Yoyodyne,

I have downloaded a Trial version of Neo with First Light. Hopefully, before the day is over I hope I will be able to answer my own question.

If I like it, I will upgrade my NeoScene to the new Neo which include First Light.

Thanks,
Rich

This is not a fair analysis, but thought I would share what I have learned after 10 minutes with First Light and CineStyle LUT.

I installed Neo/First Light and loaded a 5DM2 video that I shot using CineStyle Picture Style. In First Light I selected the "CineStyle" and saw an improvement (i.e., improved contrast and saturation), but it was not as good as the clip I shot using "Standard" Picture Style.

Once again, 10 minutes of testing with a product I am not familiar with and using a single click to "fix" is not a fair comparison. However, I think it shows what everyone already knows, you still have to tweak the video which is something I plan to do next. However, it will take a few days/weeks to feel comfortable with First Light since it is a powerful application.

I'll share more later, but for now don't expect a single click improvement which is what I naively thought I could do. Silly me.

Rich

Rich, it is really worth upgrading to Neo, from NeoScene to upgrade is only $170 now.

We do have a .look for CineStyle now here http://j.mp/iSidLT (works in FirstLight that comes with Neo.)

David,

I am still a newbie with First Light (used it 2 days so far). I don't see the advantage of it over Vegas color correction tools. Both have histograms, vectorscopes, and lots of slider controls. I'm looking for a reason to use FL, but just don't see it yet. Can you tell me what I am missing. What makes FL color correction better than Vegas?

One thing that scares me is that it appears all the metadata is stored in one location. After years of using FL I could loose the db and therefore thousands of clips of metadata. I backup my data but don't know where the metadata db is located.

Rich

Some of the many advantages of FirstLight:

1) Deep pixel color correction, even if you NLE is using only 8-bit I/O or 8-bit filters.
2) Color correction independent from you project -- great for collobrative/team projects.
3) Linear light processing with color modeling of source camera encoding curve (something most NLEs don't do, enables correct post exposure corrections and white balancing.)
4) Databased CC allowing multiple looks per project.
5) Color correct while playing, including using the Tangent Wave control surface.
6) Typically way faster than NLE color correction.
7) Many 3D features beyond the Vegas basics.

Databases are easy to find and control where they are stored. There are located by default in C:\Users\Public\CineForm\LUTs and set via this register key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CineForm\LUTs]
"LUTPath"="C:\\Users\\Public\\CineForm\\LUTs"

If you every want to move them with setting the registry manually, we have script for that available in the description of this vimeo link http://vimeo.com/10024749 The video describes moving your databases and LUTs into dropbox, which means you databases are everywhere (all your PCs/Macs and in the cloud) so you can never lose you data. All CineForm employees and many end users are using the free dropbox account for this purpose. Get a free Dropbox account here: http://dropbox.com/referrals/NTUwNTYxMjA5

David

P.S. Back on the subject topic. The next build of Neo will natively support CineStyle curves with applying a LUT.

David,

Thank you for the reply. I don't understand all of the advantages you mention, but you seem so enthusiastic that I will continue to work my way up the FL learning curve. At some point the light bulb should go on and hope to be as enthusiastic as you. At present I am just intimidated.

I got 10 more days of the trial copy, so I got to get back to FL.

thanks,
Rich

FirstLight now has direct support for CineStyle

Blog on the new feature http://j.mp/CineStyle