Technicolor CineStyle vs. Picture Styles

J

jmlau

Well-known member
Tried doing a search on this specifically but couldn't really find anything so I'll just pose the question here. Sorry if this is actually a repeat.

I recently saw a video on Vimeo of some one showing the different possibilities with color grading in Colorista II using the Technicolor CineStyle with a Canon DSLR. He went from using the flat, low contrast profile and was able to create a lot of different looking images from the same footage. I'd always been under the impression that it works better to simply dial in your WB and adjust the picture style according to the type of shot you're going for (high contrast/sharpness, low contrast, etc.) and set the mood as you're filming. The latter method would need you to know exactly what you're trying to shoot, etc., but you wouldn't have to worry as much about grading in post and you can focus on other aspects of editing.

Is there a benefit to doing one method over the other?
 
I would love to find some training/tutorial on:

1. Using Magic Bullet/Colorista for proper grading - how to get specific looks (no, not interested in the pre-made looks) but rather understanding the theory in the colors.
2. How to properly shoot with the technicolor picture style.

This vid is amazing.
 
I guess most people here have already seen all this, but I'll post it just in case: my color grading guru is Stu Maschwitz: http://prolost.com/blog/2009/6/23/got-me-a-side-job.html http://prolost.com/blog/2008/3/23/save-our-skins.html http://prolost.com/memorycolors/ http://prolost.com/blog/2009/6/23/got-me-a-side-job.html http://prolost.com/blog/2011/1/27/color-correcting-food-with-colorista-ii.html http://prolost.com/mojo (and of couse: TRY FLAAT INSTEAD OF CINESTYLE!! just as easy to grade, same DR or more depending on the option you choose, and less noise in the final images thanks to more efficient use of the codec's color space)
 
There was a recent post on picture styles in the HDSLR section. I feel I learned a lot from it, so here's what I take are some of the main take-home message about Cinestyle (please, please feel free, everyone, to offer any corrections -- I'm just going by what I've read online):

1. If you know exactly what look you want, it's always better to do it in camera. (Any grading degrades the image to some extent?) Spielberg basically creates it all on set, with some digital intermediate. But do you always know what you want, do you want to shut down options in post, and do you always have time to play with picture profiles? If you're doing event coverage or documentary, there's situations where something happens, and you needed to have press record ten seconds ago.

2. Cinestyle doesn't magically give you more dynamic range. What it basically does it record more information than any of the standard picture profiles in the blacks and highlights, at the cost of recording less information in the mids. (This can give the subjective impression of greater dynamic range, in the same way that higher contrast can create the impression of greater resolution?) In addition to preserving detail, recording more info in blacks and highlights has the advantage of reducing noise in these regions.

3. The main disadvantage seems to be risk of "banding" artifacts in the midtones, where similar hues get treated as the same hue, so that there's no smooth gradation. This appears as streaks across the image. (However, with Cinestyle off, you're at greater risk of banding in darker and lighter areas.) I also think there's some sort of destauration issue in the midtones, and that you can't increase saturation as easily as you might otherwise have been able to (or might have recorded in camera), since there's less information to work with.

4. Times where you might want to use Cinestyle: high contrast situations -- like under daylight, or when recording live shows indoors -- to reduce the feeling that you're going from crushed blacks to blown out highlights; or, which is similar, low-key lighting, when a big chunk of your frame might be dark, to reduce the noise in the blacks. Times when you might want to avoid it: low-contrast situations, where properly exposing will get you all the detail you want anyway; situations where it's important to record subtle gradations of midtones; and situations where most of the frame is midtones (eg skin tones).

If you wanted to shoot a silhouette, I assume it would be better to turn Cinestyle off, since you'd want to lose details in your blacks.

5. There's also some sort of deal about it being better to not judge exposure when Cinestyle is active. Not sure exactly why (hopefully someone can reply and provide information); presumably something to do with LCD not being accurate representation in this case? But why should Cinestyle be any different from any other picture profile?
 
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1. If you know exactly what look you want, it's always better to do it in camera. (Any grading degrades the image to some extent?) Spielberg basically creates it all on set, with some digital intermediate. But do you always know what you want, do you want to shut down options in post, and do you always have time to play with picture profiles? If you're doing event coverage or documentary, there's situations where something happens, and you needed to have press record ten seconds ago.

