Best appoach for first time color correction. What program?

A

asteele10

Active member
I've never done much CC outside of FCP. As a film student, I have access to After Effects, Apple Color and Magic Bullet.

What would you recommend is best/easiest for doing good color correction? I've played around with all 3 and each (especially color) are pretty confusing. Before I get started learning a new work flow, I'd like to make sure I'm using the program which is most suited for my needs.

Also, this maybe stupid but is color grading the same as color correction?
 
Avid media composer.

As a film student, you probably have access to some Avid machine.

After trying CC in Avid, there is no going back...
 
What? I really like Avid, but if he's got access to Color, Avid MC shouldn't be a thought.

Take your time and learn Color. It's immensely powerful, though probably not the easiest app to learn to grade with. I've only seen the interface but everyone knows it's poweful.

Color correction generally means getting the material to look "as intended* or as shot. Color grading is generally what you do to the material for artistic reasons. Let's say I shoot some material and I forget to white balance. Everything comes out too blue or too red. A color correction would be getting everything back to a neutral color like it would have been had I done things correctly in the camera. A color grade is then taking that material and maybe coloring it like it was early morning, or late afternoon. Or making it match some other shot in the material that was done at a different location or time of day.

Make sense?
 
Since you have Magic Bullet you should try experimenting with the preset looks, and then seeing how it set each of the parameters to get that look. Not that you will use these presets, most are very extreme; however it will be a quick course in what each parameter does.
 
If you're talking in terms of the Panasonic GH1, I would recommend Magic Bullet. The AVCHD codec causes so much banding and artifacts when pushed too far in Color Correction that the advantages of learning a deep program like Apple Color may be overkill. The ability to do things in a 10-bit environment (like in Apple Color) doesn't provide much advantage with heavily compressed 8-bit material like GH1 footage. Don't get me wrong, I encourage learning, and Color is supposedly a great program. But for me, I like the ease of having Magic Bullet right inside FCP without having to export to another application. FCP's 3-way color corrector is actually just fine for adjusting color between shots (what might actually be called color correction). For color GRADING, i.e. creating a specific look that includes diffusion, bleach bypass effects, etc., Magic Bullet Looks is fantastic and much simpler to learn than Apple Color, IMHO. The combination of the 3-Way Color Corrector and Magic Bullet Looks is all I really need with the GH1.

Here are 2 links to short projects I've color graded using them:

http://www.vimeo.com/6635931

http://www.vimeo.com/7449911
 
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PerroneFord said:
What? I really like Avid, but if he's got access to Color, Avid MC shouldn't be a thought.

Take your time and learn Color. It's immensely powerful, though probably not the easiest app to learn to grade with. I've only seen the interface but everyone knows it's poweful.

Color correction generally means getting the material to look "as intended* or as shot. Color grading is generally what you do to the material for artistic reasons. Let's say I shoot some material and I forget to white balance. Everything comes out too blue or too red. A color correction would be getting everything back to a neutral color like it would have been had I done things correctly in the camera. A color grade is then taking that material and maybe coloring it like it was early morning, or late afternoon. Or making it match some other shot in the material that was done at a different location or time of day.

Make sense?
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I am using Avid for anything, so... better than AE and Vegas for Color correction.
What good enough for most feature films, is good enough for me :)

Link please for "Color"?

Google don't help so much in this case
 
I gotta disagree with some of the statements made here about Magic Bullet and the GH1. I myself have decided that I am going to stay away from magic bullet completely unless I absolutely have only a day to color and edit something. I plan on never getting into that situation. I have recently been teaching myself proper grading techniques using Apple Color and right away I noticed the control I have over every aspect of the picture. To me that is a must have. I even did a side by side comparison and Color looks so much better to me. When people say that the GH1 can't hold up to color grading well I call BS. Just like any camera there are certain weakness shots and if you stay away from those then it looks great. Just throwing up a cookie cutter look with a plugin is not teaching you anything. You would get much more value out of diving right in and learning it the proper way.
 
Nitsuj said:
I gotta disagree with some of the statements made here about Magic Bullet and the GH1. I myself have decided that I am going to stay away from magic bullet completely unless I absolutely have only a day to color and edit something. I plan on never getting into that situation. I have recently been teaching myself proper grading techniques using Apple Color and right away I noticed the control I have over every aspect of the picture. To me that is a must have. I even did a side by side comparison and Color looks so much better to me. When people say that the GH1 can't hold up to color grading well I call BS. Just like any camera there are certain weakness shots and if you stay away from those then it looks great. Just throwing up a cookie cutter look with a plugin is not teaching you anything. You would get much more value out of diving right in and learning it the proper way.
Click to expand...

There is a huge difference between Magic Bullet Quick Looks, which takes control away from you in favor of factory presets, and the full program that gives you control over nuances and subtle effects. People confuse the two. Having said that if you want the ultimate in control then go to harder to use programs.
 
