New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing

Technicolor corrected with Cineon 3DLUT from Motion FX in Color

Technicolor corrected with Cineon 3DLUT from Motion FX in Color

Hello Guys,

DorianVasko gave me his cat shot original file to test the Cineon workflow.

Below is a frame from the cat, converted in Apple Color by only applying our Cineon Log 6500K (HD) 3DLUT for sRGB...

cat_sRGB_normal.jpg


The image as you see is directly usable with no extra CC...

I have in this link a full 10bit DPX Linear frame ready to be viewed in a computer screen in order to check the histogram. Dorian tell me if you see it better... coz I see it...

http://www.motionfx.gr/Files/Canon/Cat_linear.zip

If anyone want to use the 3DLUT for his favorit Color Grading software, you can select your software that you using (Apple Color, DaVinci etc.), his viewing device Apple Cinema 27" (ACD27) or REC709 then select Cineon Log 6500K (HD) target and you are set...

If you use an ACD27 to Color Grade and you order the ACD to Cineon 3DLUT then with just a conversion LUT you can get all deliverables with super accurate result... REC709, DCP, sRGB... so no need to buy an expensive SDI video monitor...

To export for REC709 or DCP or internet (sRGB) select the appropriate conversion LUT below (in case that you use REC709 monitor you don't need a REC709 conversion)

The order now link http://www.motionfx.gr/order-now-lut.html#gen_order

If someone has a high contrast original clip shoot with Technicolor profile, just send me the link in order to see how a real Cineon 3DLUT performs on highlights and faces...
 
jaakkon said:
Here is one project i am doing. Shooting with 60d and cinestyle. Grading in Apple color. Not using the lut.
Cinestyle is actually quite amazing holding all the details in highs and lows and improves the dr quite much. It holds the grading also quite well even when pushed to extreme.

Click to expand...

Beautiful work. What lens were you shooting with? It would be interesting to see some still frames before grading.
 
I'm having trouble getting the exposure right. When ever I set my exposure it always clips the whites, but when I underexpose it gets really dark. What should I set the exposure to, under or over exposure?
 
ROCKMORE said:
Great series of tests.
How over exposed was the 2nd round of shots? I was very surprised to see how much skin detail appeared in the over exposed series, and that the normal exposure was far softer and smoother. I would have thought the results would be the opposite.
Click to expand...

Here is the frame strait out of the camera:
5674093898_376dc326ea.jpg

Got it as hot as I could without clipping completely.
 
ROCKMORE said:
Beautiful work. What lens were you shooting with? It would be interesting to see some still frames before grading.
Click to expand...

On this I had sigma 17-50 2.8, tokina 11-16 2.8 and canon 70-200 2.8. We had a tight schedule so I had to use the varifocals. One think I noted is that you really have to take care not to let anything in picture to go over 100 % as this creates huge problem when grading. All the superwhites will show their ugly face when you start to work with grade.
 
It's a still frame, but reduced to 1920 x 1280. The original has much more detail. Just looking for options grade the CineStyle. The combination of the curve and gamma correction tools seems to more control for me.
Click to expand...

? why test a still? What the camera shoots to H264 and what the camera does to a still downscaled is pretty different. So what's the point?
 
draven4 said:
? why test a still? What the camera shoots to H264 and what the camera does to a still downscaled is pretty different. So what's the point?
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more, all the stills I post and link from my blog are taken from video.
 
I've never used a LUT before and wondered if anyone has used the cinestyle LUT in premiere pro? I've managed to use LUT Buddy to import the LUT that came with it but when I output my video it doesnt apply the LUT to the finished article.

I also can't copy and paste the LUT from one video to the next, I need to reimport it every time.

If I carry on doing things how I am now, cinestyle won't be worth using no matter what the DR is like!
 
tikigod19 said:
I've never used a LUT before and wondered if anyone has used the cinestyle LUT in premiere pro? I've managed to use LUT Buddy to import the LUT that came with it but when I output my video it doesnt apply the LUT to the finished article.

I also can't copy and paste the LUT from one video to the next, I need to reimport it every time.

If I carry on doing things how I am now, cinestyle won't be worth using no matter what the DR is like!
Click to expand...

