Get Better Color Balance pt. 2
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2024
- Your ability to balance an image can distinguish your work as professional instead of amateur. In part two of this series, I'll show you how to approach balancing your image as you go through the first pass of your grade, from making the adjustment to shot matching and thought process.
We dive deeper into this topic & I answer your color balancing questions in my Grade School livestream here: • Grade School: Shot mat...
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I love how you allow us to take the pressure off ourselves. To think wider and less narrow and not kill ourselves over the tiniest of detials.
Well said 🙂
I must say that these recent 15 minutes videos are truly golden. In the past ten months made me understand how to think when grading, I thought I'd never be able to.
Hi Cullen,
Want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your knowledge as a color master.
The pure way you do this, no noise, no ego, just from rest, in a normal way, as it is, no frills.
In short, thank you for letting me learn from you.
+1
Glad you mention playing through the footage. So many colour discussions you see reference still images only and forget that this material consists of moving pictures.
Absolutely one of the best educators 👨🏫 on color grading and color science. Reminds me of my most respected Art School professors #gravitas and calm demeanor 👏
I think you got to the same target - but for me logically thinking, that the more control on set from the DP, that the closer the intent would be represented in the wide, mid and close-up. The establishing shot in this, because we are seeing the whole room, the less control the DP has on intent. Just through physical location of where they can flag or position the lighting, makes the initial shot less likely to be accurate to the intent. ( guessing as to most situations/locations )
So for an anchor, I would have picked a mid shot, and worked outward from that.
It might be a coincidence, but when you got to the mid shots, they were closer in balance and tone to each other because of the control they had with lighting position and shaping the image on set. I think that a lot of people that are starting out have the TV lighting impression, where they set up the lighting and just move the cameras around for the angles. I have a friend that has been a grip for over 30 years, and when we have time to talk, we discuss things like this.
They know that the wide has to be as good as they can get it. But they also know that there is some wiggle room there because the viewer is further away from the subject, and might not notice small imperfections in exact tone and light shaping.
I would think that the opening shot that the teacher has hardly any light hitting her at all.
Like most things that I watch , I analyze how I think it was lit, and in this scene, I’d guess that the wall across from the window is most likely a huge black flag, so the DP would have very little light to work with from that angle.
As always - love watching your videos because they keep me thinking about how I proceed on different types of grading.
Thanks again Cullen.
PS: Your presentation in the morning at Resolvecon was absolutely fabulous. Your skills as an educator in my opinion has never been better that I have seen. You looked fresh, relaxed and the content just rolled out of you. Great job.
Starting with the wide shot has been a good to start for myself as it provides a reference to common objects or persons which may appear in the CU shots. However your point Jim is well taken as the time and resources available for the crew at the time of shooting will greatly determine how well the baseline in camera match is done. Keep in mind in addition to the lighting adjustments between setups the lenses will change which also can result in color and contrast differences between the wide and close up shots. Great to see how Professor Cullen in addition to Darren Mostyn videos have become some of the defacto sources of color knowledge and educational resources on TH-cam for emerging and established colorists. Wishing the best in 2023 and onward for Cullen, family and his support staff. :)
I always use two hero shots, a close up of skin and face plus a wide for context. (I once graded half a scene of MCU /CU before I saw the wide and the talent walked out from under a blue lamp into a normal light!)
Jim Robinson is everywhere!!!!
I’ve seen maybe 5 videos of yours Cullen, and in those 5 videos you’ve completely reinvigorated my passion for videography.. but more than that you’ve inspired me to seek further knowledge of what you’ve been teaching. It’s so easily digestible once you’ve figured out the simple color space workflow, and that information-I feel like color science or whatever you wanna call it-has started to finally make more sense to me than the “traditional” way of going about it, and I’ve been a paid professional for the last 6 years. Keep up the good work my man! You’re quickly changing the way many of us approach fundamental coloring in general 🤘🏻
Working through in passes is the way to go, especially if, like me, you are working without pro grade screens. I am working in a remote location and, on a laptop, and have to render my short projects and then send the render to my phone and other screens to get an idea of the results.
Not an ideal situation.
Working my way through these excellent tutorials is a BIG help. I'm hooked 👌
THIS!!!! Man this is exactly what I have been waiting for! I’ll save my questions until the end of the series. Awesome work man!!
Thank you for these videos. Color grading has been a focus of mine and I've picked up bits and pieces along the way, but it's always felt like a big undertaking. I am really enjoying your process of working through clips. But I'm mostly enjoying your approach and mindset when working. It's really helping breaking down the "behemoth" I've built color grading up to be in my head.
Thanks a lot Cullen ! it's so good to have some insight of the grading workflow, not only working on the colors but the entire process of shot matching. Can wait to attend your next class sessions which I enrolled with a lot of enthousiasm !
Very helpful vid. I'm definitely a culprit of trying for the perfect 10 with matching and spending too long on each shot! Will definitely try and bring this into my workflow !
This content is different. Huge Thanks.
Loving these. And hopefully you'll do a 3rd round of your color class. Can't make the one next week, but already got the money aside for if you do another one!
you're amazing man, thanks for teaching us
Can"t wait for this Friday's grade school !
