skin tones, not satisfied.

[Bryan Colvin]

I can not name titles / names for obvious reasons, but I am currently editing a feature film that was shot on the red epic.

when i'm editing I'm just noticing that all the skin tones are milky in appearance. i don't really feel its the fault of the DP because other stuff i've seen this person shot, looked great

have you guys been able to capture satisfying skin tones in your projects with any of the red cameras? any advice on how to make this better? can color grading help put some life back into the skin tones? every grade i've tried seems to be okay, but not great. i'm not the colorist thank the lord! but the producers are making a lot of comments on the skin tones and are a bit worried, and i agree with them

thank you in advance for any advice / tips / experience you guys can throw my way

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

I've never had a problem with skin tones on my Epic.

Why don't you post some grabs so we can see what you are seeing?

 

[BigLu]

Can you provide 1 R3D file on here. you will get a good 5 guys whom will give you their tips and renditions on how they would grade it.
Youll be happy after that.

 

[Bryan Colvin]

I've never had a problem with skin tones on my Epic.

Why don't you post some grabs so we can see what you are seeing?

that would be the easiest to figure it out, but i can't legally post anything up from this project, there are 2 stars attached and its zipped up real tight

 

[Noel R.]

Without posting an R3D (better) or at least a grab, it's going to be difficult to help you.

 

[Bryan Colvin]

i think help well have to wait until edit is done when we get into grading. maybe at that point they'll let me post 1 clip up. i just can't risk putting something up that will get me in trouble haha

 

[Dave Blackham]

What lighting was used ? Tungsten, LED, Flouro etc

 

[Bryan Colvin]

a lot of HMI actually. HMI lights and daylight kinos. i think they mainly gel'ed lights to get out of that color space

 

[David Mullen ASC]

If you are editing offline dailies then the color is probably whatever was selected by RedCine-X or however the footage was transcoded, it's just a rough application of color and contrast -- if the DP wants to add more saturation and contrast to the final grade, that's up to him but I wouldn't judge what you are editing as being an inherent look to the original since that was RAW and needs converting to some color and gamut in RGB.

You should reconvert the footage using some different settings if it concerns everyone so much...

 

[jake blackstone]

i'm not the colorist thank the lord!

You making it sound like being a colorist is some kind of a terrible disease
Could you be looking at the RLF images, that skin looks so milky?

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

You making it sound like being a colorist is some kind of a terrible disease

I imagine he means he's just glad he doesn't have the producers and DP expecting him to salvage it--if the source isn't up to snuff. Just like I'm always relieved I'm not the editor on a totally un-funny comedic TV spot.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

when i'm editing I'm just noticing that all the skin tones are milky in appearance. i don't really feel its the fault of the DP because other stuff i've seen this person shot, looked great

"Milky" is a very subjective term and different people apply it to different picture properties, from hue to contrast to texture, or to a combination of everything, and it also varies in positive and negative directions. Without looking at the raw files, suggestions are likely to be only guesswork and not very useful.

Chances are that everything is okay and just needs a good colorist.

can color grading help put some life back into the skin tones?

With properly shot material - of course.

the producers are making a lot of comments on the skin tones and are a bit worried, and i agree with them

Pretty much depends on what everyone saw.

 

[Robert Ruffo New]

All I can say is using that very same camera we got extremely beautiful skin tones, soft and natural and more than adequately saturated. There are many things that can go wrong with any camera - usually bad DP-ing and bad post are the simplest explanations, bad post being the most common past a certain level of budget/competence, which your project seems to be past, although I suppose you never know as I have seen "prestigious" DPs who did not bother to learn Red and Alexa do awful things with both those cameras, but that is way less frequent than grossly incompetent post treatment.

That said, re-grading from RAW often achieves miracles. Just find a good color grader, and have them do a shot or two at random, just to relax the producers that things can and will look better later.

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Have to agree with David here. Sounds to me like you're editing files transcoded with red log, red gamma - probably will be fine once you revisit and color grade. Doubt there anything wrong as the DP/ DIT would have called in for a new camera during the shoot, if so.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Besides what has been said here, I must add what to some might be obvious but not to others, I can tell you that no matter what you have seen from a particular DP, each camera responds different, and so does each scene, and for Skin tones, Lighting plays a very BIG and very Important role, no matter if you are shooting RAW, some information either is there or is not, and even RAW no matter how powerful, can't Invent what s not there.

I not only never had any issues in the years shooting Epic, but I love the way I get to render Skin tones, then again, I am not only the shooter but also the DP, so I guess I do have more control over the final image then some, also knowing the camera well helps, coming from the world of still portraiture and fashion were skin tones is everything also helps.


But any ways, my main point here would be that the Camera actually, since it is shooting Raw, and it has enough power of resolve and room to spare as far as grading goes, is the last to be blamed on anything to do with how an image comes out.

 

[Eric Haase]

This thread is a great example of why it is so important to have dailies done properly. We have been robbed of REAL dailies colorists by producers who misunderstand the process. They have moved this crucial part of our creative work on set and put it in the hands of (mostly) technicians who are not colorists but are good at managing data and converting files. It's time to redefine the role of DiT and get DiTs training as colorists. It's time to stop letting assistant editors transcode footage and dial in any settings that affect color during the process.

 

[David Kuhn]

Maybe a dumb question... it makes sense that you can't post footage but can you spend a minute getting a shot of an unidentifyable extra using your setup and post that to illustrate what you're fighting with?

 

[Tom.Wong]

the first place i have to go is, what are you monitoring the footage on? if it's just a computer monitor that's not telling you anything about the image. a properly calibrated reference monitor getting a hd sdi feed from your timeline is one of the key things to evaluate your image. bad monitors can severely skew the look of the image, and play games with your lying eyes all the time.

and generally speaking, cameras at their default built in factory gammas, whether it be redgamma or standard rec709 generally don't show a, as pleasing image as if it went through a really good one light before the dailies, and of course in the finish. really no need to get worked up working with editorial files, but really shows off the benefits of well timed dailies so the client doesn't freak out from the out of the box gamma and color. this is one of the reasons we still have DIT's and dailies colorists at post facilities

 

[Jens Jakob Thorsen]

If you are editing offline dailies then the color is probably whatever was selected by RedCine-X or however the footage was transcoded, it's just a rough application of color and contrast -- if the DP wants to add more saturation and contrast to the final grade, that's up to him but I wouldn't judge what you are editing as being an inherent look to the original since that was RAW and needs converting to some color and gamut in RGB.

You should reconvert the footage using some different settings if it concerns everyone so much...

Well, its that simple...Unless You are editing in Adobe, you are editing some form of transcodet files? Maybe Prores or DNX, but they are most likely just a quick colourspace/gamma translation for use in offline. However frustrating that is, the entire idear of the "RAW" footage is to obtain the look from those original files in the final stages...Colourgrading...It is the DPs responsability to deliver reasonable metadata to ensure that the offline is not off putting..I must agree with David Mullen, that if everybody hates the way it looks, you may have to redo the offline files...But this has little to do with what the final grade can look like.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Sounds like milky washed out dailes. I'm very curious what graded shots from the R3D's look like.