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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 :)

Red for city nightscapes?

Thanks, Tom! (see PM in a few minutes)

Hey Evin.. Thanks! That'll be cool to work with. Tried to d/l it though...you might have to .zip it up since it looks like your web server does not see or recognize the file?

~Sarah
 
Couldn't help but try a little CC as well on the NY shot:

nystreet0000000tt8.jpg


diffbr5.jpg


Diffused looks nice too.

__

I'd rather go with a slightly noisy image than with heavily compressed blacks.

Do you guys see anything wrong with my CC? :help:
 
Hi Sarah,

I am by no means a pro or expert at grading, but actually learned most of what I know about it here, and have seen some amazing things done with RED footage. The beauty of RED footage is how much you can pull out of the shadows when properly exposed. Usually this can be done with acceptable levels of noise.

Here's my take on the NY grab; this was done in Microsoft Office Picture Manager on Vista (problems with Photoshop atm), so I didn't have access to fancy curves or anything , just basic color sat/hue/brightness/contrast/midtone adjustments. You can really make this kind of image POP. At full res there may be a bit much noise, but when you downsample, it looks phenomenal.

49_1224218736.jpg


After looking at it on the browser I may have pushed it a bit much for my taste...but on my monitor it looks much better. Gamma setting must be different.
 
Hi Craig and Impag,

Thanks for the submissions! Only since you asked... from what I can see via my MacBook Pro (LED backlighting): both of you guys have valid "looks" to your grading. I understand the concept that your monitors may be very different to what I have so that's already a consideration. Through my monitor I see Impag's as being a cooler feel, and is close to the original capture in terms of overall values in the scene. Craig's was obviously lightened up and the color enhanced. The pro's and con's of what you guys did (imho).. Impag looks like he tried to stay closer to the original scene, but in doing so leaves it a little less vibrant/exciting than the shot could be. The diffusion is nice since it takes some of the digital look out of the scene. Craig brought in lots of "excitement" to his shot by boosting the values upward but in doing so flattened the scene somewhat(contrast), lost the darkest values (and made blacks go dark grey) and in doing so also boosted the noise making it all the more visible. I see nothing wrong or incorrect with either approach.. what matters is how it looks for the final output.. whether DVD, film, internet, etc. Only you would know your pipeline and grading for the optimum look of where your work is going to be seen. Grading is objective to a point, the rest is subjective.. how bright do you want the scene to be.. how saturated.. how cold or warm... and that's subjective to your purpose/story you are trying to tell. (All words I'm sure you guys have heard before :) )

~Sarah
 
Couldn't help but play with the image...depending on what you're using to do you're color grade, you can get alot of the image back by using multiple copies of the image with varying overlay modes (i used screen a few times and a lowered opacity overlay). You can do this sort of thing in after effects pretty easily and push the image pretty far depending on your output resolution.

ny_street_1.jpg


ny_street_2.jpg
 
Here's what Evin's biker dude could be... (from DPX.. tweakage in Photoshop). Mostly all I did was isolate and suppress the color of the noise causing the most damage. Then I simply found a suitable contrast, did a little sharpening and saturation boost. *I'm on a MacBook Pro with LED backlighting, so you may easily be seeing something different on your monitor.

Original look from DPX file...
RedOne_Biker_dpx.jpg


This is what I find tolerable noise(digital grain!) Finding the trade-off between losing my mid tones and having noise. I think this lighter-handed grading would allow more shadow detail to survive compressed video.
RedOne_Biker_02a.jpg


This is if I smash the darkest areas. (notice the building is still back there tho) This if fine for a still image that is going to print. If this were to go to release on DVD or anything compressed the dark areas are bound to get darker and mushy.
RedOne_Biker_02-2.jpg


And here's proof... I totally fried this image to illustrate something. Do you notice anything "good" about the noise structure?
RedOne_Biker_02hot.jpg


Still.. this is subjective stuff.
~S
 
I'll try to post something overnight to show off some post options that may (or may not) change your mind... Just have some real work to do first...
 
