That's a very interesting question you asked in the last shot. It's the question I ask myself most often. How much to correct the shot and how much to keep the atmosphere. I've also heard the opinion to correct everything first and then give it a look. Which is right and also kind of weird, correcting and then putting it back where it was.
Some years ago, customers shot a film on 16mm and here tje dop always lit a colour chart per scene using the correct colour temperature of the used film stock, so we knew how to set up the telecine for the dailies. They then sometimes went through different coloured lights in the scene. But these charts hugely helped us to know, how the scene is supposed to look, even though there wasn't any neutral light anywhere in the scene. Shooting the charts in the coloured lights wouldn't have helped anyone - but that applies to film, where you cannot adjust the colour temperature like on a digital camera.
Cullen please make a video about monitor calibration. I feel like there is somewhat limited information about it and its all spread and not confined how you always present information. I know it's maybe not your typical content but it would be awesome if you could touch on that subject.
Hey Cullen. Thanks for explaining. I use these loads to create custom ICC profiles for stills software like Capture One. I wish I could separate gamma from colour in these profiles. In Davinci would you ever use the chart on a node set to "Colour" blend mode in order not to affect the gamma?
@@thatcherfreeman If that is how it works in Resolve, then it's very disappointing. The equivalent way of doing this in the photography world is basically building a new camera profile which takes care of non-uniformities in the scene spectrum and tries to correct for metamerism.
@@pdp11 if the Adobe DNG metadata is to be believed, most camera profiles end up also just being 3x3 matrices. Matrices have the benefit that they're smooth operations, whereas it's easy to have smoothness problems with an HSV map or similar approaches.
@@thatcherfreeman I suppose the intention of this tool in photography vs. video/cinema is quite different. For cinema, as I understand it, the purpose is to give you a good neutral starting point, it's expected you will do quite heavy color changes, that's the job of a colorist, after all, to achieve artistic intent which most likely departs from reality. For photography you would only use a color checker chart when you want perfect color reproduction under specific illuminants. That is, you would only use it for product shots, or for reproduction work. It is true that a profile created with a color chart under a non-ideal illuminant would not be smooth and would cause problems when editing the image. That's not the point though, the point is to accurately capture reality. You wouldn't want to edit it further! When you don't want to do that (so, most of the time), you'd just use a generic profile, which, as you mentioned is smooth and will not cause smoothness issues even after extensive manipulation. This generic profile is less accurate under non-ideal illuminants, but it doesn't matter, because achieving accuracy is less of a goal, having the flexibility of editing is more important. With this perspective I see the value of simply doing a matrix transform for video, although, TBH any LUT you use has the same potential smoothness problem, and LUTs are ubiquitous, so I am not sure I buy it 100%.
Great post, as always! Question: shouldn't one use the color chart step at the beginning of the node structure? if the colors are not "accurate" from the get go, how are we going to have 'accurate" exposure & ratio nodes...? thanks!
one thing I'm trying to remember is - what's the point of accuracy if it doesn't LOOK good? Maybe you get better results when you build everything off a color-checked adjustment, or maybe you get better results when you make exposure and contrast changes first. Either way it should look nice when you're done.
Hi... another excellent video, Thanks. I have one comment about using the color checker. As a cinematographer, I often use light in a scene that is a different color than what the camera is set for.. either accent lights or sometimes a cool or warm color for night or fire etc. So I expose the color checker chart to the light that the camera is set to... 3200K, 5600K or whatever the white balance is. Then my accent lights or washes will automatically fall into place. If I had exposed the color checker chart to the colored light, it would have been "corrected out" when in DaVinci.
When you're lighting the scene, you're going to think about which part of the subject (if any) you want to render with normal skin tones. Perhaps your hair light is magenta and you want the back of the talent to be magenta in the final video, but the key light is white and therefore you want the key side of the talent to render with normal skin tones. In that case, you'd shoot the color chart with only the key light hitting it.
@@thatcherfreeman Hi... yes, that would be the case. Sometimes it's difficult during lighting to "stop the work" to get the color chart, but I try to do it. And note, when I light a scene (on stage) I usually decide my shutter speed (angle) ISO, and Tstop before I start lighting. On location, when trying to use the ambient light and augment with our own lighting... I get a pretty good idea of camera settings ahead of time. So shooting a chart starts with my settings in place and I adjust the lighting on the chart to get the 18% gray exposed properly. And I maintain those camera settings for the scene. Whatever color, light changes etc happen will work within the settings. The only time I change exposure would be to "ride" or adjust the exposure in a situation where the action is taking me to a place where the light levels change more than I want during the scene... ie sunny to shade, side lit to back lit, an action sequence, etc. In a situation where there is a color shift (flourescents)... A chart will help to correct out the green if that's what you need, etc. But most of the time I would try to do that with my white balance in camera. It's all so subjective sometimes. Exterior night scenes vary so much... get an exposure that looks good on your screen and don't worry too much about a chart. Charts are a good starting point... or can show if something is amiss. A viewing or show LUT will change things too. If we have a "look" in mind, how much of that do I accomplish in lighting on the set vs what the colorist brings in? Good communication is the key.
