Color Management for Video

[Galleddrim]

Okay, I am a bit new to video, having done most of my work up until now in the print side of graphic design and publishing. Print has its own color management challenges to make sure that colors remain true from camera to Photoshop to InDesign to offset press to final print. It was mostly managing an RGB to CMYK workflow. I didn't have too much trouble getting a handle on what was what there

But video color management is just confusing me. Doing Google searches gives me a whole gamut (hah!) of information, a lot of very complex and probably a lot of it irrelevant.

I am wondering if there is a good place to start in understanding color management for video and film. In the simplest terms, I want to make sure that what I see in Premiere is going to be what I finally see when I play my final DVD or Blu-ray on a decently calibrated HD television. The technical stuff is good to know too, but if I can nail down the practicals for the workflow, I'm happy.

So where's the best place to start? Is it necessary to have a color accurate external monitor to get any sort of assurance of final accuracy? Or is there software to manage the workflow?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[PerroneFord]

So where's the best place to start? Is it necessary to have a color accurate external monitor to get any sort of assurance of final accuracy? Or is there software to manage the workflow?

The answer to your first question is yes. The answer to your second question is "soft of".

TV and Film are two totally separate worlds as far as color is concerned. And you use scopes in video much like you'd do pre-flight for print. It's where you find out what's wrong before you commit to anything. A calibrated monitor is a great idea, just like it is in print work.

In terms of software for color management, this is still just coming into being. I suspect that film is now at the point where print was at the birth of Pantone. We are just in the infancy. So since that is true, in film you're still going to have to do and end to end flow to see what it's REALLY going to look like. Just like in print, everything can be great, but until you select the paper and see the final on the paper, it's all just a best guess and experience.

With video, the customer TV is the final word. And it could be as far off as anything. The best you can do, is provide a consistent product, so your stuff looks "wrong" in the same way everything else on that customer's TV looks wrong. If that makes sense.

 

[Galleddrim]

The answer to your first question is yes. The answer to your second question is "soft of".

Thanks for the reply, Perrone. Okay, maybe I was over-complicating things for myself. So I surmise then that the best way to maintain consistent and accurate color throughout the process is to have a color-accurate and calibrated external monitor through the post process and then just check the final output on a consumer TV set? Is it that simple?

 

[PerroneFord]

Thanks for the reply, Perrone. Okay, maybe I was over-complicating things for myself. So I surmise then that the best way to maintain consistent and accurate color throughout the process is to have a color-accurate and calibrated external monitor through the post process and then just check the final output on a consumer TV set? Is it that simple?

It's never that simple. But for the purposes of what we all do here, that's as good as it's going to get. If you start delivering to major networks or production studios, you might need some more tools, but for web work, local TV, weddings, etc., you're on track.