Color Grading Critique Request

Rich Parry wrote on 5/5/2012, 10:09 PM

I have used VP for many years but never did any color grading. The link below is my first serious attempt at working my way up the color grading learning curve.

This 5 minute video contains about 25 clips. Each was color graded using “Levels”, “White Balance”, and “Color Curves” only. I did NOT use other plug-ins such as “Color Balance”, “Color Corrector”, “Color Corrector (Secondary), etc.

If you have a few minutes and would like to critique my work, I would be grateful for any color grading suggestions.

My workflow started by setting the “Video Scopes Settings”. I unchecked 7.5 IRE and checked Studio RGB. I used Levels to adjust the range close to 0 and 100 using the “Waveform” scope. Using the “Color Curves”, I used presets that I thought enhanced the look. Some clips with a color cast were changed with WB plug-in.

The clips were shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and converted to AVI from MOV using Neoscene. On the 5DM2, I used Picture Style “Landscape”. I know I should shoot with a Picture Style that is flat, such as “Neutral” or “Faithful” or “Cinestyle” by Technicolor. I will do that in the future, but it is too late for this project.

The file is available to download if you want to put it on a “Timeline” and pixel-peek.

https://vimeo.com/39173874

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
Rich

P.S. I am not a professional, just a passionate amateur :-)

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 5/5/2012, 11:54 PM

Hey looks good.

1- Some of the shots have blown out highlights. I'm guessing that you mapped the superwhites into the legal range already.
(see http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/color-correction/tutorial.htm)

Maybe play around with your camera and take footage at multiple exposures. Bring that into Vegas and do color correction on the different exposures. See what you like best.

1b- Sometimes you can sort of hide problems by adding some sort of glow effect so pretend that the blown out highlights were intentional.

2- Unrelated to color, some of the motion looks wrong for some reason.

3- If you want to go nuts, you could use the color corrector secondary to affect the greens. And then maybe another to affect the sky or other dominant color in the scene.

For static shots, you can use bezier masks and something to affect exposure (e.g. levels FX, compositing modes). So you can emulate ND graduated filters and things like that.

robwood wrote on 5/6/2012, 12:43 AM

what Glenn wrote was great.

my only nitpick is your title cards black level is 000 RGB (sRGB) while the rest is 016 RGB (Studio, YUV)... *

you could bundle your slates on a single track, then add a Computer to Studio filter to it. that would bring your black level to the same range as the video.

i use Primary CC, Secondary CC and Colorlab (free Vegas plugin) for CC work in Vegas. some Curves and Levels.

* EDIT
alternate thought; the drop in black level could also be from slates having an alpha.

JasonATL wrote on 5/6/2012, 7:27 AM

Rich,

First off, I really enjoyed the film. Your images from Yosemite are spectacular and I like how you've put it togeter

Glenn's comments are great. In some cases, it isn't clear if the blown out highlights were from the camera on the color grading. You probably know all of the following already, but since you asked for comments...

Did you dial back the contrast in Lanscape? If not, that might help in the future. Landscape will (in my experience) enhance the landscape colors, but you can still keep in relatively flat by dialing back the contrast. This can help with giving you a little more to work with, assuming you don't overexpose.

As Glenn also mentions, the frame-rate/motion is odd in the pans and especially noticeable in the tilts. The file shows that it is encoded at 29.97fps. Was it shot in 30p or 24p? If 30p, a simple, "Disable Resampling" might smooth the motion - it should have been fine, but I've found that I sometimes need to do this (which I should, if footage is true 30p, but the Canon's should be recording at 29.97, I think). If 24p, then I'd suggest rendering in 24p (and you still might need to disable resampling). If you've shot both (which I've done a few times), then you can, especially with some nature shots, just slow down the 30p footage, by setting the playback rate to 0.8000 and, again, disable resampling. This might or might not look right, as it gives a slow motion. Odd thing is, in your footage, some motion looks fine (such as some of the rapids), but others look out of sync (such as the deer and pans/tilts).

I thought the colors were quite natural and pleasing.

And, thanks for the opportunity to critique/comment. I did this more as an exercise for me to learn. If I look at someone else's work with a critical eye, it helps identify more areas where I should look to improve my own work.