@@jonathanwest530 I'd agree with all that. A color chart is a really useful tool if you're shooting on lenses that aren't color matched, or if you're in low quality lighting or are using filters that have some sort of tint, and it'll help you match your shots to each other in that kind of situation. I think your shooting style sounds basically the same as mine tbh
Why didn't you use the color match in your first node? By positioning it later, it's likely going to undo your earlier exposure and contrast adjustments.
Happy to hear Cullen's answer. I've actually used my ColorChecker to do just that. It's not always perfect, but it gets me a good ways there. The one piece that Cullen confirmed for me was that the checker can adjust exposure which is where I've found myself massaging things.
How do you incorporate this when you are grading a real project? Do you ask the editor to make you another timeline of all the shots containing the color checker and then create stills and apply them to the shots inside the film's timeline?
1. Budget Processor: i5 12400/13400 or Ryzen 5 5600/7600 GPU: RTX 2060 Super (8GB VRAM) or 1660Ti (6 VRAM, but it will be not enough for bigger projects) RAM: 16-32 GB Storage: 256 GB, NVME SSD Fusion needs a lor of RAM, so you should get at least 32GB, if you want to use it fully. 2. Midrange Processor: i7 12700/13700 or Ryzen 5 5700x/7700 GPU: RTX 3060 (12 Gb) RAM: 32-64 GB Storage: 1 TB, NVME SSD That said, I edited and color graded some UA-cam videos on a laptop with 8GB of RAM and 2GB VRAM. But I had crashes, had to use proxies, reduce timeline resolution, etc.
@@RafalGendarz How weird, that shouldn’t really be happening, except for certain channels moving down. Another mode you could try is “Hue” to skip the saturation component entirely
hello,i would like to add that i own both new versions of colorchecker, video and classic. however they both led to different results on the same s log3 footage i tested them with.
This is super helpful! I was always curious about the WB setting. How much wiggle room is there if the footage was shot with incorrect WB? Will this be able to fix that? Thx!
It depends on the quality of the footage. 1. In RAW white balance is a metadata, it is not baked in, so you can easily manipulate it. 2. If footage is encoded in good quality codec like ProRes HQ, you can correct white balance, but extreme adjustments will introduce some weird color shifts. 3. If it is H.264 or H.265 footage, especially 8-bit one, your options are rather limited. You can shift white balance a bit, but big adjustements will lead to artifacts and weird color behavior.
Great presentation! My only pet peeve with the color chart overlay is how "fiddly" it can be to individually drag the corner pins to their proper positions. I wish the folks at BlackMagic Design would simply add a shift/corner-drag function (like Photoshop) that allows reducing the size of the frame proportionally for quicker resizing. Then, the fine-tuning of the corner pins could be done a lot quicker.
My question is what is actually happening when it's in use? Is it using a mathematical correction that's under the hood you could say? Sort of the way a LUT works, or is it manipulating parameters we all have direct access to in the color page? Hope that makes sense.
Hi, those boxes represent 75% of saturation and you will fit in the boxes if your saturation is so hi. This is the maximun saturation level for Broadcast. You can see what I say, for example, with EBU Bars.
Would it be advisible to adjust the color checker whitepoint to taste? Or use a chromatic adaptation node to get it back to taste rather than the node mask.
Having used them both - the advantage of being able to through the passport into a bag becomes a disadvantage hitting it with consistent light on the swatches and in wide shots is way too small. So you get convenience for a single shooter with the passport, but harder to work with in post.
I find Passport version more useful from two reasons; fits the pockets, so you can always keep it close on set, and you can close it like a book, keeping away from light and therefore extending its lifespan.
@@kaktus.studio I was thinking of just getting the ColorChecker Video and putting it into a Diploma Case. For what ever reason I think the bigger one is more accurate since it has the desaturated colors as well as the exposure setting on the actual chart.
I would like to use this feature to match 2 different shots. Not to neutral xrite standards but the one to the other.. Would be cool to match film charts for example. But as far as I know this is not possible..
