How a pro colorist handles crushed blacks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- If you want to handle crushed blacks like a pro there's more you need to do than make adjustments in DaVinci Resolve. Today I'll reveal the exact steps I take in real color grading jobs to handle crushed blacks.
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You're my color therapist, Dr. Kelly. Thank you!!
You're one of the BEST teachers on TH-cam. Really appreciate how you don't just teach the technicalities but also go into the philosophy and communication involving the entire process of coloring an image.
Thank you! Glad it's helping!
@@CullenKelly For a pro colorist, you’ve got a lot of banding in your video.. probably time to check export settings, check the way you are exposing log on your camera, and if you aren’t shooting log, then it’s time to start... because at 1080p, the entire section of wall to your left between you and the monitor is all banding.. doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that you know how to prepare a deliverable optimized for socials..
@@CullenKelly 2:13 you’re basically saying “if the client isn’t looking at a perfectly calibrated color grading display, nothing you can do can fix their issue.” This is false. Instagram compression changes the image, TH-cam compression changes the image, someone consuming content on a tv vs an android vs a Mac vs iPhone are all going to have mild color shifts and gamma shifts. The job of the colorist is to craft a final grade that is balanced enough to look good on a range of displays. A part of your export testing should be to upload to TH-cam and watch it back on 4k, then watch at each setting down to 720p. If you’re getting any banding at any TH-cam resolution settings above 720p (1080, 2160 etc) then you know you have a problem with the grade or export settings. It doesn’t do anyone any good to have a colorist tell them “well it looks perfect on my little calibrated monitor that none of your viewers have.” Sure, grade on a calibrated monitor, but then test it on consumer devices. This is a huge part of audio mixing/mastering as well: you try the final mixes on consumer earbuds, consumer car stereo, laptop speakers etc, PLUS trying it on studio monitors.. you have to sample your product the way it will be consumed as a final step, and make revisions as needed..
@@RustyShackleford9000 Plenty of youtube videos shot on high end cameras and colored by professional colorist have banding in walls, here i believe the importance has to be more on what he is trying to convey and if this helps him in getting out a video each week sure i can compromise on the quality. Also are you uploading the images that the client is going to see on instagram, youtube? youtube compression is terrible where even if banding isnt there in the source file its there once it gets uploaded to youtube. going by your logic most colorists dont know how to grade since banding in walls is quite common on youtube. also the color shifts which happen from device to device cant be taken into account what if the device he had is slightly tinted to yellow while others with the same device have it slightly tinted to blue? also do you treat time as non existent? for him to rewatch the same clip thrice at different quality settings? his job is being a colorist, how its exported is decided by the client who specifies how he wants it to be exported. Since this is a yt video for the grade school, as his intended audience im okay with saying this is fine. You made me a lot angry frankly and made me ramble, its so f**king annoying when people like you just trash on the person who is teaching everyone his skills, making it sound like oh you should have done this dont you even know this?? just effing irritates me the most, BE UNDERSTANDING AT THE END OF THE DAY
@@Meh2021 “TH-cam compression is terrible where even if banding isn’t there in the source file it’s there once it gets uploaded to TH-cam” bro.. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Obviously banding that isn’t there before is appearing after yt compression…. That’s the point lmao.. you have to select output color spaces, bit rates, and debayering options etc that COMPENSATE for what TH-cam does to the final product. Unless you are grading for something that will only ever be viewed offline by a client like a home movie, you need to grade and export in a way that banding doesn’t appear in 90% of circumstances. If he was in an alley at night with zero additional lighting, sure, a TINY bit of banding when playing back at 720p or below is acceptable… but this is an INDOOR prepared lighting environment that he has PREPPED for a video claiming to be a PRO colorist… and there’s banding?? Is he too lazy to just go increase the bitrate in his export settings with like 5 clicks???
On your comment about him not having time and needing to get frequent videos out… that actually works AGAINST your argument that we should just excuse lazy export settings/grading. If he is using the same set repeatedly for videos.. isn’t that MORE of an opportunity to get it right? If it’s repeatable, wouldn’t you think he would have taken the time ONCE to perfect the lighting, exposure settings on his camera, and grading/export workflow to eliminate banding and other artifacts?? Think about it..
And YES, there are TONS of people on yt who take amazing footage and then are too lazy to figure out and take the time to actually optimize the export file settings for the socials they are uploading to.. but then on the other hand, there are even more creators who DO upload optimized files without banding except in the 5% of extreme cases where it may show up for a few seconds in extreme low light.
“Color shifts from device to device can’t be taken into account” LMAOO ok cool, so it’s impossible to do an export test that you view on a desktop, laptop, and phone to make sure the gamma and color shifts aren’t drastic? Got it. An absolute impossibility likened to climbing Everest lol.
