality music it sounds the way it does because it was mixed on a system far superior to the one you are using and by someone with far more developed auditive sensibility than yours. Whether it's video or audio content, if it is properly mastered it sounds and looks good on many different devices. DoP, colorist, musician, audio engineer will perceive the differences but care is always taken for minimizing them. Today's technology allows those differences to be much smaller than before.

One of the factors for the Creative is intuitively knowing when "enough" is really enough and first developing criteria then adapting them to purpose. Developed sensibility, learned distinction and knowing how to reach the "optimal" are some of the elements which define mastery.

Technical skill comes sooner and easier because it is in rational, analytical, quantifiable, comparable, shareable, "thinkable" domain. The sensible, intuitive is something else. It cannot be "thought" because it is beyond thinking and it takes time.
Much more time.

 

[Phil Holland]

something that's always really bothered me

You're not wrong. In fact it was worse not long ago. One of my biggest headaches throughout the 2000s was what the work we finished at the studio or at the lab and what ended up mass duplicated and on screen in theaters was sometimes impressively off.

Film being a chemical process with other unique variables like projectors and screens coming into play caused major headaches. Then print degradation is another fun thing. Then the process of going to DVD or Blu-ray was another level of meh sometimes, though there's a few nice translations.

As far as I'm concerned digital projection is the future of cinema. This isn't a war against film. I actually still love film deep inside my bones. I hope people choose to use it as a capture medium for some time to come. However, if you want a chance at an audience in a theater seeing all the "goodness" you put into the film on global level, digital is the key. Especially on multiple viewings.

Slowly but surely things are indeed getting better. The biggest advantage digital has is the concept of the copy as well as calibration standards, though display technology itself is varied. At the moment, though it's hard to define for every display, most LCD tech from quality companies are within a pretty decent range right out of the factory. Not reference level quality control, but much better than ever. I really like the lengths a few manufacturers have gone. LG for instance with their 31" DCI 4K displays, which I've had a few of dance through my doors.

The additional level of chaos for digital comes in the form of codecs and bandwidth. This greatly effects what the audience will see and can see.

A quick picture from my instagram:



THX and others are hosting a panel during Cannes this year on the 17th featuring some of my footage in regards to discussing modern and future codecs. I've had a bit of involvement with VP9/10, H.265, and two not-yet-released streaming codecs for a few years. These codecs at the moment represent the potential of a better way to experience footage in home and on devices.

The nasty truth regarding streaming sites like YouTube and Vimeo is indeed the fact that most people update fairly lossy files that end up getting re-encoded for streaming use. Double baking in reality.

Netflix is doing a good job on some fronts with their H.265 implementation and seeing their 4K stream is a lovely thing. But there's still better. UHD Blu-Ray for instance and a true 4K DCP can still produce a better experience.

In terms of what is the "king" right now.... At the moment with 4K projection already happening in a lot of venues, 8K projection now a reality; it's between those and 65mm 5-perf and 70mm 15-perf IMAX at the moment for what's technically the best viewing experience. Digital projection has a few nice technologies, but recent LCOS and laser based systems are very impressive.

Side note. The interesting likely side effect of HDR occurring should be the idea that shortly we'll be getting even higher quality screens at eventually more affordable prices.

Eventually we'll have deeper color and higher resolution screens further still, I don't see this stopping until 16K happens in cinema. Above 8K for home use is going to be hard to sell. For now the push is on generating decent standards for 4K for some time and getting 10 bit and 12 bit into consumers hands.