You dont mention another 'way' which is to get 'this camera' in daylight and shoot a colour chart as a way of 'correcting' this camera, but when you move into suntset light or warm tungsten scene you can still apply the cart node from the daylight image which should cancel any specific sway of that sensor.. but retain any warm/sunlight/tungsten feel
Thanks for the video, I wanted to know exactly why and how they use these things. But the video didn't answer the question, which is bugging me from the beggining. Will this method relight everything in post to 6500K? In your second scene for example, if you shot the scene with the light with 3000K and then reshot it with the light of 5600K and then in Davinci use this method with color checker you just showed, would I get two "identical" images in Resolve? Therefore completely unaware of my lighting intentions? Thanks
I think a good use case for the color checker is for either matching different cameras, or matching shots set in the same scene that were shot on different days, for example. Another good example is when having to represent specific hues accurately, for example in product shots. Using the chart for a single camera shot, where accuracy and continuity doesn't matter, can be a bit pointless.
For what I understood, all the clips are already in Davinci Wide Gamut because the project is colour managed in prefences level. Arri Log clips are now DWG.
The puzzle I've always had is: what's the best way to apply that correction to all of the other instances of the same shot (same camera and lighting) in the scene? I use the "memories" in DVR, and you can also apply forward and back, but I don't know if there's a more straightforward way.
what i dont get: who determines, what those colors should be. if i shoot on a cloudy day or in a totally artificial environment will determine what those colors look like.... and that might be intended.... so: is there one universal way how these colors look like... i am totally irritated by the color checker use. or do you use it just to balance and correct...
Great question! Sometimes that can be hard to tell when color managing at the project level. Here is a video I did a while back on project level color management. ua-cam.com/video/hgVqUATQSMg/v-deo.html The same principles would apply when using manual color management through color space transforms. Ideally, all of your grading would be happening in between your input transform and your output transform. Take a look at this pipeline demonstration from a while back! Hope that helps! ua-cam.com/video/rHHo9AF3A5Q/v-deo.html&lc=UgxuiEJ0qjg7hC-O9Qx4AaABAg
Not only that but doesn't the ColorChecker destroy the perceptual uniformity and creative intent of the scene by automatically trying to balance to a specific referred display before even evaluating the cinematographer's exposure values and on-set color decisions? In my experience, even with the proper setup, more than 95% of the time, the picture rendering of the color balance has a more considerable distance from the cinematographer's creative intent. I’m glad Cullen has mentioned and demonstrated the caveat in one of the clips when using this tool.
I always ask for them to be shot, but rarely even look at them. For me it's a troubleshooting tool if something goes completely sideways in the footage. I can then take the charts and try to analyse what the problem was that made it go wonky. I have also had problems of when the cam ops shot the chart on set. If they set up and then take the footage - and then start changing out lighting on set - or on an outside day shoot - the sun and weather suddenly changes, the charts are a pretty bad indication of how the footage looks, and absolutely wouldn't rely on it for much. So I just use them for troubleshooting - it's like test tones for audio.
Thank you for the scratch on the topic… but I have a few more questions, that I hope you can elaborate on; My understanding of the color charts is that they are themselves color space specific. Which is why you don’t use a photography chart on video cams, because the color spaces are different. Meaning more: You can’t shoot a Rec 709 Calbrite Video Passport in *say* sLOG3. Meaning Even More: Where does that enter Color management? As far as I can see…. what you just did in this video borders on useless. In fact… completely nonsensical. You managed to come full circle to “look”. I get the color management. But yet the entire purpose of the color chart (as I understand it), is to draw a defacto line in the sand. Meaning; THIS IS MIDDLE GRAY! Now what your sensor is reading, might differ. That’s OK… because… THIS IS MIDDLE GRAY (insert magenta, etc.) The color chart (as I understand it), is color space specific, not the other way around (as you are proposing it). I have proposed this question in Grade School, and almost fainted when I saw this video post. I am very disappointed in the answer (sorry). Calbrite Video Passport is “Rec 709” It’s very specific about this. Recommendations are that you shoot the Passport in Rec. 709, and then shoot your footage in whatever color space you want, and adjust the color “correction” in post accordingly. Traditionally, you would do this laboriously by mapping your sensor (using the chart) to correct your sensor color cast, and then apply that LUT. Question: WHERE would we apply that LUT in a DR Color Managed System? WHERE would we put that in the default Node Graph? I would like (for once), to approach this from a PURE color correction standpoint. Please do not use the word “look”. I will deal with the LOOK later. I want to “correct” different sensors, and exposure, and WB…. BEFORE… I even think about “look”. The color chart is my constant. I also do NOT want to consult the DR Color Chart Tool. Show me the Vector Scope. Show me different color space captures on the same color chart Work a manual adjustment in a color managed workflow. Flex your muscles. Show me something I can use. Sorry bud. I respect you. This Vid was useless and borderline destructive. 12 mins of useless.
The color chart itself has no Color space, I've no idea where you get that notion. Of course you can shoot it in S-Log3, Arri Log C, or even Rec.709. That's the whole point.