LilRed,
I didnt say don't do it, if done well with a wide aperture lens, and maybe even an open shutter, itll look great. I'm just saying it probably wont beat a Genesis.
 
PerfectOptics said:
...yet
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just hope Mysterium X is rated at ASA 500.

And Monstro 800?! Let's wait and see... :umm:

___

But then again T3 @ ASA 640 can give pretty good results.

Here's a grade I did with the Visceral Psyche TIFF:

ccro3.jpg


Probably the TIFF was processed at ASA 640, but I don't know if the curve was flat.

I can't stop grading RED footage... It's just too good! :)
 
LOL.. you guys... Impag.. that's a -bright- image! What we need to shoot is basically an industrial area with minimum street lights... But I like your enthusiasm!!

P.O... yeah yeah.. I know. I think GenesisHD is 400ASA equiv.? What I didn't realize is that it can do a 360deg shutter and that the sensor is not a Bayer-design.. it is 100% RGB (all colors treated equally).

Hmmmm hmmm hmmm.... might have to do a test shoot sometime with a Red just to be certain it is or is not a "contender". Would be nice if the guys at Red wanted us to test the Mysterium.. even with a protoype.

thanks guys!!
~S
 
The noise in that chopper photo is unacceptable. Yikes.

Sarah, I assume this is a big budget production? The Viper seemed to do well in Collateral, Zodiac, etc.
 
If I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong Evin), the chopper photo was done pre-build 16 when the noise print was a bit uglier.

I just got off a shoot with my cam and they were shooting night stuff on Master Primes wide open at f/1.3...

Absolutely gorgeous. Can't show any footage though.
 
LilRed said:
LOL.. you guys... Impag.. that's a -bright- image! What we need to shoot is basically an industrial area with minimum street lights... But I like your enthusiasm!!

P.O... yeah yeah.. I know. I think GenesisHD is 400ASA equiv.? What I didn't realize is that it can do a 360deg shutter and that the sensor is not a Bayer-design.. it is 100% RGB (all colors treated equally).

Hmmmm hmmm hmmm.... might have to do a test shoot sometime with a Red just to be certain it is or is not a "contender". Would be nice if the guys at Red wanted us to test the Mysterium.. even with a protoype.

thanks guys!!
~S
Click to expand...

Yeah, sorry If I spammed a little.

But like you said, this picture is not so dark.

kenn michael said:
If I remember correctly (correct me if I'm wrong Evin), the chopper photo was done pre-build 16 when the noise print was a bit uglier.

I just got off a shoot with my cam and they were shooting night stuff on Master Primes wide open at f/1.3...

Absolutely gorgeous. Can't show any footage though.
Click to expand...

Feature or Ad?
 
Tom said:
The noise in that chopper photo is unacceptable. Yikes.

Sarah, I assume this is a big budget production? The Viper seemed to do well in Collateral, Zodiac, etc.
Click to expand...

The noise is fine.. depends on where the image is going.. If it's going to stay small and go through another round or two of compression likely the noise will get smushed into the the mix and some of the noise will get lost along with sharpness. Or smash the noise and darker values for a certain "look" to the imagery. As for the purpose of a feature.. definitely will not work, nor will compressing the blacks/shadows to beat the grain down to a lower IRE. There are a variety of plugins/filters through various softwarez that have grain/noise reduction but why do that when we can possibly get something cleaner to start with? I am now interested in what Kenn is saying about a cleaner look with a newer build for Red. Any footage would be helpful! (Or again.. maybe a test is in order).

~S
 
My footage was shot on Build 16 which has the better noise characteristics (especially in the blue channel) than the build in which Evin shot his chopper footage.

Also, I think Evin was on a zoom lens which might top out at a 2.8, and I shot a stop faster at a 2.0 with my prime.
 
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