Professional colorist, image scientist, and educator obsessed with the power of a well-crafted image. I'm committed to helping my fellow filmmakers realize their creative vision in camera and in the grade.
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Hi! I really enjoy your content, it’s very informative and interesting. However, I noticed that the automatic subtitles sometimes aren’t very accurate, especially with the technical terms you use. This makes it a bit challenging for those of us who are not fluent in English to follow along and fully understand everything. Could you consider adding manually created subtitles? It would really help to make your videos more accessible to a wider audience. Thanks for your hard work!🙂🙏🏼
I will say the one time using ISO can help to shoot over is when a camera has dual native ISO. Its not perfect but if a camera has a native ISO of 800 and 3200 then the 3200 is technically much cleaner than it would typically be. Its shooting two stops over but doing so in a native way like shooting ISO 800 would be. Still not perfect however and I agree its best to get more light to the sensor vs electronically trying to make that light brighter. For me however this is one of the key benefits of dual native ISO. Its not just to shoot to less lights or no lights. Its a way to shoot over when adding more light is not possible. Its important to make sure the dual native ISO is actually cleaner however. Not all cameras handle dual native ISO the same. There is no camera where the second native ISO is ever as clean as the first. So there will be some loss of range and increase of noise. On my Canon R5 ISO 3200 is noisier than ISO 800 but using it to shoot 2 stops over is vastly cleaner looking than not shooting over. Using lights or aperture are better but that may not always be possible so its nice to fall back on another alternative option. Other cameras like the FX3 which has a second native ISO of 12,800 is 4 stops over which is likely way too much. You have to use some ND to compensate for the difference.
You’ve described this perfectly. I was trying to explain it the other day and couldn’t get it across. I should have just sent them a link for this video. Thank you.
Regarding film look lutz in ACES… if you’re grading for 709, could you marry the film look lit to a CST going from ACES to Cienion? You’d loos the flexibility of alternate ODTs, but you could then color in ACES before the custom non-changeable faux-ODT (CST plus film look LUT).
This is really great information! I am a beginner and i follow your instructions in this video, but I realized today the clors and contrast are a little bit off, when I upload to youtube and watch on my grading display. Maby someone can help me out... I have an LG Ultrafine currently Set to P3-D65 (sRGB also possible) and work on a windows machine I set Resolve Output color space accordingly to P3-D65 Input color space is canon log3 (Shot on Canon R7) Timeline set to Davinci WG/Intermediate I export DNxHR HQX with color space and gamma tags set to "same as project" When I compare the Uploaded Video on RU-vid on the same display to my Resolve Project, The colors and contrast are a little bit of, especially the dark reds seem to be too bright or saturated. I read that RU-vid expects some specific tags otherwise it wont display correctly? weirdly on my phone it seems to be somewhat correct.. Could it be the case, that the video on youtube on my display is going throu the colorspace transformation twice? Once on export and the second time simply by watching it on a monitor set to P3-D65? But that would mean everithing displayed on my monitor would be "wrong" wich seems counterintuitive. Maybe its best to switch monitor settings (and resolve output colorspace) to sRGB? Or is there a benefit of using P3-D65 when grading for youtube?
I am not fully grasping how to approach the saturation node, here the adjustments seems similar to those made when working with contrast ratio. Does the composite mode make all the difference here? Does Cullen have another video covering this?
it's not the composite mode, but it is the node's color space. Right-click the node, go to color space, select HSV. Then right-click the node again and go to channels and disable channels 1 and 3.