Theres some issues with LUT Buddy and premiere pro right now, hopefully they get it fixed soon. It seems that some people it's working for and some its not. It also depends on Mac vs PC and if you have the old .lut or the new .mga they sent out.
 
OK, I might be an idiot, can't read correctly, or just had toooo much whiskey but.......
As I understand this Technicolor profile, it just cuts off the top (10% or so..) and the bottom (10% or so..) and basically squishes the entire (or so...) dynamic range into the middle of the picture. So you effectively end up with a totally USELESS FLAT picture in the camera. (at least every video I've ever seen shot with it was crappy looking.) The magic comes when you apply the LUT (curves) to the image that was recorded. The LUT with the technicolor profile is designed to match up perfectly with the technicolor profile to get you the best dynamic range for the 5D mii ONLY.

Yes you could guess at the "S" curve (without using the LUT provided) and get something close, and yes you could use it on a 7D, 60D etc, and get something close, but basically this was designed for the 5D by Technicolor.

Am I wrong on any of this?
 
Zech said:
Theres some issues with LUT Buddy and premiere pro right now, hopefully they get it fixed soon. It seems that some people it's working for and some its not. It also depends on Mac vs PC and if you have the old .lut or the new .mga they sent out.
Click to expand...

thanks for that info, nice to know its not just me lacking ability!

At the mo I'm shooting neutral as at the moment the amount of time needed in the edit to benefit from cinestyle is just too great
 
videohog said:
OK, I might be an idiot, can't read correctly, or just had toooo much whiskey but.......
As I understand this Technicolor profile, it just cuts off the top (10% or so..) and the bottom (10% or so..) and basically squishes the entire (or so...) dynamic range into the middle of the picture. So you effectively end up with a totally USELESS FLAT picture in the camera. (at least every video I've ever seen shot with it was crappy looking.) The magic comes when you apply the LUT (curves) to the image that was recorded. The LUT with the technicolor profile is designed to match up perfectly with the technicolor profile to get you the best dynamic range for the 5D mii ONLY.

Yes you could guess at the "S" curve (without using the LUT provided) and get something close, and yes you could use it on a 7D, 60D etc, and get something close, but basically this was designed for the 5D by Technicolor.

Am I wrong on any of this?
Click to expand...

Kind of, It does put your blacks at 16 (out of 225) it doesn't do anything to the highs, also It doesn't cut it off, it just pushes it up.

Yes, the image strait out of the camera looks crappy without color correction, but any flat style will do that.

It was built and optimized for the 5D yes, but It works with any of them, and I have gotten beautiful results from my T2i.

tikigod19 said:
thanks for that info, nice to know its not just me lacking ability!

At the mo I'm shooting neutral as at the moment the amount of time needed in the edit to benefit from cinestyle is just too great
Click to expand...
I skip LUT Buddy completely by defining my own s-curve based on the LUT. Do it once, save it as a preset, and your good to go. Here is the tutorial, hope it helps: http://zech-fstop.blogspot.com/2011/05/using-technicolors-lut-file-without-lut.html
 
videohog said:
....So you effectively end up with a totally USELESS FLAT picture in the camera. (at least every video I've ever seen shot with it was crappy looking.) The magic comes when you apply the LUT (curves) to the image that was recorded....
Click to expand...
Yes you end up with a nearly uselessly flat picture in camera. You have to change the way you think about the look up table though. It's only a tool to view the clip closer to what we actually saw when the shot was made. The key is to understand that we now have the capability to use more information in our final output. 8 bit encoding to h.264 is a linear function. Staying in 8bit spread of 0-255 can never give you anything more. By going to a non-linear color curve (s-curve) in post we can end up with the ability to use more of the color space for our output. Especially if your NLE is using 32 bit color during correction.

videohog said:
....The LUT with the technicolor profile is designed to match up perfectly with the technicolor profile to get you the best dynamic range for the 5D mii ONLY....
Click to expand...
Again this is a misnomer. Think about the concept as going from 2d to 3d space. By calling everything from 0-16 a shade we can then add those back during correction (s-curve) to bring another dimension to the table.

I have two takes on this whole exercise. One is that the CineStyle profile is very robust. While it is bothersome that the files look so bad in camera, it just pops in post for me like no other. In Vegas I've simply created a few preset filter packages that I simply drop on these clips and presto, I have the best looking clips I've ever created.

