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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 :)

Recommended Apple Color Workflow?

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Chris Hocking

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Hi Everyone,

I have had a very good look through this forum, and other sites to try and find the answers to these questions, but despite the wealth of information out there, I still can't come to any firm conclusions.

I am currently putting together a three minute piece shot on a RED ONE using Build 16 in 2:1 4K. The DOP exposed using Red Space in camera. We used RedRushes to produce 1920x1080 ProRes HQ proxies for the offline. In RedRushes we set the to Look Source to "Camera" and Color Space and Gamma Space "RedSPACE". We edited in the latest release of Final Cut Pro.

Originally we planned to grade using an external facility, however budget has forced us to consider grading in-house using Apple's Color.

What is the BEST way to get RED footage into and out of Color? The final product is destined for Blu-Ray (as well as SD-DVD, web, HD-CAM, etc.). We will NOT be doing a film out at any stage in the future.

Looking around this site, there seems to be a lot of people who suggest bringing in DPX sequences into Color as apposed to ProRes or 10-Bit Uncompressed Quicktimes. This makes sense.

We do not have the budget to purchase Crimson, Rubber Monkey or Glue Tools. However, we are happy to MANUALLY export the clips out of REDCINE, etc. If need be, we own a copy of Shake, so we can put together the DPX files there.

So, given all this, at what stage should we exit Redspace world and enter Rec709? What settings should we use to export out of REDCINE?

My thoughts are that we just manually export out DPX files out of REDCINE (using "REDSPACE") based on the Final Cut timeline, and then manually put together the timeline in Color. Then once the grade is complete, export out the individual shots as 10-Bit Uncompressed.

Does this make sense? Comments? Suggestions?

Sorry if this has been answered before - but most of the posts I found on this forum were related to high-end film outs, and not HD delivery.

Thanks for your time!

Best Regards, Chris!
 
If what you have exported from REDRushes looks fine - then you're probably good to go as is. However, if there are shots where you need to check if there's any more highlight range in the raw file than there is in camera, then you might want to take that shot to RedAlert, knock back the ISO / Exposure to 320 / 0 and maybe even back off a little further if necessary - export, and then you'll have all the range for tweaking in your Color session.

Graeme
 
REDLog is still, mathematically, the best way to put the RED data into a 10bit file (precision-wise) which means it's great if you don't "know" how you're going to pull and push the file in the DI app. If however, it's going to look close to your REC709 or REDSpace export, (and you've avoided clipping) then they're just about as good, and probably easier to use.

Graeme

Graeme
 
Thanks heaps for clearing that up Graeme! Everything is starting to make a lot more sense now... One question though - when you say "10bit file" are you referring to a 10-bit DPX (LOG) or something else? Just curious...

One other thing I'm still not completely sure about is the whole "going to DPX" scenario. Again, this has been discussed in quite detail all over the place, but I can't get my head completely around it. In my case, is the DPX file basically just a "container" of the RED footage (meaning, the DPX file is a container of a certain size, and the computer just tries and puts as much information as it can from the R3D into the container)? Does the fact that DPX files are LOG have any impact on the workflow?

And... more specifically, and yes, this is obviously something I should (and will) experiment with myself, but if I export an XML file out of Final Cut from my Pro Res HQ timeline, in Color, can I then import the XML and tell Color to use the DPX files INSTEAD of the Pro Res Quicktimes? Or, is there a step that I'm missing (i.e. is this only achievable with a tool such as Crimson)?

Basically, at the end of the day, I'm after a good and high quality method to colour grade a sequence in Color from Final Cut Pro using as much information as I can get from the original R3D files for delivery to HD. What's the best way to do this when you don't have a lot of money, but you're happy to spend time manually doing "stuff"?

I know I can easily grade the Pro Res files now with limited hassles - but obviously, the more information I can bring into Color, the better for the colourist.

Again, thanks Evin and Graeme, for your thoughts and input!
 
