The limits of raw…. or...

Steve Kahn said:
Would you mind sharing your editing workflow using ACR and AE? Could you for example edit a short film with many clips and many edits this way?
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Matt's workflow for ML raw, using the 5D3, Windows 7, and Adobe CC suite, Vision Log camera raw profile

1. Copy raw from CF card to external sata drive using Windows explorer.
2. Convert raw to DNG using raw2dng
3. Edit a single master frame in Photoshop CC: (Log Camera Profile, white balance, sharpening, remove chromatic abberation, etc.)
4. Copy that master frame metadata to the first DNG frame of the sequence (use bridge to open both at the same time in ACR and then synchronize)
5. Open the image sequence in After Effects (16-bit project, Rec. 709 full range), the settings applied to first DNG will be applied to the whole set.
6. Use After Effects CC render que to render the sequence to V210 codec avi file. (V210 is 10-bit, 422 uncompressed)
7. Re-render the V210 avi file to DNxHD 175x mxf in Media Encoder CC. This goes hella fast, much faster than real time. (DNxHD 175X mxf is 10-bit 422 with compression)
8. Delete V210 avi files when you're done making the DNxHD files.
9. Apply Lut, color grade, and edit the DNxHD 175x mxf files in Premiere Pro CC

Ok, some answers to the obvious questions.

1. Which LUT works well with the Vision Log camera profile... Many Log Luts will work, the Vision color Log to rec. 709 is a great starting place.

2. Why V210, why not render from After Effects directly to DNxHD mxf... You can't, that codec is not available in After Effects.

3. Why not render directly to DNxHD mxf using Media Encoder CC... Its too slow, cannot render multiple frames simultaneously the way the After Effects render que can.

4. What is DNxHD mxf and why use it... a new 64-bit verison of the codec only in Adobe CC, does not use quicktime, extremely high quality.

5. How much quality do you lose going from DNG raw to V210 to DNxHD mxf... almost visually lossless, even at 400% magnification, the step from v210 to DNxHD mxf is almost impossible to see any loss.
 
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I will be honest. I really don't like this workflow for several reasons.

- Two renders before rendering out
- does AE let you batch render hundreds of files? How do you accomplish this?
- does AE let you quickly and seamlessly match audio and video MLV files as Resolve will potentially (once developer g3gg0 locks down the 5D3 timecodes)?
- AE and premiere are archaic color correctors compared to Resolve.
- loss of flexibility. What if you want to go back to the original DNGs to make major CC that break down in 10bit?

It's hard to believe that Resolve debayering is so much worse than ACR that it is worth it to give up so much CC flexibility of Resolve completely and to jump into a 10bit structure with no going back.
 
Steve Kahn said:
I will be honest. I really don't like this workflow for several reasons.

- Two renders before rendering out
- does AE let you batch render hundreds of files? How do you accomplish this?
- does AE let you quickly and seamlessly match audio and video MLV files as Resolve will potentially (once developer g3gg0 locks down the 5D3 timecodes)?
- AE and premiere are archaic color correctors compared to Resolve.
- loss of flexibility. What if you want to go back to the original DNGs to make major CC that break down in 10bit?

It's hard to believe that Resolve debayering is so much worse than ACR that it is worth it to give up so much CC flexibility of Resolve completely and to jump into a 10bit structure with no going back.
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My thought on workflow is to know enough about the final look to shoot raw, one light correct to get you most of what you want in the final grade, transcode once to a high quality intermediate codec, edit and finish with final grade in the intermediate codec, export to delivery formats, done. Refined control over primary white balance, grayscale, gamma, highlight and shadow recovery are the most important advantages of raw. Once you are in a high quality uncompressed or lossless compressed video codec, you have plenty of range to work within the more limited display space gamut.
 
My 'drunken', dream workflow.

1. MLV+wav to compressed 10bit Cinema .DNG+wav via raw2dng 2.0- drag and drop, Mac & PC, real-time, ON SITE, light footprint!! (deleting original mlvs to ease the pocket book!!)
2. Edit compressed cenema .DNGs in Final Cut Pro 10.1, hell yes~ (I don't care if you use Media100).
3. Export beautiful mp4s to Vimeo for all the pixel peepers to coo over with every bit of debayering and highlight recovery only available to NASA atm.
 
Well to be honest I didn't think anyone would like my workflow. :) I'm hoping that Resolve will someday match ACR in raw rendering quality.