To a degree yes. If you know exactly what you want then nothing wrong with just capturing that in camera. It's what Shane Hurlbut recommended BEFORE cinestyle came out. You better be pretty sure though because you'll have a limited ability to change it (especially a saturated high contrast look). EVERY big budget film goes through multiple passes of color correction. Spielberg (nor anybody else) is capturing that final look on set.


2. Cinestyle doesn't magically give you more dynamic range. What it basically does it record more information than any of the standard picture profiles in the blacks and highlights, at the cost of recording less information in the mids. (This can give the subjective impression of greater dynamic range, in the same way that higher contrast can create the impression of greater resolution?) In addition to preserving detail, recording more info in blacks and highlights has the advantage of reducing noise in these regions.

Yes, detail preserved which gives you bit more "effective" dynamic range.

3. The main disadvantage seems to be risk of "banding" artifacts in the midtones, where similar hues get treated as the same hue, so that there's no smooth gradation. This appears as streaks across the image. (However, with Cinestyle off, you're at greater risk of banding in darker and lighter areas.) I also think there's some sort of destauration issue in the midtones, and that you can't increase saturation as easily as you might otherwise have been able to (or might have recorded in camera), since there's less information to work with.

There is a limit to how far you can push the 4:2:0 8 bit image, so yes, if not exposed properly and you really start pushing it around banding in the midtones seems to be one of the first things that will pop up.

4. Times where you might want to use Cinestyle: high contrast situations -- like under daylight, or when recording live shows indoors -- to reduce the feeling that you're going from crushed blacks to blown out highlights; or, which is similar, low-key lighting, when a big chunk of your frame might be dark, to reduce the noise in the blacks. Times when you might want to avoid it: low-contrast situations, where properly exposing will get you all the detail you want anyway; situations where it's important to record subtle gradations of midtones; and situations where most of the frame is midtones (eg skin tones).

If you wanted to shoot a silhouette, I assume it would be better to turn Cinestyle off, since you'd want to lose details in your blacks.

I use it all the time. When I look at a shot (in cinestyle) and see all the detail popped out of the shadows I have a hard time turning it off. Even if I intend to crush the blacks down I still shoot cinestyle then choose the crush point in post.

5. There's also some sort of deal about it being better to not judge exposure when Cinestyle is active. Not sure exactly why (hopefully someone can reply and provide information); presumably something to do with LCD not being accurate representation in this case? But why should Cinestyle be any different from any other picture profile?

You'll tend to underexpose if you set exposure using the camera or by "eyeballing" it. The low contrast desaturated look makes you brain think you're over exposed so the hand reaches up there and cranks the aperture down. It's much harder to focus with low contrast a sharper more high contrast look just makes focusing easier. So I use a very high contrast look (Kodachrome) for focus and exposure then I switch to cinestyle right before I roll.
 
Could someone do a breakdown of Shadow vs. Midtone vs. Highlights? Pretty new to color correcting so any advice would help a lot. Thanks.
 
jmlau said:
Could someone do a breakdown of Shadow vs. Midtone vs. Highlights? Pretty new to color correcting so any advice would help a lot. Thanks.
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Pretty much are what they sound like. Darker (underexposed areas of the frame) are shadows. Properly exposed (maybe 1 stop above or below "ideal") are midtones, overexposed are highlights. The camera is built to say "OK, I have limited info I can retain. I'm not going to waste it on these areas 3 stops underexposed. I'll just crush them to black and the same for overexposed. I'll just blow them out to white". Cinestyle "tricks" the camera into retaining that shadow and highlight detail instead of crushing/blowing out, but if there is limited (4:2:0 8 bit) place to put that data then you have to steal some space from somewhere else, so it steals some of the info space from the "properly" exposed areas.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
Pretty much are what they sound like. Darker (underexposed areas of the frame) are shadows. Properly exposed (maybe 1 stop above or below "ideal") are midtones, overexposed are highlights. The camera is built to say "OK, I have limited info I can retain. I'm not going to waste it on these areas 3 stops underexposed. I'll just crush them to black and the same for overexposed. I'll just blow them out to white". Cinestyle "tricks" the camera into retaining that shadow and highlight detail instead of crushing/blowing out, but if there is limited (4:2:0 8 bit) place to put that data then you have to steal some space from somewhere else, so it steals some of the info space from the "properly" exposed areas.
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Wow, that makes so much sense...
 