As for your statement thst the client defines the deliverable format, and any banding is completely out of the hands of the colorist is one of the most out of touch statements I have read on the topic of color grading recently.. sure a client will say “I want ProRes/H264/etc” but they aren’t gonna walk you thru every single check box and optional export setting field in DaVinci.. it’s up to YOU to tweak the settings WITHIN whatever deliverable format they select to get the best result.. I guarantee if everything you give clients has a ton of banding even in evenly lit indoor scenes… you ain’t getting the call back after a while..
Also, if he was saying “hey guys, I’m definitely not the top expert here, but this is how I personally like to grade” that would be one thing, but I’m not going to be “understanding at the end of the day” about someone who is claiming to be a “pro colorist” and telling people that they can benefit from copying their process. I don’t have a lot of slack for people who claim to be teaching but are transferring bad habits to people genuinely trying to learn. Especially when there are so many creators on yt doing what this guy CLAIMS to do, but actually doing it WELL.
Cullen, this is the type of content that courses worth several hundreds to thousands of dollars teach. Here you are, one of the absolute best channels on the subject. What a master.
Loved this. I would also love a video about how to get nicely rolled highlights in situations where the top end feels punchy, while the mids feels right.
A juicy one ! I can"t count how many times clients would say "it's looking too dark", implying an overall exposure adjustement when really, most of the time, they mean contrast : it's too contrasty in the shadows and they want to see more detail in there. :)
Phenomenal audio
It's always a pleasure to see you Cullen!
This is great advice! Videos like this help me improve my grading in super practical ways. Love your videos.
Golden advice as usual.
Exactly thanks for this Cullen
You are amazing man, I love your videos! I never make comments but this year I decided to recognize all creators I watch with commentaries.
Great discussion, and really well presented. Thanks for your insights. Holding onto the right amount of shadow detail is so important for the final look of a scene. Great advice on handling a client too :)
great words of advice as always...
Thank you for your teachings.
Great advice🙌
great content, man. thanks for teaching us!
your wall is sooo 8-bit
It probably is TH-cam compression
Most likely export setting. He needs to export in 10bit
@@MrKokom If you export in 10 bit, TH-cam will compress it to 8 bit anyway
@@jobpasveertech2339 10 bit high 10
@@MrKokomyeah I think Kelly don’t know that 😂 seriously?!?
Always enjoyable Cullen, thank you!
My pleasure!
So pro and cool to explain...
This new setup and haircut 🔥🔥 (The content was always fire)
Great stuff, thank you.
Damn. Really good stuff, made me think. Bravo!
Always interesting!
Thank You❤
Awesome, will have to try the: +lift, -gamma, +gain
Damn.. I'm pretty stunned how you saved those blacks 🤩
what good advice!
good stuff
Great advice for cinematographers
excellent recommendations for approval. I try to have some kind of "airbag" on the border and prefer to lighten the black by using a Pivota roll or lowering the contrast. Here you need to look specifically from the frame and use various tools to achieve the desired Look. As I think, when working with a client, it is better to adhere to the exact opposite view and raise the black to an acceptable level.
Big thanks,
You are the best ♥🔥
Hi Cullen, will you willing to teach us how to master an HDR footages for TH-cam, assuming we have Vesa certified 1000-nits mini LED display or True Black HDR400 OLED display and a proper video breakout box. Tq
The only other video Ive seen from ya is from a college class. I really dig this style
I think the term "Crushed Blacks " is incorrect - What people mean when they say that is the shadows have been pushed down to the blacks - so the actual term should be "Crushed Greys".
The way I approach it is similar to what you did in this video, but I lock off the actual black and in then stretch the greys above it with the curve tool which adds the fill light and opens the shadows, but it keeps the blacks consistent for contrast and doesn't raise them when trying to lift the image.
I also lock off the black when asked to do the opposite - by lowering the shadow ( grey ) closer to the black - the lowering on the curve will have the look of crushing the blacks, as people think of - but the black never changes.
Music Reference - from the Movie Spinal Tap:
"Nigel: "It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is None: None...more black."
Where do we see your grades?
Where do we see your grades?
This would have to be the most common point of feedback I hear from a client. I've found sometimes the adjustment requests from the client are to the detriment of the final image, simply because they want to see everything in the darker areas of the image. It can feel like you are pulling away from the DOP's visual intention. Definitely going to take on board your communication suggestions, thanks for the great incite.
Thank you, Cullen. I always learn something valuable in your videos. You've helped me tremendously in my color grading journey. On the additional node for the contrast adjustment using pivot .336, I remember somewhere in another video (most likely one of yours) that may have had a chart of the pivot points for specific color spaces. Is that right? If so, can you post a link here to that?
I had the same question; does anyone have a reference/link?