@@TumultFilmThat’s fair. Indeed I beat the drum loudly. That was on purpose. Whilst the delivery was salty, the message is pure. Sometimes a little salt is needed to get noticed. This subject is important to me. I am struggling to fold a manufacturer’s workflow into a Node Based Color Management Workflow. If I do not get noticed, Grade School on Friday is destined to decline into 2 categories/tangents (this is not a insult, it is an observation) 1. Jim Davidson (no shade intended Jim) will propose a rhetorical question off-topic, and Grade school will end up somewhere else (Off Topic), or; 2) The class will engage in yet another “Stump the Pro” exercise (Off Topic). I know I will not be able to make the Friday session, but I would at least like to try and keep it on topic if from afar and in absence. Because I am really wanting help on this specific topic, and I am all in on Color Management. Salty… yes. By design. The message remains savoury.
@@lfwesandersonI got the notion from this video. ua-cam.com/video/6_KdwJXQx7w/v-deo.html It is a great video, and answers my questions as far as color correcting (especially among different cameras). I can also recreate his anomalies with the Color Checker Tool in DR. Which is why I’m super keen on using it. There is simply too much doubt in an area where I need zero doubt. So I would like to engage in his method for correcting, to accomplish a base neutral between footage of the same scene using different camera manufacturers Thus allowing me to work at a Macro Level during grading. The fundamental problem I am having is the Rec709 part. In the video he warns that you should shoot the color chart in anything but Rec709. I am wondering if Color Management fixes this. If so, where do I do the correcting in the Node Graph? If I do it at the end behind the CST OUT (Rec709) in the traditional CM Workflow, the correction will apply to all of the clips. I would prefer to have them applied at the Clip Level because different clips will be in different acquisition color spaces., but clip Level is Danci Wide Gamut, not Rec709. My acquisition color space is also not Rec 709 (Log, RAW, etc.). I get that DR has the tool to specify the color space, but I’m not super trusting on that tool. How do I do multiple manual (rec 709 apparently) corrections, and fold it into a Color Managed Node workflow? The video link is fine as far as methodology. It gets sticky (for me) when we tie ourselves to Rec 709 when I am working in Davinci Wide Gamut. I am simply trying to merge the two, or at the very least accomplish the same thing in a different way using CM (without the tool). I am hoping you are correct, because that removes my hurdle.
@@pitspeedtv wow. Please don’t follow this advice. Don’t rely on IRE values for exposure, specially when the recommendation is to set your Gamma to Rec.709, to match the 90% IRE value, and then revert to whatever Gamma you want to shoot at. He says this at minute 4 - this is BEYOND ridiculous, cumbersome, and very prone to mistakes. Shoot with false color, and target middle gray on your chart as your middle grey in the false color. That’s it. I haven’t watched the entire 35 mins but 5 minutes in his advice is completely senseless.
Congratulations Cullen, 40K subscribers, I subscribed when you had 4k , 2 years ago I think. Thanks for your excellent work.
That's a very interesting question you asked in the last shot. It's the question I ask myself most often. How much to correct the shot and how much to keep the atmosphere. I've also heard the opinion to correct everything first and then give it a look. Which is right and also kind of weird, correcting and then putting it back where it was.
i think using the color temp option set to the scene lighting might have helped with that.
@@CarlosVixil Technically you're right, but I think it's also a feeling thing, and once it's about feeling, the numbers lose meaning.
Some years ago, customers shot a film on 16mm and here tje dop always lit a colour chart per scene using the correct colour temperature of the used film stock, so we knew how to set up the telecine for the dailies. They then sometimes went through different coloured lights in the scene. But these charts hugely helped us to know, how the scene is supposed to look, even though there wasn't any neutral light anywhere in the scene.
Shooting the charts in the coloured lights wouldn't have helped anyone - but that applies to film, where you cannot adjust the colour temperature like on a digital camera.
Such a great explanation. Now I can use my colour checker with confidence. Thanks for creating this for us.
Beautiful discussion. 👍🏾Thanks for confirming and coalescing the bits and pieces I've picked up over the last couple years regarding the ColorChecker.
Hey Cullen I asked on another video for you to make this video and just found it! Thank you
Cullen please make a video about monitor calibration. I feel like there is somewhat limited information about it and its all spread and not confined how you always present information. I know it's maybe not your typical content but it would be awesome if you could touch on that subject.
OMG this video couldn't have come at a better time
Hey Cullen. Thanks for explaining. I use these loads to create custom ICC profiles for stills software like Capture One. I wish I could separate gamma from colour in these profiles. In Davinci would you ever use the chart on a node set to "Colour" blend mode in order not to affect the gamma?
Any idea what operations it's using under the hood? Is it just a 3x3 matrix in Linear, or is it also a curves adjustment etc?