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philiplipetz said:
There is a huge difference between Magic Bullet Quick Looks, which takes control away from you in favor of factory presets, and the full program that gives you control over nuances and subtle effects. People confuse the two. Having said that if you want the ultimate in control then go to harder to use programs.
Click to expand...

Sure Magic Bullet Colorista gives more control but I don't think it gives the kind of control as Color
 
I must agree with philiplipetz. I think there's a misconcetion of what Magic Bullet Looks really is. Sure, there are presets, and we've all seen the bad short films where people have slapped on an inappropriate, overprocessed look. But as philiplipetz said, you have very subtle, very professional control if you use the manual controls.
I'm sure Apple Color is a great program, and I intend to learn it at some point. But as I mentioned, having to export a project to an application that has an intimidating interface is unnecessary at this point.

Nitsuj: I didn't say the GH1 can't hold up to color grading. I said that the advantages of Apple Color's 10-bit workflow wouldn't be an advantage.
However, professional colorists who are used to working with more robust codecs would probably disagree with you. The banding and artifacts of the GH1 get very noticeable if you push things too far in color grading. This wouldn't happen with higher end formats. That is a fact.
That being said, I love the GH1, and agree that if you avoid it's weaknesses, the footage looks great.
With any camera, my motto is Garbage In, Garbage Out. No amount of color correction can save a shot that is inherently crappy.
 
Okay but as a student you should push for what is more challenging instead of what is easier. After all if you are a student then you are trying to learn. My suggestion was to learn the proper way as a student. Important tools for grading are the waveform and vectorscope. I don't believe Magic Bullet Colorista has anything like this from last I checked. Just my point was to not be intimidated by an interface but to jump in. Once you are familiar with your way around I know you won't want to go back. I think it is important to know your scopes. Just my two cents.
 
PerroneFord said:
Feature films aren't color corrected in AVID. Well, I guess some are corrected on DS, but studio features are corrected on Davinci, Baselights, and Quantels, etc. They aren't corrected on the Media composers you and I have, that's for sure.

Color: http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/color/
DaVinci: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/davinci/
Baselight: http://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/baselight/product_range
Quantel: http://www.quantel.com/page.php?u=5f855b42334dfa55ce0fdafa6c9dc127
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Not in media composer, but from what I know a lots are corrected with Avid systems?

Thanks for the links, any Windows 7 compatible software? :)
 
If you are a student film maker just learning about color correction, the 3-way in FCP will be fine for you until you actually learn what you are doing. Hone your skills on that, because right now that particular tool is absolutely not your limiting factor. Once you do know what you are doing, you won't have to ask this question.
 
An interesting thread that points up the many diverse members in our community. What I hear being said is that if you shoot on a $50k Arri, or the like, you will use more sophisticated color correction/grading than if you shoot on a cheaper solution with thinner codec. There is reason that big budget films look better, they are better right down to their codec core. But for most of us in the GH1 (or any hybrid dSLR) forum we have to work with a more limited codec and the tools that push beyond what our codec can handle are not only useless but can introduce degradation.
 
Phillip, there is nothing stopping you from transcoding the GH1 stuff into a better codec for grading. I did just that with some 5D stuff I've been working on. You have all kinds of choices for that. I use DnxHD, but you could just as easily go to ProRes, or even DPX. Then you won't be codec limited.
 
PerroneFord said:
Phillip, there is nothing stopping you from transcoding the GH1 stuff into a better codec for grading. I did just that with some 5D stuff I've been working on. You have all kinds of choices for that. I use DnxHD, but you could just as easily go to ProRes, or even DPX. Then you won't be codec limited.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your suggestion, I love how people here try to help each other.

I work always in ProRes after converting to 4:2:2 with Neoscene but my fear, which could easily be totally wrong, is that even with interpolation to a better codec the underlying footage can take only so much color grading since interpolation cannot put in detail that is not in the original shot. So please help me understand if my fear is baseless. My friends with better cams claim that one of the biggest advantages they have is that their codecs stand up to more robust color grading after conversion to ProRes, and that my GH1 footage can never be pushed to the same extent.
 
Think of it this way. Pretend the codecs are like bottles. Your bottke is 16oz, and their bottles are 32oz. They can certainly put more in than you can. When you go to 10-bit ProRes you are both now mixing in a 5 gallon container. They start off with more than you, but you both have so much room to play, it's going to be helpful to you both.

But do this to satisfy yourself. Take a still frame from your video before you convert to prores. Pop it into a imange program and ask it to count the colors used
convert to prores and do the same thing. You should get the same color count. You haven't "added" anything yet. Add an effect, then take a still of that same frame. When you do a count colors, it should be VASTLY different.
 
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