Scratch users or Lustre Users

[Lou Cann]

Hi all,

I worked on a scratch system (5.1) a few weeks ago. For the most part, I was extremely pleased with it. Strangely enough, I was disappointed that it didn't have a white balance tool. (unless I couldn't find it)
It's always nice to hit the button every once and a while :smilewinkgrin:

I have never used or seen a lustre system up close.
I was wondering if there are any Scratch & lustre users out there that could explain to me some Major differences.

For example,

Primary Color grading tools:

Are there any tools that come out of the box with Lustre that scratch doesn't have?

Seconcary Grading:
Which software do you prefer to do this task with?

Masks:
Does Lustre have a better tool set?

Tracking:
Do either one of them have a better tracking engine?

I' ve spoken to some who say Scratch is mainly for Conform and grading is an addon.
Others say, scratch is a major player.

Thanks,
lou

 

[Tony Bacak]

wait for davinci 7.0 on OSX
compare then
price performance!

 

[Lou Cann]

Thanks for the info,
but for right now, i'm more interested in knowing the main differences between the two.
Thanks

 

[Ruairi Robinson]

Hi all,

I worked on a scratch system (5.1) a few weeks ago. For the most part, I was extremely pleased with it. Strangely enough, I was disappointed that it didn't have a white balance tool. (unless I couldn't find it)
It's always nice to hit the button every once and a while :smilewinkgrin:

I have never used or seen a lustre system up close.
I was wondering if there are any Scratch & lustre users out there that could explain to me some Major differences.

For example,

Primary Color grading tools:

Are there any tools that come out of the box with Lustre that scratch doesn't have?

Seconcary Grading:
Which software do you prefer to do this task with?

Masks:
Does Lustre have a better tool set?

Tracking:
Do either one of them have a better tracking engine?

I' ve spoken to some who say Scratch is mainly for Conform and grading is an addon.
Others say, scratch is a major player.

Thanks,
lou

There is a white balance tool.

R.

 

[Lou Cann]

Where? Are you talking about the " Pivots"?

 

[Frank Cueto]

Should be part of the red decoding SDK part.

 

[Lou Cann]

yes I think that's only for Red Files. any other files created via DPX, Targa,Tiff,etc..do not have the Menu you're talking about.
Bummer...:emote_hanged:

 

[jake blackstone]

If you're talking about Lustre, there is an auto balance. I think it's a "/" key, but why would you want to do that?

 

[Lou Cann]

well, it isn't that I would depend on it for my shots but I find it strange that a "color grading" software would not have a basic tool as white balance. (scratch)

 

[Lucas Wilson]

well, it isn't that I would depend on it for my shots but I find it strange that a "color grading" software would not have a basic tool as white balance. (scratch)

Lou,

SCRATCH does have the equivalent of a White Balance. It's called "Auto Grade." It uses Offsets to create a white point from a user-selected area.

That being said...

White Balance is really very rarely wanted or used in professional color situations, which is why most professional color software packages don't spend much time with it. A good colorist never wants a program to do a white balance for them, because doing a white balance almost inevitably screws up the rest of the color balance of the shot.

Doing a White Balance on RAW material is different. A bayer file is a greyscale image. Assigning a black/white point and white balance is a necessary part of the math that generates RGB from that greyscale image. That is why SCRATCH does have a White Balance for R3D files.

But for DPX, TIFF, and other files which already have a predetermined white point, doing a white balance after the fact usually just makes things look worse. A colorist with a basic knowledge of how to read a histogram or scopes can do a white balance in seconds while maintaining an accurate representation of blacks and mids - which an auto-balance rarely does.

Best,

Lucas

Lucas Wilson
------------
ASSIMILATE, inc.
LA, CA, USA

 

[Lou Cann]

Ok, I see your point. We work on avid & final cut at NYU, and those tools are always available. So, I found it strange that a grading software would not have it. I understand now, thank you for enlightening me.

Also, you said "Auto Grade" is scratch's white balance?

The few times that I had the opportunity to work on scratch, I tried the Autograde function. I was a little confused with autograde & the Pivot.

I tried selecting a section of an image which contained "pure white", I then selected the darkest area that was "black". When I used AutoGrade, I got unusual results. The image became extremely dark. So, I skipped the Autograde and just used the Scopes.

BTW, any reason way they put the pivots & autograde on two different pages (5.1) ?

P.s.
Lucas,
I did reply to your P.M. via Email
Did you ever get it?