@@LRRipley me too
This lesson was beautiful! May I ask a question about middle grey in da Vinci intermediate? May I ask why the grey is set at 35 IRE instead of 40? This is after putting in a color space transform from DWG to rec 709 gamma 2.2.
Thanks for the useful video as always, Cullen. I see some very weird banding in your background. YT compression going crazy?
You can send the client a grey scale, likelyhood on a cheap monitor (out of 100) 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 all look black. So you must know how to deal with this, YOU must understand anything in the 15 zone cold be perceived as dark. Part of the reason grading consumer work on fancy monitors pulls you down a hole. Remember the client is looking on behlf of thier customers.. if they have a phone or suchlike are looking at what thier audience will see!
TH-camrs often have the oposite problem. They all lift the shadows too much, making the picture looking foggy and unnatural but they think this is „cinematic“ 😂😂😂
great
would love side-by-side examples. as a newbie, i don’t always know what i’m looking for.
Hey! Great vid. I have a question:
How do you deal with imported reference stills on a gamma 2.4 timeline since they are srgb. How do you monitor these, do you CST them from srgb to rec 709 2.4 or no? I’m trying to analyze some levels from different still but can’t find the best way to monitor them properly.
Thanks :)
Your audio sounds great. How did you get your voice to sound like this?
On a related note, make sure your footage is set to the correct level (video vs full data level). Especially when working with S-log footage, which is always full level.
Are you able to make and provide us with a "show" lut for an alexa mini similar to the one Deakins uses in Sicario and many other of his films?
Do you ever go into the "Camera Raw" and decode using "Clip" and switch the ISO a stop or two higher for your starting point if the blacks are too crushed? Would you then use lift, gamma and gain adjustments rather than just leaving the ISO at what the DP set it to and just using lift, gamma and gain?
Great question! I never touch the ISO setting, because I can get the same result using grading tools -- specifically the HDR Global Wheel. I prefer this approach because I can use it regardless of whether the shot I'm grading is in raw. Hope this helps!
I'm wondering how the Pivot thing works. Great video btw!
He said it before. I believe it changes the middle gray of the contrast tool
What is your setup? Does mac works well with cinema workflow?
Seems helpful trick but leave us unsatisfied, I am grading short film where I have very similar image if you talk about blacks, it’s even more darker then this, and my blacks are crushing crazy, but I like the look its giving me and when I am trying to recover a bit is making my blacks roll of way to smoother, which I want to avoid. So just asking, living that blacks crunchy because it’s giving me that look is fine, Or I still have to massage to make sure its deep black yet recover ? You made a video in very right time 😀
Does the commonality of this note, highlight a bigger issue? Most people have low grade, large but inexpensive monitors where the blacks run together even tho you graded it carefully and referenced it on multiple monitors/tvs you own, but they're still above average? I'm always hesitant to push the grade knowing so many people won't end up seeing what I'm seeing
Is it intentional that your own headshot has a gradient on the backwall that TH-cam just can not handle? Like an illustration of how compressed footage breaks? Because I'm sure the original shot is quite lovely and understated, but here it's banding galore, even in 4K.
What are some of ways you can guarantee that the client sees what you see if they can't be in the same room. Stills, render etc. How do you go about doing that?
This is a great question, and also a tough one to answer. Sometimes you can only do so much. I would try to find out what type of display they're using to view the material. Their answer may indicate why they feel one way or another about the images. Suggest an alternative, such as an LG OLED or perhaps an iPad Pro, and see if that doesn't help their viewing experience.
@@CullenKelly thank you. i appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Hey Cullen, thanks for this. Do you also know if you can send vision out to an iPhone to check colours? I’ve worked as a sound engineer earlier in my career everyone from Usher to Jet and we’d often check out final product on studio speaker, then the car, and on set of $5 computer speakers. Now that I’m in film I’m trying to disperse color graded over a couple of screens, including gamma shifts once uploaded to YT, IG and FB. Any help on sending picture to iPhones would be great. I don’t like resolves remote app… it’s literally and ironically… crushes the blacks lol
Hi Cullen, in terms of having you and your client looking at the same monitor, in my case that's kind of hard because I live far in the suburb while most of my clients are coming from the big city, like 2 hours away of driving. So I usually use Davinci Remote Monitor with the cleanfeed coming from my calibrated external monitor with Ultrastudio 3G. What do you think about that? What's the downfall of it? What setting you have to keep in mind to make sure that everybody's looking at exactly the same image? About the crushed blacks, I use to make a new node and play around with my HDR wheel, usually between the Light and Shadow wheel to lift up the lower end of the image. What's your thought about that? Is it a valid way of dealing with crushed blacks?
