Project Settings and Resizing

G

greymog

Well-known member
Bit of an 'I'm overwhelmed and can't make a decision' question here, partly because I'm not confident I really know what's going on.

I'm on a job for a year cataloging products, I shoot 5 of the same video a week, it's going quite well, but I have a few things I'm not clear about in Ae that I need help with... (also googling and reading about all this as I post, not helping me much though).

1- When I set up my project, I know that it's preferable to work at higher bit depths, I used to go for the whole 32bpc thing, but I'm not seeing as much a difference between 16bpc and 32bpc in what I'm doing. Also, I've read a ton about linearizing, but still don't get when I should do what. I'm not doing any compositing. My lighting is super controlled, I used to mix CT but thankfully no more it's all balanced going in, sheer white board in the back with a fixture mounted that I have to shoot. So I'm not really doing much. Actually, I sometimes do composite 2 exposures, static camera, on top of each other to get the filament... Does a linear workflow 'blend light more naturally' and what am I watching out for? I'm confused as how to set up my project. After hearing a lot, I'm yet clueless as to why I would want to make this choice or that. On one hand I wanna do everything to UTMOST quality, on the other I want what's right and enough for the material in order to speed by efficiently.

2- I shoot 1080p for an iPad finish. I know there's many types of scaling. This is gonna sound really ignorant. But how do I pick in Ae? Is there a special 'careful and intelligent' way to rescale footage or is it really as simple as scaling down with the transform utility? I really want to know what makes a proper downscale, I research but I get info about resampling image in photoshop. I dunno if I'm throwing away data or really cramming it into a smaller size. My edges still look aliasy when I shrink down.

Forgive me guys I'm a bit overwhelmed.

Thanks all in advance.

T
 
Ok, I'll post on... I've decided to set up projects the following way

- Edit in premiere
- Import to AE
- Project settings 16bpc Colorspace srgb Linearize off
- Simulate output - ? I usually go with rec709 if I'm inputting and outputting that, but for srgb? for ipad? no clue
- AE my brains out
- Nest the 1920 1080 comp in a 1024 576 and scale down using transform (also wondering about that)
- sharpen last
- output module prores 422 hq and color mgmt output in srgb

Is there anything blatantly wrong with this? I don't feel anything but I have that nag in my gut that happens when I know I must be missing something.

Thanks all

T
 
OK, I'll jump in for a little bit. I don't see anything specifically "wrong," but your workflow seems a bit "excessive" to me. It sounds to me like you are shooting some sort of illumination product, but on video - is that correct? It is very unclear to me, for instance, as to what you are starting with (camera, capture format, etc) and what your output is supposed to be. Specifically:

What do you actually do in AE? "AE your brains out" is kinda vague as to what you are trying to accomplish. Is it color-correction, compositing, exposure correction, what? Why are you downscaling at all? Why sharpen?

Not saying these are necessarily bad, but not sure what you hope to do.


Jim
 
I just typed a reply but it got deleted.

In short I have to shoot light fixtures for a video catalog on a white board. All the videos must be the same. It's a template for editing even.

My concerns are, I ahve to make all the whites the same, and the same intensity.

I shouldn't clip, and try and show the filament.

I have to do some blemish removal every now and then on the whiteboards by means of masking or 'rubber stamping' or whatever works for the situation.

I was resizing initially because I was shooting with a D600 and it wasn't the nicest thing I've shot with. Now we have a GH3 and I can finally shoot a straight line without a mess. Also the noise is finer, and it's sharp enough, but am curious about how to carefully and properly scale down a comp in Ae, if such a way applies, like when you resample an image in photoshop.

Now my problem is whether or not to go 32bpc, or stay at 16bpc, and whether or not I need to linearize as I'm not really compositing except for the once in a blue moon where I can't get enough suppression in my scene to catch the filament, then I'll just do 2 exposures and blend them.

The videos all ahve to be the same. It's a catalog, so it's step 1 step 2 step 3. The final output is iPad, so I'm resizing for that, and also would like to know what color space to work in and output with as opposed to what to preview with. Is iPad REC709? or sRGB?

It is a lot of info, so much that I'm lost. I read so much about these things, but my situation is a bit confusing for me.

Thanks Jim, and sorry for my panic. I really don't wanna screw this gig up. I love it.

T
 
Current iPads (non-Retina) are 1024x768 4:3 XGA format. Why not just compose the images so you can crop to this rather than scale? I would edit in and output to sRGB for any web or computer delivery, it is the default color space. ( Make sure your grading monitor is calibrated for sRGB too if you want what you see to be consistent with what the iPad will show). If nothing is moving in the frame, why not shoot raw stills? Much easier to grade for a consistent finish.
 
Hi Razz, and thanks for your reply :) I would totally shoot stills, but things do move. The lights are being installed in the video it's kind of a catalog/instruction manual.

I was scaling down before to maximize what I could eek out of that Nikon D600, it was really soft, so scaling and sharpening in the end made a difference after denoising and color.

I've resorted to Color Finesse, as there are scopes in there and that helps a lot, I was actually eyeing it with Colorista, and Looks is far too bells-n-whistles-y for my taste just so I can see a scope.

I will keep this thread going, but still, 16bpc vs 32bpc for this application? And yes the scaling requirement is less urgent now, but I'm curious as to how that would work in Ae, if it is really as simple as using transform or if there's a more elaborate/algorithm selectable way...

Again thanks all

T
 
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