It basically creates a 3D LUT.
@pdp11 turns out it is just a 3x3 matrix in linear
@@thatcherfreeman If that is how it works in Resolve, then it's very disappointing. The equivalent way of doing this in the photography world is basically building a new camera profile which takes care of non-uniformities in the scene spectrum and tries to correct for metamerism.
@@pdp11 if the Adobe DNG metadata is to be believed, most camera profiles end up also just being 3x3 matrices. Matrices have the benefit that they're smooth operations, whereas it's easy to have smoothness problems with an HSV map or similar approaches.
@@thatcherfreeman I suppose the intention of this tool in photography vs. video/cinema is quite different.
For cinema, as I understand it, the purpose is to give you a good neutral starting point, it's expected you will do quite heavy color changes, that's the job of a colorist, after all, to achieve artistic intent which most likely departs from reality.
For photography you would only use a color checker chart when you want perfect color reproduction under specific illuminants. That is, you would only use it for product shots, or for reproduction work.
It is true that a profile created with a color chart under a non-ideal illuminant would not be smooth and would cause problems when editing the image. That's not the point though, the point is to accurately capture reality. You wouldn't want to edit it further!
When you don't want to do that (so, most of the time), you'd just use a generic profile, which, as you mentioned is smooth and will not cause smoothness issues even after extensive manipulation. This generic profile is less accurate under non-ideal illuminants, but it doesn't matter, because achieving accuracy is less of a goal, having the flexibility of editing is more important.
With this perspective I see the value of simply doing a matrix transform for video, although, TBH any LUT you use has the same potential smoothness problem, and LUTs are ubiquitous, so I am not sure I buy it 100%.
Great post, as always! Question: shouldn't one use the color chart step at the beginning of the node structure? if the colors are not "accurate" from the get go, how are we going to have 'accurate" exposure & ratio nodes...? thanks!
Yes, it seems placing the color checker afterwards undid the prior two nodes.
@@ssp3nc3r right?! I wish he could had explain that, otherwise makes no sense... 🤔
It should be the very first node. Then the parallel split.
one thing I'm trying to remember is - what's the point of accuracy if it doesn't LOOK good? Maybe you get better results when you build everything off a color-checked adjustment, or maybe you get better results when you make exposure and contrast changes first. Either way it should look nice when you're done.
For now I am only using CC for product videos where I want to make extremely sure the colors are the same. As usual, golden stuff from Cullen.
Hi... another excellent video, Thanks. I have one comment about using the color checker. As a cinematographer, I often use light in a scene that is a different color than what the camera is set for.. either accent lights or sometimes a cool or warm color for night or fire etc. So I expose the color checker chart to the light that the camera is set to... 3200K, 5600K or whatever the white balance is. Then my accent lights or washes will automatically fall into place. If I had exposed the color checker chart to the colored light, it would have been "corrected out" when in DaVinci.
When you're lighting the scene, you're going to think about which part of the subject (if any) you want to render with normal skin tones. Perhaps your hair light is magenta and you want the back of the talent to be magenta in the final video, but the key light is white and therefore you want the key side of the talent to render with normal skin tones. In that case, you'd shoot the color chart with only the key light hitting it.
@@thatcherfreeman Hi... yes, that would be the case. Sometimes it's difficult during lighting to "stop the work" to get the color chart, but I try to do it. And note, when I light a scene (on stage) I usually decide my shutter speed (angle) ISO, and Tstop before I start lighting. On location, when trying to use the ambient light and augment with our own lighting... I get a pretty good idea of camera settings ahead of time. So shooting a chart starts with my settings in place and I adjust the lighting on the chart to get the 18% gray exposed properly. And I maintain those camera settings for the scene. Whatever color, light changes etc happen will work within the settings. The only time I change exposure would be to "ride" or adjust the exposure in a situation where the action is taking me to a place where the light levels change more than I want during the scene... ie sunny to shade, side lit to back lit, an action sequence, etc. In a situation where there is a color shift (flourescents)... A chart will help to correct out the green if that's what you need, etc. But most of the time I would try to do that with my white balance in camera. It's all so subjective sometimes. Exterior night scenes vary so much... get an exposure that looks good on your screen and don't worry too much about a chart. Charts are a good starting point... or can show if something is amiss. A viewing or show LUT will change things too. If we have a "look" in mind, how much of that do I accomplish in lighting on the set vs what the colorist brings in? Good communication is the key.
@@jonathanwest530 I'd agree with all that. A color chart is a really useful tool if you're shooting on lenses that aren't color matched, or if you're in low quality lighting or are using filters that have some sort of tint, and it'll help you match your shots to each other in that kind of situation. I think your shooting style sounds basically the same as mine tbh
Why didn't you use the color match in your first node? By positioning it later, it's likely going to undo your earlier exposure and contrast adjustments.