I was thinking DPX, but also 10bit Quicktime files would share similar logic.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
I was thinking DPX, but also 10bit Quicktime files would share similar logic.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Unless anybody else has found a work around for this, Color always treats Quicktime files as 'video' - ie rec709, whereas with DPX you can choose to interpret as log, linear or video. So if you want to use log, for greater grading flexibility, you need to go the DPX route. However Color is, in my experience, not very good at dealing with DPX files at any frame rate other than 24/23.98, so if you are working at 25 or 29.97 fps, Quicktime is better.

The Quicktime route is easiest if you are not experienced with DPX workflows, and if you are doing things manually anyway, it is always possible to switch to DPX for individual shots in Color when you need to push them further, and use rec709 Quicktimes for the majority of shots.
 
Chris Hocking said:
Does the fact that DPX files are LOG have any impact on the workflow?
Click to expand...

DPX files are not log. They are just containers. They can contain log, linear, video gamma, or any other values. There is a flag that can be set in the header indicating that it contains log format information that some programs will use to automatically apply a LUT, but the file itself can contain anything you want.
 
FCP is hopeless at dealing with still image sequences but Color was origional written to handle DPX (and I think Cineon) when it was called Final Touch so should work fine. I only highlight this to point out the possible IO issues when loading a sequence in from FCP if that's what's intended. If there is some means of using log with in a QT wrapper this sounds the best way to go.

Dave
UK
 
Suspected Bug!!!!

Suspected Bug!!!!

2K scaled dpx's from 4K footage shot at 24 fps exported as 24 fps from REDCINE ( CRIMSON WORKFLOW) , imported with gluetools to FCP as 24 fps, FCP's EDL import to COLOR all at 24 FPS ends as a 23.98 project in COLOR!!!!


I am not an expert but the headers of the DPX's created in REDCINE are the most suspicious.
 
We finished yesterday a project shot by Fabio Cianchetti, dop of Bernardo Bertolucci. It's a 18 minutes short film and it was shot at 25 fps.
We used this workflow:
M proxies in fcp-crimson-redcine-color
All went well but we had some problems with apple color. It doesn't accept dpx files at 25 fps so we exported an edl from fcp and imported into color, all it looked correct but we discovered later that certain clips in the color sequence were corrupted. For these reason we thought to convert everything to quicktime prores hq but we didn't have enough time to make the render again from redcine so we decided to use aja dpxtoqttraslator to make quicktime reference files and we made another color project. We imported all the dpx wrappers made with dpxtoqttraslator and all the clips were correct, also the clips corrupted in the previous project.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies!

Sorry, I should have said originally that we shot at 25fps and plan to end with a 25fps master.

Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but the general consensus on Red User seems to be that for grading RED footage, DPX files are the best "container" to use. However, it's also clear that there are huge problems with getting DPX sequences in and out of Apple's Color (especially if you shot at 25fps). Given that Final Touch was build around a DPX workflow, I guess the problems with the workflow are to do with the way RED's software deals with DPX files. Obviously, when Color gains the ability to open R3D files directly this will solve all these issues - but until then...

Luca, how did you generate the QT files using AJA's tool? My understanding is that the translator can only convert 10-bit 4:4:4 RGB files. Were you referencing to the RED QT proxies? If so, did this slow down the workflow dramatically (as the computer would have to process the R3D files into QTs then, process the QTs into DPXs). Is using the AJA DPXtoQTtranslator to get DPX files into a QT format a viable solution?

Although everyone seems to think that DPX's are the way to go in terms of quality - given that the current proposed workflows seem very buggy, if we were to grade in Color using QT files - which codec would be best? ProRes HQ or 10-bit Uncompressed?

Finally, I'm almost positive I know the answer, but just to make a hundred percent sure, if the end result is destined to be 1920x1080, is there ANY advantage in grading at 2K or higher? I would think not, but maybe there's something I'm over looking?

Again, thanks everyone for your help and advice! You've already cleared a lot of things up for me!
 