I think the ability to sit in one room is becoming harder by the day. We can't be all living in Los Angeles, or NY have a 20K dollar monitor and the deadlines are so tight that your client might even not have the time to hit your suite and work off notes alone. Same in mixing and mastering for audio, where I come from. Color grading is in fact, to me, the equivalent of audio mastering. I never had any client in my room when mastering, and for sure they don't reference the masters on high end gear. If there were a single, standard, successful solution, monitor, etc everybody would get that.
I think the direction will mostly be (some colorists will cringe but hey, their problem) You work off your calibrated monitor AND an OLED iPad at the same time (or whatever affordable, valid AND portable solution a client might afford) and reference to that. It's like switching speakers in the mixing room. It is much easier to agree on a common image this way. Scopes also help.
Calibrated iPads are used for this purpose
@@Fedor_Dokuchaev_Color Yes but colorists keep saying that they would never color grade on them in a pinch. I think that is a wrong approach to the whole matter. I have read people say 'The iPad so closely matches my Sony reference grade monitor, but nah...I will never color on those'. Time will tell.
@@andycrystal I would not color grade on Ipad either, it is too small. But it is good enough as client viewing device.
@@Fedor_Dokuchaev_Color I'd argue size is an issue.
Excellent video, although unfortunately very very few doctors these days actually try to treat the root cause. Meds meds meds these days!
I have a question, which I am not sure is relevant.
Nowadays, with OLED tv's, they advertise "true black" and "infinite contrast ratio" as selling points. I know that I much prefer when the blacks are actually black, rather than the grayish background from a backlit LCD...
So my question is, when do you actually let black hit 0 vs adding some sort of toe or lifting them? I may be misunderstanding the topic, and we are really talking about shadows rather than true black, but I have that question in general, when and how do we actually let true black be true black (0 value).
I guess a simple example is space in a sci fi movie...but also applicable in scenes with dark shadows. Have OLED displays impacted this conversation?
Nothing in real life is true black tough.
@@andycrystal space? that is kind of the point of OLED's being able to show actual black...there is plenty of stuff that should be black on screen, not gray.
or an even better example, watch the scene in "The Batman" in the subway, where Batman comes out of the dark tunnel. None of the people are supposed to be able to see any details, that heightens their fear because they can't see what is coming. There is, by definition, no detail down that tunnel. It looks a lot better in OLED than when it shows up as gray on an LCD tv.
The ideal of true black has always dominated certain visual theory. I personally am against colorists who preached that if you don't "crush" the black, your image won't look good. People like these are often from Western markets, where lost of details in shadows are encouraged.
In the Asian market, details in shadow are often retained.
This is a great question! Where the darkest part of your image sits, whether that's 0 or somewhere slightly above, should be a creative choice. The desired shape of the toe can be very subjective, as well as project dependent. The collaboration between you and your client will ultimately dictate the shape of the bottom end. Hope that helps!
Why your wall pixelated , I want to fix in in my films.
What about setting the Kodak LUT in timeline only to Color (without Luma)?
And then streaming compression wipes out all the information in the bottom 20-30% and we get those night time scenes that you can’t see at all. Or you need to be in a pitch black room with a pro spec monitor to see what’s going on. I’m not a fan of the race to the bottom of the histogram that’s happening in color grading.
Many Clients and Agencies "Creatives" don't even understand what they see...🙄 #Frustrating
Well, the fact that it’s common note probably means that modern filmmakers and colonists love darkness too much😂. So try maybe look at movies that shot before digital era. Don’t you think it looked fine as it is, without crushed blacks, when you actually could see stuff on the screen? I see that you’re pro, but even your example here clearly shows that reasons of that “disease” is more on the trend-aesthetic side rather than technical side.
Actual answer doesn’t start after 5mins.
Why do pro colorists always have to highlight that they're pro colorists?
Doesn’t every professional introduce themselves when giving a presentation ?
@@AlexDerrick_DPno
Aa s a black man, I thought that this video was about race.
Nah man, it's all about letting those color grades pull themselves up by the bootstraps
for somebody talking about color grading I find your videos badly graded… I also watched your color management video and I believe your problem is there…
Time is money and this is a help video. I wouldn’t spend too much time on the color if it’s just a quick tutorial video either. Plus, lighting in that room is very simple. There’s not much to work with anyhow.
@@daemonjofficial still, advice that you give is wrong and could ruin somebody’s career
What specifically is problematic about his color management video?
You might just have a different taste in the type of images you like, which is perfectly fine. Doesn’t mean that this is “badly graded.” It looks fine to me on a calibrated display, as good as TH-cam will allow anyway.
I think it's because there are so many of us that just play one on the Internet. When it involves software - you can be an expert on the software but not understand the ins and outs of actual production and grading for clients.
An oil paint and accessories sales person can know everything there is about paint, brushes and canvases, but not really know how to paint a picture.