Secondly, I've learned an incredible amount about the concept of color space and how to tweak it to my liking. For instance if I shoot in Standard color style I have to use a curve that is exactly opposite the CineStyle LUT curve to bring back detail in the highlights and bring back some tone into the blacks. Learning how this new style works has taught me how to bring out the best in all my old clips that were captured with Standard and Landscape styles before I even knew what a style was. Surprisingly these tools have proven useful in color correcting stills in photoshop as well.

Even if you don't use the style in the end of the day, going through learning how it works is a valuable experience IMHO.

Cheers,
PEte
 
Zech said:
I skip LUT Buddy completely by defining my own s-curve based on the LUT. Do it once, save it as a preset, and your good to go. Here is the tutorial, hope it helps: http://zech-fstop.blogspot.com/2011/05/using-technicolors-lut-file-without-lut.html
Click to expand...

here's an Adobe curve that does basically the same transformation as the LUT:
http://www.similaar.com/foto/picturestyles/TechnicolorCurve4.ACV



c3hammer said:
Even if you don't use the style in the end of the day, going through learning how it works is a valuable experience IMHO.
Click to expand...

exactly my experience: I concluded I don't want to use CineStyle very often, but I learned a lot while moving towards that conclusion
 
Professionals whose cheapest equipment they'll ever use is DSLR are excited while the happy amateurs are calling it useless...... lol.
 
NormanBates said:
MY HONEYMOON WITH THE TECHNICOLOR PICTURE STYLE IS OVER
Click to expand...
Same here

Why ?

I'm no DIT.

I have a camera and I want to shoot and get the best possible results without going overboard. look at the following list of "IFs" (I think they apply to the majority of DSLR shooters) :

NormanBates said:
* if I know my ....

* if my final images are ...

* if my final images are going to have ...
Click to expand...

And There are also the "BUTs" :

NormanBates said:
I always leave ...
* but leaving too much and then having to... creates an awful lot of noise in my final images ;
* (but) the more I mess with my footag.... the nastier it looks ;
* (regarding the lack of color correction skills) but that's me and I can't change that but very, very slowly
Click to expand...

IMHO, a workflow that consists of so many "IFs" and "BUTs" cannot be considered "WorkFLOW" (because it is not "FLOWing")
 
c3hammer said:
Yes you end up with a nearly uselessly flat picture in camera. You have to change the way you think about the look up table though. It's only a tool to view the clip closer to what we actually saw when the shot was made. The key is to understand that we now have the capability to use more information in our final output. 8 bit encoding to h.264 is a linear function. Staying in 8bit spread of 0-255 can never give you anything more. By going to a non-linear color curve (s-curve) in post we can end up with the ability to use more of the color space for our output. Especially if your NLE is using 32 bit color during correction.

Again this is a misnomer. Think about the concept as going from 2d to 3d space. By calling everything from 0-16 a shade we can then add those back during correction (s-curve) to bring another dimension to the table.

I have two takes on this whole exercise. One is that the CineStyle profile is very robust. While it is bothersome that the files look so bad in camera, it just pops in post for me like no other. In Vegas I've simply created a few preset filter packages that I simply drop on these clips and presto, I have the best looking clips I've ever created.
Cheers,
PEte
Click to expand...


I agree that this is a very easy way to get the most out of the camera, but I find that most don't realise that this is just a way of shooting flat and then lets you automatically apply the (CORRECT) curves in post. (via the LUT) and the LUT was setup to be used with the technicolor profile. Technicolor set this up to get the most out of the 5D and it may very well work on other cams but was fine tuned for the 5D. (and THEIR post workflow)

c3hammer said:
Even if you don't use the style in the end of the day, going through learning how it works is a valuable experience IMHO.
Click to expand...


+1


@Zech "Kind of, It does put your blacks at 16 (out of 225) it doesn't do anything to the highs, also It doesn't cut it off, it just pushes it up."
I agree, it doesn't cut them off it does push them up. (if you look at a histogram it just appears to be cut off) Every histogram I've seen shows both the top and bottom being "pushed" though. (thats why the blown highs roll off a little better.)
 
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