Chris, the workflow is quite simple except for color with dpx at 25fps.
This is the workflow that we use:
4k footage
editing in final cut with M_proxies generated by the camera
export from final cut a xml and an edl for apple color
import in crimson the xml
generate in crimson a xml for redcine
import in redcine the xml
do the preliminary color correction in redcine
export the clips in the format that you want (now if you want the best use dpx but if you want a smother workflow I really recommend to use apple pro res HQ or Uncompressed quicktime). With Aja dpxtoqttraslator you can create reference files, so you don't need to export the dpx to aja codec, you only make a aja codec quicktime wrappers with the dpx inside, if you don't use color you don't need to do this but if your dpx are at 25fps this can be a good workaround to skip the strange behaviour of color). I think if your media format will be blue ray maybe you don't need dpx, so export from redcine apple prores HQ or Uncompressed quicktime. Regarding the size stay on 1920x1080 and it will be fine.
 
What would the workflow be if blue ray quality is the highest output? Also, is there any hardware that would facilitate the workflow at this quality level? Would working at 4/2k/dpx level as long as possible improve the output even though it will end up only high def quality?

thanks
 
karilla said:
2K scaled dpx's from 4K footage shot at 24 fps exported as 24 fps from REDCINE ( CRIMSON WORKFLOW) , imported with gluetools to FCP as 24 fps, FCP's EDL import to COLOR all at 24 FPS ends as a 23.98 project in COLOR!!!!


I am not an expert but the headers of the DPX's created in REDCINE are the most suspicious.
Click to expand...

haven't tested it, but check your gluetools controlpanel, that you haven't forced 23,98 in there...

Also I have seen that when you export through compressor from a DPX timeline in FCP, it creates lots of unwanted... dithering... (or I do not know what else to call it) "Extra gradients" averaging pixel-luma on both sides of a greyscale line.

gunleik
 
Thanks for clearing that up Luca and to everyone who has contributed to this thread!

I'm doing some experimenting now, and have a couple of questions.

If I use REDCINE to export a DPX Sequence (1920x1080 @ 25fps / REDSPACE), and bring it into Color what should the printing density be (i.e. Film, Video or Linear)? I'm referring to the Override Header Settings option in Settings 2. Linear seems to look right - but I'm just not sure of the science behind it! Could someone please explain?

Also, as a lot of people have explained previously, if you bring in a 25fps DPX sequence into Color, for one reason or another thinks that it's 24fps (which is just plain wrong!). However, if I change the Frame Rate in Settings 1 and also the Project Settings frame rate to 25fps, will this fix the problem? I would presume so - however, if this is the case, then why are people using other workarounds (such as the AJA tool)? Again, could someone please verify?

After a couple of tests I've come to the conclusion that DPX is the better (although much more frustrating) way to go than 10-Bit Uncompressed or ProRes HQ.
 
After doing some tests, I now see why you can't just change the frame rate settings in Color! I also tried doing the EDL workaround (as explained here), but that didn't work either...

However! As Luca recommended, the AJA workaround seems to work great!

Just on that however, which codec setting do you use in the translator? RGB or RGB Log? Both seem to export exactly the same thing - but I'm just wondering if there's actually any difference? I presume you just leave the Color Range Tag to Full Range?
 
Chris, if you export an edl from fcp and import into color and if you connect the media files with the dpx at 25 fps made with redcine, color will display all the sequence at the right frame rate (25fps in this case).
What I discovered after it is for some weird reason color failed to read some clips, in a random way, this is the reason because I used the aja traslator. With the traslator color was able to read all the files correctly. My sudgestion is:
do the dpx route, without the aja traslator, if you notice something wrong in your colour sequence use the traslator, make another project and reimport the aja quicktime wrapper with dpx inside into color. But if everything work you don't need to use the traslator at all. I used it because I had problems with color, maybe because my sequence was 18 minutes long because for shorter project I was able to work with dpx in color just fine.
Linear is good.
 
Chris Hocking said:
…use REDCINE to export a DPX Sequence (1920x1080 @ 25fps / REDSPACE)
Click to expand...

I would personally recommend using Camera RGB/rec709 rather than REDSPACE/REDSPACE in your REDCINE project settings if you are exporting for a grading session in Color. Although REDSPACE gives an initially more 'punchy' look to the image, it compresses the highlights quite a lot, reducing your flexibility in grading. rec709 looks flatter initially, but can be made to look like REDSPACE with a simple curve in Color.
 
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