Hey Cullen, great video as always ! I have a question: Can it be used for color matching a same scene but filmed with different cameras or lenses ?
Happy to hear Cullen's answer. I've actually used my ColorChecker to do just that. It's not always perfect, but it gets me a good ways there. The one piece that Cullen confirmed for me was that the checker can adjust exposure which is where I've found myself massaging things.
This is in fact, a very common purpose of shooting with a color chart.
How do you incorporate this when you are grading a real project? Do you ask the editor to make you another timeline of all the shots containing the color checker and then create stills and apply them to the shots inside the film's timeline?
Cullen would you do this before applying a "look" on the timeline with one of your Voyager Luts?
You would do this first.
What would be considered as budget or midrange specs to handle Resolve workflow? Including small fusion work.
An i5 or ryzen would be sufficient, justget a gpu with a lot of vram
1. Budget
Processor: i5 12400/13400 or Ryzen 5 5600/7600
GPU: RTX 2060 Super (8GB VRAM) or 1660Ti (6 VRAM, but it will be not enough for bigger projects)
RAM: 16-32 GB
Storage: 256 GB, NVME SSD
Fusion needs a lor of RAM, so you should get at least 32GB, if you want to use it fully.
2. Midrange
Processor: i7 12700/13700 or Ryzen 5 5700x/7700
GPU: RTX 3060 (12 Gb)
RAM: 32-64 GB
Storage: 1 TB, NVME SSD
That said, I edited and color graded some UA-cam videos on a laptop with 8GB of RAM and 2GB VRAM. But I had crashes, had to use proxies, reduce timeline resolution, etc.
it would be great to have an option to only affect the balance, because otherwise it messes with the contrast which is hard to bring back
Set the node multiplier to "color" - that's what I do with most LUTs - works like a charm.
@@FrankGlencairn yes I tried that but still it brings my shadows to zero point
@@RafalGendarz How weird, that shouldn’t really be happening, except for certain channels moving down. Another mode you could try is “Hue” to skip the saturation component entirely
@@nicolaswojdacki6277 but then isnt it affecting image in weird way if we only change the hue without saturation? I mean less organic?
@@FrankGlencairn by node multiplier do you mean the composite mode?
Was it possible to specify a white point in the second example, for example, 3200K ?
Is there any way to derive a 3x3 CCM (colour correction matrix) from the colour chart that was shot?
hello,i would like to add that i own both new versions of colorchecker, video and classic. however they both led to different results on the same s log3 footage i tested them with.
This is super helpful! I was always curious about the WB setting. How much wiggle room is there if the footage was shot with incorrect WB? Will this be able to fix that? Thx!
It depends on the quality of the footage.
1. In RAW white balance is a metadata, it is not baked in, so you can easily manipulate it.
2. If footage is encoded in good quality codec like ProRes HQ, you can correct white balance, but extreme adjustments will introduce some weird color shifts.
3. If it is H.264 or H.265 footage, especially 8-bit one, your options are rather limited. You can shift white balance a bit, but big adjustements will lead to artifacts and weird color behavior.
@@Fedor_Dokuchaev_Color Thx for the detailed response! I fall into the third category so it's important that I get it right in camera I suppose.
@@Fedor_Dokuchaev_ColorI absolutely second that. There's no good reason to not record what you want to see.
If the source is a film scan, from a ScanStation or Arriscan to DPX log, what is the starting colour space?
Great presentation! My only pet peeve with the color chart overlay is how "fiddly" it can be to individually drag the corner pins to their proper positions. I wish the folks at BlackMagic Design would simply add a shift/corner-drag function (like Photoshop) that allows reducing the size of the frame proportionally for quicker resizing. Then, the fine-tuning of the corner pins could be done a lot quicker.
And great for matching with different cameras.
My question is what is actually happening when it's in use? Is it using a mathematical correction that's under the hood you could say? Sort of the way a LUT works, or is it manipulating parameters we all have direct access to in the color page? Hope that makes sense.
Do the colours have to fit perfectly in the boxes in the vectorscope?
Hi, those boxes represent 75% of saturation and you will fit in the boxes if your saturation is so hi. This is the maximun saturation level for Broadcast. You can see what I say, for example, with EBU Bars.
Would it be advisible to adjust the color checker whitepoint to taste? Or use a chromatic adaptation node to get it back to taste rather than the node mask.
Which colorchecker would you get: the ColorChecker Video or the ColorChecker Passport Video?
Having used them both - the advantage of being able to through the passport into a bag becomes a disadvantage hitting it with consistent light on the swatches and in wide shots is way too small. So you get convenience for a single shooter with the passport, but harder to work with in post.