"Effective" dynamic range means more to some people than others. If you need every extra little bit of latitude and then some, then yes, Cinestyle is good for that...

...although the Marvel Cine guys think differently:
"UPDATE: Warning to all users of the Technicolor Cinema-style flat-profile! Using the Technicolor style will severely limit your dynamic range! Blacks are lifted and whites are crushed! With only 255 values between black and white for each color, snooping 10% off at both sides is simple “DR theft”! You remove another 10% of DR when using the Technicolor LUT (via LutBuddy); that’s probably two stops total!
With the Marvels profile 3.4 you use all available digital space. You can make the Marvels profile as flat as the Technicolor profile by altering it’s curve, dialing the contrast setting further down."
(but don't take their word for it. do your own tests. I personally don't know what they are talking about, as I have not specifically compared the two styles between each other.)

Here is a simple real world test done by NormanBates, Sareesh, and myself:

Here is Cinestyle next to Neutral0,-4,-2,0....

The red arrows are in the same exact point in order to reference the points of interest.

and if you push them to see what details they are preserving you get...



As you can see, the clipping points in both the shadows and the highlights are near identical. Cinestyle gives more detail, but by the time you've added as much contrast as the person in the OP's sample video, those details will be lost.

Saying Cinestyle gives more effective dynamic range is true, but in most cases that is on the verge of splitting hairs. Why? because that little bit of "effective" brings with it saturation anomalies, banding, and shadow noise. Fixing banding and noise reduces detail.



-
ps. I do not see any problem with people shooting super saturated and with high contrast in-camera, but I don't do it.
 
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I don't see any problem with high contrast in camera either, if you want a high contrast final result.

I tried Marvel (whose "issues" with Cinestyle have to be taken with a grain of salt since it directly competes with and has totally eclipsed their effort in this area). Marvel just didn't work as well for me.
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
I don't see any problem with high contrast in camera either, if you want a high contrast final result.

I tried Marvel (whose "issues" with Cinestyle have to be taken with a grain of salt since it directly competes with and has totally eclipsed their effort in this area). Marvel just didn't work as well for me.
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I edited my post, since I see how it could be taken that I was agreeing with them. But their opinion doesn't change the realities of Cinestyle.
 
I'm crazy busy this week, but I'll try to post some of my ungraded and graded footage using cinestyle from a music video shoot this past weekend. I don't use it as a "cheat" as often as I think some people do. I use it with properly exposed shots. What it allows me to do is have no detail loss in all the shadows at all. Then I correct to crush the shadows at the exact point I want them. My S curve is generally flatter than the one provided in the LUT, though sometimes I will push beyond that.
 
Cinestyle often inspires an "Either... Or..." debate. There are pros and cons. When I talk about the cons, I am not saying "never use cinestyle!" I am merely cutting through the buzz words.
 
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gonzo_entertainment said:
I'm crazy busy this week, but I'll try to post some of my ungraded and graded footage using cinestyle from a music video shoot this past weekend. I don't use it as a "cheat" as often as I think some people do. I use it with properly exposed shots.
Click to expand...

This is important for less experienced people to note. Using cinestyle as a cheat is going to end up looking bad too, if not worse, at times.
 
It's no Panacea that's for sure. There are trade offs. I've been using it pretty much all the time for about 8 months now. I'm just used to it and know what it can and can't do.
 
I guess to go with my initial post, this is the video I first saw which argues for in-camera styles vs. post grading.

 
Lots of good info in general terms, BUT the issue is now you are mostly committed to those settings.
If I blue shift in camera, or set it very soft or sharp, whatever, I'm going to have a hard time altering that in post compared to a more neutral image. That's the beauty of the Red RAW format (which is light years beyond cinestyle, can't even compare other than they are TRYING to do a similar thing). I don't want to have to make all those decisions on set. I want the flexibility after the film is edited to warm this scene up, cool that one down, saturate this scene, de-saturate that scene, etc....
 
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