Af101 hdr fx

Yes I think HDR is the new buzz word. Typical HDR takes different exposers and composites them together. This is a sudo HDR as you use the same clip to create at least two exposures. The high pass filter and sharpening is overlayed the video for a really stylized hyper real look. This can be the new SDOF craze. It definitely is a neat look that has a lot people talking after videos like this appeared on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/18038671
 
bgundu said:
Yes I think HDR is the new buzz word. Typical HDR takes different exposers and composites them together. This is a sudo HDR as you use the same clip to create at least two exposures. The high pass filter and sharpening is overlayed the video for a really stylized hyper real look. This can be the new SDOF craze. It definitely is a neat look that has a lot people talking after videos like this appeared on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/18038671
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Do you know this workflow?
 
I'm sorry... both subjects in the respective videos skin looks terrible with the effect on. In the second one the dude looks like a zombie post grading. I know maybe the treatment is showing flaws that otherwise can't be seen, but it's exaggerating them as well. I can see using it for a tough street type of film or strange SCI FI/HORROR, but IMO both actors look way better in the untreated clips.
 
HDR techniques can go terribly wrong. The video examples above are a deliberate stylistic direction, probably more suited for music/abstract videos. Outside of video, I have seen way overdone HDR. I use it a lot for my architectural work, but it takes a lot of control to make it look realistic. Here is a link to bad HDR.

http://www.google.com/images?client...UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1662&bih=1444



pulpfiction007 said:
I'm sorry... both subjects in the respective videos skin looks terrible with the effect on. In the second one the dude looks like a zombie post grading. I know maybe the treatment is showing flaws that otherwise can't be seen, but it's exaggerating them as well. I can see using it for a tough street type of film or strange SCI FI/HORROR, but IMO both actors look way better in the untreated clips.
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To the OP, I don't want to rain on your parade about HDR. I think it's great that you are experimenting and pushing the camera/post workflows. As a visual FX artist myself, I know the best way to learn is to actually do something!
 
I had wondered how the french video was done a while ago tried some things but they did not come out as I had expected. Here is a new test I did a little better than my others but still nothing special graded this mourning real fast nothing special. It's fun to try things out every now and then if anything to see what you can actually do.

enjoy

edit: oh and I consider this a grade not HDR, though I call it an HDR grade, but that is more in homage to the french video than anything else, if anything I crushed out range I could have used.

 
S. Matthews said:
I had wondered how the french video was done a while ago tried some things but they did not come out as I had expected. Here is a new test I did a little better than my others but still nothing special graded this mourning real fast nothing special. It's fun to try things out every now and then if anything to see what you can actually do.

enjoy

edit: oh and I consider this a grade not HDR, though I call it an HDR grade, but that is more in homage to the french video than anything else, if anything I crushed out range I could have used.

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Wow!!! It looks amazing!!!
 
Thanks! I was happy with the results of the test (nothing I'd expect to use on a job unless it called for it). I love grading but most of the time I end up getting a little to carried away, as I did with this but I'm sure others will point out my mistakes in much more accuracy then I ever could.

have a good one, and it never hurts to try, unless you are trying to fly..... or something like that.

p.s. I used AE and the effects I used are on the vimeo page, but if you would like to know more about my "not so hot work flow" I'd be more than happy to share, as I would be interested in knowing what you used to achieve your effect as well.
 
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S. Matthews said:
Thanks! I was happy with the results of the test (nothing I'd expect to use on a job unless it called for it). I love grading but most of the time I end up getting a little to carried away, as I did with this but I'm sure others will point out my mistakes in much more accuracy then I ever could.

have a good one, and it never hurts to try, unless you are trying to fly..... or something like that.

p.s. I used AE and the effects I used are on the vimeo page, but if you would like to know more about my "not so hot work flow" I'd be more than happy to share, as I would be interested in knowing what you used to achieve your effect as well.
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Hi and thanks for your reply -

I didn´t want to be too direct....but....I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW YOUR WORKFLOW - your color correction is worth a tutorial!!! Please share your "art" with us.

Thank you very much!
 
"graded in after effects, using:
color balance
brightness contrast
hue/saturation
shadow/highlight
curves
unsharp mask
and a HDR Compander"

...oh and two layers the top layer graded, bottom ungraded, and I reduced the transparency of the top layer until I was happy with the blend.

This should get you started, I will post my full process later... though it's nothing special.

Have fun!
 
Hello and thank you for the hint with the "double layer" - although the process might be "nothing special"....the result looks very special to my eyes!

Can you please explain what a HDR Compander is or where it could be found?
 
sorry but I have been a little under the weather lately I will post my full process in detail when I am better. I apologize for the tease, I promise I will explain my process it's just that there wasn't one in the first place it was kind of just tinkering.

I'll say this one of the big elements that helped in the grade is the shadow and highlights effect, in it's auto levels it produced a fairly over the top HDRish effect, but I decided to go manual and tweak it to my liking. the compander the levels, color balance, the bright/cont, and the hue sat were all used as limiters to restrict the range and crush backs and bring down highlights while as well making slight adjustments to the color channels that would show up in the face, red, yellow, cyan. the hdr compander is doing just about the same thing but in a final stage and it adjusts the gamma and brightness with a setting to either extend the range or restrict it I believe I restricted it. the order I mention the effects is also the order I used them in, but if you do not have the hdr compander it is not the biggest deal you might not even need it or you could use another levels or whatever you think works best.

and typically you want a scene with no crushed blacks or blown out highlights to start with, as flat of an image as possible, this was far from that aside from his face the whole room behind him was unlit and thus caused some problems in the grade.

well seems I covered more than I though I would in this post, though It is still not my exact process i hope it helps and will continue to explain to the best of my ability when I am feeling better.

hdr compander explained : http://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WSA666F80A-CCC4-488d-938D-5963ADEAB382a.html

sincerely Stephen Matthews.
 
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if anyone is interested here are my settings for this effect.

"This was shot with a gh-1 in avchd
canon FD 35mm 2.8, at 5.6, iso 400, 1/60 shutter
log and transferred into fcp into proresHQ (not really necessary or maybe it is I haven't fully tested it with grades like this so who knows if it is really worth it) imported into after effects in project settings you can choose to work in higher than 8bit which is supposed to also be beneficial but I have not tested yet so this was done in 8bits per channel, rendered out as proresHQ might as well keep it the same, loaded into fcp edited out to compressor and then rendered out as h.264 for vimeo.

graded in after effects, using:
color balance: hue 0x+9.0, lightness 0.0, saturation -14.0
brightness contrast: brightness -1.4, contrast 12.0
hue/saturation:
-master:master hue 0x +0.0, master saturation 8, master lightness 10
*only used master did not touch the separate colors
shadow/highlight: auto off, shadow amount 96, highlight amount 98, (in more options) shadow tonal width 20, shadow radius 36, highlight tonal width 43, highlight radius 30, colour(I'm Canadian) correction -16, midtone contrast 29, black clip 12.43%, white clip 0.00%, blend with original 0.0 (as I use layers and adjust the transparency of all the effects at once may not be the best)
curves: this is where it gets hard in RGB a slight s curve, in red a very slight curve in the darks but that is it (half s curve?) green blue and alpha unchanged
unsharp mask: went wild with this but it was a test after all, amount 85.0, radius 89.4, threshold 10
HDR Compander: mode- was wrong I used expand range, gain 1.00, gamma 1.15

...oh and two layers the top layer graded, bottom ungraded, and I reduced the transparency of the top layer until I was happy with the blend."

have a good one!
 
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