@@JimRobinson-colorsI don’t mind having the bigger one an storing it in a portfolio case.
I find Passport version more useful from two reasons; fits the pockets, so you can always keep it close on set, and you can close it like a book, keeping away from light and therefore extending its lifespan.
@@kaktus.studio I was thinking of just getting the ColorChecker Video and putting it into a Diploma Case. For what ever reason I think the bigger one is more accurate since it has the desaturated colors as well as the exposure setting on the actual chart.
Hey Cullen Sal again ❤
I would like to use this feature to match 2 different shots. Not to neutral xrite standards but the one to the other.. Would be cool to match film charts for example. But as far as I know this is not possible..
You dont mention another 'way' which is to get 'this camera' in daylight and shoot a colour chart as a way of 'correcting' this camera, but when you move into suntset light or warm tungsten scene you can still apply the cart node from the daylight image which should cancel any specific sway of that sensor.. but retain any warm/sunlight/tungsten feel
love your stuff! thanks :D
You always have a point, thanks for sharing.
Great topic!!!
Thank you for this interesting video. 😊
Thanks for the video, I wanted to know exactly why and how they use these things.
But the video didn't answer the question, which is bugging me from the beggining. Will this method relight everything in post to 6500K?
In your second scene for example, if you shot the scene with the light with 3000K and then reshot it with the light of 5600K and then in Davinci use this method with color checker you just showed, would I get two "identical" images in Resolve? Therefore completely unaware of my lighting intentions?
Thanks
I think a good use case for the color checker is for either matching different cameras, or matching shots set in the same scene that were shot on different days, for example. Another good example is when having to represent specific hues accurately, for example in product shots. Using the chart for a single camera shot, where accuracy and continuity doesn't matter, can be a bit pointless.
@@lfwesanderson Wow, great examples, makes sense, thank you.
Great info as always, thank you.
are you wearing a lav??? ur mic is behind you, do you have 6 mics
Shouldn’t the input colorspace be ArriLogC?
For what I understood, all the clips are already in Davinci Wide Gamut because the project is colour managed in prefences level. Arri Log clips are now DWG.
@@TxabiNet Ok
Very helpful, thank you!
The puzzle I've always had is: what's the best way to apply that correction to all of the other instances of the same shot (same camera and lighting) in the scene? I use the "memories" in DVR, and you can also apply forward and back, but I don't know if there's a more straightforward way.
Yes.
what i dont get: who determines, what those colors should be. if i shoot on a cloudy day or in a totally artificial environment will determine what those colors look like.... and that might be intended.... so: is there one universal way how these colors look like... i am totally irritated by the color checker use. or do you use it just to balance and correct...
You color grading before CST or after i don’t understand (((((
Great question! Sometimes that can be hard to tell when color managing at the project level. Here is a video I did a while back on project level color management.
ua-cam.com/video/hgVqUATQSMg/v-deo.html
The same principles would apply when using manual color management through color space transforms. Ideally, all of your grading would be happening in between your input transform and your output transform. Take a look at this pipeline demonstration from a while back! Hope that helps!
ua-cam.com/video/rHHo9AF3A5Q/v-deo.html&lc=UgxuiEJ0qjg7hC-O9Qx4AaABAg
Good one..... Thanks buddy
Doesn't a color checker correction throw out all camera color science out of the window?
One could argue that color managing also does the same. It has its uses.
Not only that but doesn't the ColorChecker destroy the perceptual uniformity and creative intent of the scene by automatically trying to balance to a specific referred display before even evaluating the cinematographer's exposure values and on-set color decisions? In my experience, even with the proper setup, more than 95% of the time, the picture rendering of the color balance has a more considerable distance from the cinematographer's creative intent. I’m glad Cullen has mentioned and demonstrated the caveat in one of the clips when using this tool.
Thank u sir♥
Awesome 🎉🎉🎉
I always ask for them to be shot, but rarely even look at them. For me it's a troubleshooting tool if something goes completely sideways in the footage. I can then take the charts and try to analyse what the problem was that made it go wonky. I have also had problems of when the cam ops shot the chart on set. If they set up and then take the footage - and then start changing out lighting on set - or on an outside day shoot - the sun and weather suddenly changes, the charts are a pretty bad indication of how the footage looks, and absolutely wouldn't rely on it for much.
So I just use them for troubleshooting - it's like test tones for audio.
Thank you for the scratch on the topic… but I have a few more questions, that I hope you can elaborate on;
My understanding of the color charts is that they are themselves color space specific.
Which is why you don’t use a photography chart on video cams, because the color spaces are different.
Meaning more: You can’t shoot a Rec 709 Calbrite Video Passport in *say* sLOG3.
