RedCine saturation slider...how far do you go?

[Sean]

I've never quite figured out something about the Saturation control within RedCine. The program's default level for saturation is 1.0. The highest level within the program is 10.0. But I find anything beyond 2.0 is just waaaay too much saturation. It begins to look very strange--hardly natural anyhow. Any higher and the image is pretty much unuseable. In fact, I rarely increase saturation beyond 1.3. So what is the purpose of a level of saturation that goes all the way to 10.0? More curious than anything.

 

[John Redfern]

So what is the purpose of a level of saturation that goes all the way to 10.0? More curious than anything.

Special effects? And when an image is really de-saturated to start with you'll need a good range to pull it up.

John

 

[ThomtheEditor]

...or for when Steven Soderbergh decides to make Traffic 2!

j/k i love that movie

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Vectorgram...

Vectorgram...

I've never quite figured out something about the Saturation control within RedCine. The program's default level for saturation is 1.0. The highest level within the program is 10.0. But I find anything beyond 2.0 is just waaaay too much saturation. It begins to look very strange--hardly natural anyhow. Any higher and the image is pretty much unuseable. In fact, I rarely increase saturation beyond 1.3. So what is the purpose of a level of saturation that goes all the way to 10.0? More curious than anything.

If you can check the finished frames with a program that has a Vectorgram (i.e. U/V or I/Q etc.) and make sure none of the edges show lines of dots indicating that the chroma is being clipped or at least crunched.

In my color matrix adjustment screen I have a vectorgraph that has the primary and secondary colors an equal distance from the center (about) which makes it a little easer to see when you have the saturation as high as it should go.

When you process RAW Bayer data that has not gone through a color matrix or LUT you need higher values, so going to 10 may be a leftover from early work with the RAWish frames.

 

[Tico Llaurador]

I personally use 0.888 most of the time, specially if I will be doing ProRes output and grading in Apple Color. Some other times (if I want to push a quick grade straight off RED Cine) I tend to use 1.111, tops. Depends, though.

BTW... in RED Cine, I always start with 0.000 saturation and make the image look good in monochrome. Then I add the color saturation and all that jazz. Please, don't ask why.

:wink:

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Which colorspace are you guys working in? Lately I have gone back to Camera RGB and using REC709 for gamma. I seem to get best results that way for HD work. I find that I'm using 1.25 to 1.50 for saturation, often settling in at about 1.30 for a lot of things.