For now though, it's cool, I respect different opinions. I'm going down my own path for the best debayer possible. I'm personally not bothered at all about editing and final grading in 10-bit 422 when I still think it looks better than anything I've gotten using Resolve alone. Everything I do ends up being 8-bit 4:2:0 either broadcast or on the internet, so if the final result is all that matters, what do I care if it went from 14-bit to 8-bit or 14-bit to 10-bit to 8-bit?
 
Celluloid Dream said:
Matt's workflow for ML raw, using the 5D3, Windows 7, and Adobe CC suite, Vision Log camera raw profile

1. Copy raw from CF card to external sata drive using Windows explorer.
2. Convert raw to DNG using raw2dng
3. Edit a single master frame in Photoshop CC: (Log Camera Profile, white balance, sharpening, remove chromatic abberation, etc.)
4. Copy that master frame metadata to the first DNG frame of the sequence (use bridge to open both at the same time in ACR and then synchronize)
5. Open the image sequence in After Effects (16-bit project, Rec. 709 full range), the settings applied to first DNG will be applied to the whole set.
6. Use After Effects CC render que to render the sequence to V210 codec avi file. (V210 is 10-bit, 422 uncompressed)
7. Re-render the V210 avi file to DNxHD 175x mxf in Media Encoder CC. This goes hella fast, much faster than real time. (DNxHD 175X mxf is 10-bit 422 with compression)
8. Delete V210 avi files when you're done making the DNxHD files.
9. Apply Lut, color grade, and edit the DNxHD 175x mxf files in Premiere Pro CC
Click to expand...

Well, I really like that workflow, it's a more detailed version of what I've been proposing for months.

My reasons:
* If you want to use Adobe and not Resolve, you have to transcode, there's no way around it (given how poor the PremiereCC DNG support is).
* 10-bit-log is just as good as 14-bit-linear-RAW. In fact there's way more difference between different debayers than between 10-bit-log and 14-bit-linear-RAW. I'm so convinced that I would say "8. delete RAW and V210 files once you've checked there's no corruption on any DNxHD files".

The big downside of this is that it's a labor intensive workflow: lots of steps, including some manual ones (color correction) that have to be applied to every clip (even the ones that will not show up in the final edit). But if you want the IQ and don't want to use Resolve, it's the best option.

What we disagree on is in our reason to avoid Resolve: I think the debayering is just as good as in ACR, the difference is in the flexibility for highlight recovery. My main reason is that I really can't understand how Resolve works; about to be solved with this.
 
New workstation components coming this week. Looking forward to learning Resolve as soon a I have a machine that can run it. If you are on a Mac the Pomfort Cliphouse software is a good and much easier to learn alternative.

But there are significant tools available in the high end dedicated stills processors like Capture One for tweaking raw images that just don't exist yet in Resolve. Things I see people using multiple secondaries, masks, and traveling mattes to get in Resolve can usually be done simply with little fuss in a base correction with Capture One or Raw Therapee in just minutes. Rendering may be slow, but that is just machine time.
Speed is more important to working pros typically due to time constraints on commercial projects.
 
One possible reason people think ACR debayers significantly better than Resolve is that ACR applies color (chroma) noise reduction by default (it is set to 25 by default). You should set it to 0 for a fair comparison.
As for workflows, Rsolve has pretty much all basic editing features necessary, plus some nice extras. I am confident the time when roundtrips to NLEs for small projects become obsolete is very near. Even now Resolve is more then adequate for online editing shorts and possibly commercials (if they aren't vfx heavy).
 
cpc said:
One possible reason people think ACR debayers significantly better than Resolve is that ACR applies color (chroma) noise reduction by default (it is set to 25 by default). You should set it to 0 for a fair comparison.
As for workflows, Rsolve has pretty much all basic editing features necessary, plus some nice extras. I am confident the time when roundtrips to NLEs for small projects become obsolete is very near. Even now Resolve is more then adequate for online editing shorts and possibly commercials (if they aren't vfx heavy).
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I realize it is not on many people's radar, but I've really grown to like Lightworks. It is a full featured DI program originally developed for heavy iron finishing of feature films.