Meaning Even More: Where does that enter Color management?
As far as I can see…. what you just did in this video borders on useless. In fact… completely nonsensical.
You managed to come full circle to “look”.
I get the color management. But yet the entire purpose of the color chart (as I understand it), is to draw a defacto line in the sand.
Meaning;
THIS IS MIDDLE GRAY!
Now what your sensor is reading, might differ. That’s OK… because…
THIS IS MIDDLE GRAY (insert magenta, etc.)
The color chart (as I understand it), is color space specific, not the other way around (as you are proposing it).
I have proposed this question in Grade School, and almost fainted when I saw this video post.
I am very disappointed in the answer (sorry).
Calbrite Video Passport is “Rec 709”
It’s very specific about this.
Recommendations are that you shoot the Passport in Rec. 709, and then shoot your footage in whatever color space you want, and adjust the color “correction” in post accordingly.
Traditionally, you would do this laboriously by mapping your sensor (using the chart) to correct your sensor color cast, and then apply that LUT.
Question:
WHERE would we apply that LUT in a DR Color Managed System?
WHERE would we put that in the default Node Graph?
I would like (for once), to approach this from a PURE color correction standpoint.
Please do not use the word “look”. I will deal with the LOOK later.
I want to “correct” different sensors, and exposure, and WB…. BEFORE… I even think about “look”.
The color chart is my constant.
I also do NOT want to consult the DR Color Chart Tool.
Show me the Vector Scope.
Show me different color space captures on the same color chart
Work a manual adjustment in a color managed workflow.
Flex your muscles.
Show me something I can use.
Sorry bud. I respect you. This Vid was useless and borderline destructive. 12 mins of useless.
The color chart itself has no Color space, I've no idea where you get that notion. Of course you can shoot it in S-Log3, Arri Log C, or even Rec.709. That's the whole point.
You should start by watching some tutorials on interpersonal communication.
@@TumultFilmThat’s fair. Indeed I beat the drum loudly. That was on purpose.
Whilst the delivery was salty, the message is pure. Sometimes a little salt is needed to get noticed.
This subject is important to me. I am struggling to fold a manufacturer’s workflow into a Node Based Color Management Workflow.
If I do not get noticed, Grade School on Friday is destined to decline into 2 categories/tangents (this is not a insult, it is an observation)
1. Jim Davidson (no shade intended Jim) will propose a rhetorical question off-topic, and Grade school will end up somewhere else (Off Topic), or;
2) The class will engage in yet another “Stump the Pro” exercise (Off Topic).
I know I will not be able to make the Friday session, but I would at least like to try and keep it on topic if from afar and in absence. Because I am really wanting help on this specific topic, and I am all in on Color Management.
Salty… yes. By design. The message remains savoury.
@@lfwesandersonI got the notion from this video. ua-cam.com/video/6_KdwJXQx7w/v-deo.html It is a great video, and answers my questions as far as color correcting (especially among different cameras). I can also recreate his anomalies with the Color Checker Tool in DR. Which is why I’m super keen on using it. There is simply too much doubt in an area where I need zero doubt.
So I would like to engage in his method for correcting, to accomplish a base neutral between footage of the same scene using different camera manufacturers Thus allowing me to work at a Macro Level during grading.
The fundamental problem I am having is the Rec709 part. In the video he warns that you should shoot the color chart in anything but Rec709. I am wondering if Color Management fixes this. If so, where do I do the correcting in the Node Graph?
If I do it at the end behind the CST OUT (Rec709) in the traditional CM Workflow, the correction will apply to all of the clips. I would prefer to have them applied at the Clip Level because different clips will be in different acquisition color spaces., but clip Level is Danci Wide Gamut, not Rec709. My acquisition color space is also not Rec 709 (Log, RAW, etc.).
I get that DR has the tool to specify the color space, but I’m not super trusting on that tool.
How do I do multiple manual (rec 709 apparently) corrections, and fold it into a Color Managed Node workflow?
The video link is fine as far as methodology. It gets sticky (for me) when we tie ourselves to Rec 709 when I am working in Davinci Wide Gamut.
I am simply trying to merge the two, or at the very least accomplish the same thing in a different way using CM (without the tool).
I am hoping you are correct, because that removes my hurdle.
@@pitspeedtv wow. Please don’t follow this advice. Don’t rely on IRE values for exposure, specially when the recommendation is to set your Gamma to Rec.709, to match the 90% IRE value, and then revert to whatever Gamma you want to shoot at. He says this at minute 4 - this is BEYOND ridiculous, cumbersome, and very prone to mistakes. Shoot with false color, and target middle gray on your chart as your middle grey in the false color. That’s it. I haven’t watched the entire 35 mins but 5 minutes in his advice is completely senseless.