Cullen, thanks for all the videos you put out. I reference your material often. And as a result I feel my grading has massively improved. I'm not a colorist by trade, but rather wear many hats. However, I have a question. This video specifically focuses on Apple displays. I use an ASUS ProArt and have been searching everywhere to figure out the best option to solve shifting. I have an UltraStudio 3G set up. Monitor is set to 709/2.4. I know recently you've been suggesting 2.2 for web. But I'm currently working on a short film that will live beyond web or Vimeo. However as I export for reviews I'm still experiencing massive shift in black levels between DR and what I see in QT exports. (I've done all the DR settings like 10 bit, Mac colors, 709a) I've been setting my Mac system settings to 709/2.4 for viewing. In this scenario, given my Mac Studio and Asus Monitor, would using the default Display P3 in my OS system settings for viewing after export be the best scenario for accuracy? When I remove the Ultrastudio and view the export on the same monitor with the same settings I get completely different results when it comes to contrast/black levels. I've air dropped to my iPad Pro and at full brightness is matches what I'm seeing in DR pretty well. Looks horrible in reference mode. I'm just feeling really lost on how to create a solid level of consistency when viewing across different monitors after export.
Is it safe to infer then that I need to calibrate my iMac display *not* as 2.4 but rather *2.2* for a truly realized image-- even if output in DaVinch is gamma 2.4?
Guessing this video was more for people who get handed ProRes files without documentation. At least on BRAW footage, there's plenty of information in the video file's metadata. And I rarely, if ever shoot on anything other than BRAW if I can help it. At least on my camera. In my testing, the 12:1 BRAW is good enough, and more flexible than 4K ProRes 4:4:4 and even smaller file sizes. Pretty sure there's stuff in metadata to read for footage recorded to ProRes in camera as well. But I can't swear to that. Also, in the color page, for raw footage, there's the tab that lets you see what space and gamma it was shot in and you can change it there per clip if you want to. --- Also... people who don't document these settings should not be trusted with these cameras :P Imagine having a film crew where you ask "what was this footage shot on?" answered with a shrug "Idon'tknow, the thing rattled as it used to whan I pressed record."
Oh wow - I can't thank you enough for this explanation - I was assuming they did something similar but wasn't 100% sure and I was also trying to work out the logic as to why one would go with a CST in the node graph, when color management can be setup to do the same thing under Project Settings. Now I can see the logic behind a comprehensive node-based workflow. Brilliant job!
Hey !! i really really love your video. would you please make a video on how to analyze reference for grade like exposure, contrast, saturation, Balance, skin tone, look and whatever its.
I've watched Cullen on BM's classes a few days ago on LUTs and discovered a very interesting approach he made based on his film reseach, by using the creative LUT in the beginning, going against common practice taught everywhere else where it is used at the end.. I thought about it during night, and realized the time saving from this approach. Definitely a pro in the field of process coloring 👍
Thanks for clearing this up, I was going crazy trying to figure it out myself. But now I'm curious as to what the difference is between the ACES Transform node and the Color Space Transform node.
This is so cool, thank you! I wasn't aware she did all of my fav colored movies, amazing. I'm really grateful for this conversation and would like to send you the kindest regards from Europe.
I tried clicking the gray patch at 25:15 but for some reason it would not create a dot on the curves - custom. Is it due to me doing it on CKC Exposure Chart 1.3?
You have to have the color management in the project settings set to full HDR, in & out, then the SDR tone map will display properly on your SDR GUI. In fact, I now master everything in HDR Dolby Vision, and deliver for SDR when needed. This way, I'm covered for both for the client.
@@JonPais Yes . . . What I was saying is that he wasn't fully HDR color managed in the project settings(although I think he had at least checked on DV), so when he clicked analyze in the color page, nothing happened. In my humble experience, as long as I'm fully color managed in the project settings, I always see the analyze results on my SDR GUI monitor, and/or when I switch my reference monitor to SDR.
I’m also considering the Voyager LUT, I like the modular/modifier idea. But I’m wondering if it’s HDR ready? And is it behaving well on the some edge case (high saturated reflective color, etc).
@@brachysm I’m not one to weigh in bc I’m not a professional and I’ve been over saturating colors. @Darren Mostyn convinced me to invest in an entry panel and the result is incredible; no broken LUTS either
