Does color grading always need color?

HKB

HKB

Well-known member
Color grading should be just that, but when a color film is converted to monochrome, is that considered a color grade or something else?
 
Even though most would probably not consider it to be, it technically is because you are altering the pixels. Whether you are changing the color information or removing it, you are grading - manipulating, adjusting - the image.
 
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For clarification, you're referring to film that has been scanned into digitals files?

I don't know what a true Colorist would say, but I'd say it counts as color grading, as the term encompasses many different things, e.g. stabilizing the footage to eliminate gate weave, de-grain, RGB mixer adjustments for selective contrast, power windows, sharpening, etc.
 
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"Converting to monochrome" can involve some very careful, nuanced decisions (i.e., grading). "Frances Ha" is monochrome, but not just a simple convert to B&W job. This is even more so the case with the Black and Chrome edition of "Mad Max: Fury Road": the film was re-graded to make sure elements were still legible despite the absence of color information. It's not my favorite version of that film (as director George Miller considers it to be), but it still works very well.
 
drboffa said:
"Converting to monochrome" can involve some very careful, nuanced decisions (i.e., grading). "Frances Ha" is monochrome, but not just a simple convert to B&W job. This is even more so the case with the Black and Chrome edition of "Mad Max: Fury Road": the film was re-graded to make sure elements were still legible despite the absence of color information. It's not my favorite version of that film (as director George Miller considers it to be), but it still works very well.
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I agree. One doesn't simply desaturate the footage. (Also, wouldn't it have been graded in the first place somehow?) You creatively adjust the contrast. And you have massive flexibility to brighten or darken specific elements by selecting their hue. Definitely grading. Definitely color grading.
 
the huge thing about mono is you can do RGB filtration befroe desaturation.

eg

blue sky and clouds
blue filter (removes blue)
now black sky and clouds
remove saturation
= very moody image

removal on red on face befroe desaturation
removal of blue on sky before desaturation..
 

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Aussie colorist Juan Melara used to have a great video on his YouTube channel and blog called "Re-creating the $600 Brim Linny LUT in Resolve". It doesn't actually deal with black and white conversions, but I remember that he ended up switching some nodes from their default color spaces to I THINK LAB or YUV (and possibly hsl/hsv). This gave him another way to tweak the luminosity of colors for greater separation by using the RGB mixer.

The final result ends up being a color image, but those principles could easily be applied here as well, and you'd just desaturate in a node afterwards to get your b&w result.


The video has since been taken down, along with the blog post. Currently searching to see if it was archived anywhere, but if not, I'll shoot him an e-mail to see if he's still got a copy anywhere.



EDIT:
Found it re-uploaded on some Chinese video hosting site:
https://www.bilibili.com/s/video/BV1bb411r7F5

Can skip to 50s - 3:20 for a background explanation of the techniques, and 3:50ish to see it in action.
 
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