It has a full range of node based color grading tools, similar to but not as comprehensive as Resolve, Built in VFX and titling, all the usual pro NLE editing functions, comprehensive media management, plugin support for a range of third party programs including the Boris FX line, Eyeon, Fusion, Sapphire, Premiere/AE plugins. Multi-channel audio mixing and sweetening too with support for Mackie external control surfaces. Import, editing and export in most common formats at up to 5k resolution.
No roundtripping needed once your project is ingested, but it does support the usual range of common cross platform interchange formats too.
Doesn't ingest DNG raw yet, but I am transcoding to Jpeg or tiff frame sequences and editing those directly on the timeline. Transcode once, edit, finish, export, done.
A lot of major feature films have been finished in Lightworks over the years, including most recently Wolf of Wall Street. It has been around as long as AVID, but was geared for feature film editing vs video editing.
The most recent free version imports anything and exports web video at up to 720p. The pro version is $79.99/yr subscription or $279.99 purchase and exports in virtually all common pro formats at resolutions up to 4k and 3D.
It meets my needs perfectly for the relatively simple doc style work I do and for some experimental fine art work too. Very powerful program.
 
Thanks for the heads up, Razz. Looks nice, and reasonable pricing, esp. the monthly subscription. A bit weird to charge fees for a free codec as DNxHD though.
How does Lightworks compare to something like Premiere?
I find there are 3 editing features I miss in Resolve: markers with duration and labels (there are only colored markers with no duration in Resolve), side-by-side trim window (it seems Resolve only shows the window for rolling edits), nested sequences.
 
cpc said:
Thanks for the heads up, Razz. Looks nice, and reasonable pricing, esp. the monthly subscription. A bit weird to charge fees for a free codec as DNxHD though.
How does Lightworks compare to something like Premiere?
I find there are 3 editing features I miss in Resolve: markers with duration and labels (there are only colored markers with no duration in Resolve), side-by-side trim window (it seems Resolve only shows the window for rolling edits), nested sequences.
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DNXHD is not a free codec. The license is a 1 time fee paid to Avid. I suppose it is built into the purchase price of other NLE's.

Lightworks is more like the CS package including AE and Speedgrade than like Premiere. I've mostly used Premiere Elements over the past few years, but for some reason the film editing paradigm of Lightworks just clicked for me. It is a much more efficient timeline. You can mix different codecs and resolutions in the edit timeline with no need to transcode or render anything. I'd suggest watching the tutorial videos to get a feel for it. PE's consumer bling add ons just get in the way for me. I'm sure PPro is cleaner.
Great candidate for a CS replacement if you don't like Adobe's subscription model. Also cross platform, currently Windows & Linux, OSX coming soon.
 
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You are probably right. I guess I've been spoilt and misled by the ubiquitous presence of the codec in other apps, plus the free downloadable playback codec.
Interesting that you are comparing Lwks to AE + Speedgrade. They seem to mainly tout the editing features on the site. But you've piqued my curiosity, I'll check it out.
 
Just took a trip to Norway and hiked a bit in the "fjell". Gave me another chance to play around with MLV.

I have to admit, that I do like the workflow of it by now, as long as the takes are rather short (10-20 secs max).
The mlv_dump.osx through terminal is really fast and is flawless so far.

So I end up with this workflow:

mlv_dump > dngs
dng sequence into AE, where I more or less finish my grade in ACR.
Export as ProRes422 HQ
Into Premiere for lining up and editing and the export the finished file out.

I like Resolve, and then not. I think the UI layouts are a total mess… I have no question that it's a fine tool for grading, I just don't like the way it's set up. And I get random crashes at start up.
I guess I'm just sinking into being used to the Adobe world :)

Am currently rendering out a series of clips from Norway shot with the new Zeiss Otus 55mm 1.4 ZE (oh my god… this is a stellar lens!). I'll share it when it's done.
 
cpc said:
You are probably right. I guess I've been spoilt and misled by the ubiquitous presence of the codec in other apps, plus the free downloadable playback codec.
Interesting that you are comparing Lwks to AE + Speedgrade. They seem to mainly tout the editing features on the site. But you've piqued my curiosity, I'll check it out.
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Think of Lwks as a full fledged DI suite. It originated as a means to take film from scanned negative through the entire editing and finishing process to interneg film out and release prints. Still has all the tools to do that too. Does have a bit of a learning curve to it being such a complex program. But they have some good tutorial videos to get you started and offer free webinars too.
Building my new workstation today. For quickest one light grades and best quality debayer results I like either Raw Therapee or Capture One Pro. Render to Tiff or Jpegs is relatively slow, but for short stuff worth the machine time IMO. Both of these programs work in 96 bit float. For 2K DCI format I will transcode to DPX on import into Lwks. For HD video transcode to 10 bit 4:2:2 uncompressed broadcast AVI or MOV. (300mbps). Complete editing and finish grades in Lwks. Export to whatever release format.
I'm also looking forward to learning Resolve if it runs OK.
 
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