@@CullenKelly I'll be there :D
8:30 Damn...that's a huge gold nugget! I tend to linger on shots forever and I get frustrated.
Your Channel is really a goldmine
Thank u so much sir♥...the iron example was awesome...
Ayy 4k finally!
Usually I go outside and have a cigarette, relax and comeback to my grading with fresher eyes and mind.
As a guy who shoots and grades I learned%
1. Match exposure and contrast on set, fixing it in post will give terrible results.
2. Balance your image on set, use lights, props and study perceptual contrast.
3. in Post - refine instead of fixing
Strong agree here!
Thank you sir. I have seen a lot of colorist/davinci resolve videos... including paid training courses... this is where it is at. -Mark
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you 🎉
Nice content! I would like to ask if you can turn up the volume a bit, always need to boost my earphones when watch your videos.
Great info! Thanks once again! I'm very new to DR. Can you explain how you toggle back and forth between the still capture and the timeline, and how to do the swipe back and forth? I'm not finding the keys to press, or how to set it up.... Thanks!
Thank you for this update hopefully ill finally understand.
Really nice and helpful... Thanks!
Thank you
Thanks for the content! What is the short cut for changing the shot when you want to compare the colors of the current shot and the previous shot?
Hi, Thanks. for your. great work. Question for the live as I probably watch it after: In documentary film color matching perspective(not necessary high level lighting setup): how is your strategy to match close shot nice balanced and the important wide shot with a backlight windows where the skin are often under exposed. I usually isolate the skin with power windows and a touch of denoise. Have you other tips?
Great information as always! Quick question, what production monitor do you have?
@@CullenKelly Thanks! I have two production monitors at home, and the place I work for has 26. all the monitors need to be calibrated, and we are still looking for a good solution. Some monitors support LUTS, and others do not, I have contacted Portrait Displays and Light Illusion, but I wonder if the software/hardware would work for us. Any advice or service recommendations in Maryland?
finally 4k videos !!!!!
I could not find the part 3 of this series anywhere in TH-cam? Has it not been released yet?
Hi Cullen 😊 When you balance the colors, you said that you give importance to the skin tone. But there is also the possibility to balance by adjusting the white (white balance)/colors that should be neutral (that the value of red, blue and green should be the same). I noticed that many times the balance does not come out the same (in other words, if you compare the version of the skin tone with the version of the neutral colors in the picture, it does not always reach the same result.... Note, I'm not talking about aiming for a neutral highlights and shadows... only about colors that you know are supposed to be neutral) why don't you balance the white, and only then change the skin tone using the hue curve? Apparently, this is how you manage to balance the white in the picture as well as the skin tone, so you should get the best of both options... Am I missing something? Thank you!
Great question! Put simply, if I can get the results i'm after with one adjustment (linear gain or offset) as opposed to two (linear gain or offset plus hue v hue), then the single-adjustment approach wins. But nothing wrong with approaching things this way if you feel this is the simplest way to accomplish what you're after!Another way to think about this: I don't emphasize balancing highlights, shadows, or neutrals in general because that's something that will either bother me or not while I'm optimizing for skin and separation. If it bothers me, I'll naturally continue adjusting until the neutrals feel better. If it doesn't, then no problem!
Thanks for the reply Cullen, I really appreciate your time and patience. Just to make sure I understood you correctly (because your approach is new to me), the general idea that guides you is to reach the most pleasant result in the simplest way.
You prioritize the skin tone and the separation of the colors over the "correct" image (a correct image for me in this context is the accuracy of the colors as they were, which is done by trying to compare the values of red, blue and green in the neutral colors that exist in the image, or alternatively using the color match tool). In other words, you prefer a pleasant image (skin tone and color separation) than a correct image (colors that are the same values they had on the day they were taken).
Did I understand you correctly?@@CullenKelly
Q: What time does 'Grade School' typically stream on Fridays?
While I do feel like learning something and I agree with the techniques.
However I am not agreeing with the specific results. Better, sure - but not where I would expect it or got to myself
thanks
what tone and palette did you use precisely on the first footage?
Sir,does Color Balancing mean converting the image to rec 709 with color seperation ? Or just color managing the clip in setting menu is rec 709?
I see Cullen, I like.
💫
Love you analogy, it's pretty pratical!
Pure amateur confused (or missing the point) , watched many vids and every colorist seems to do it differently; loving your videos though, until now I didn't know you could create nodes that affect the whole Timeline, I simply used "Select All" - "Apply Grade" taking the whole node structure from one clip to all the others!
But confused in this one. From what I can see in the numbers changing on the screen, at t=320 you adjust the Exposure node using Offset. Then at t=343 you switch to the Balance node and seem to be using the Offset again - what's the difference and how come you call one Exposure and one Color Balance using the same control?
Why don't we simply used Exp under Global on the HDR tab for Exposure?
Any help appreciated.
@@CullenKelly Thank you, I understand better now.
what do you do for your timeline looks if one scene is DRASTICALLY different than the rest of the film... is there a way to bypass certain shots from the timeline adjustments?
@@CullenKelly thank you for responding! Cheers
What if I'm color blind and can't trust my eye 😅
Tooooooo fast update！Thank you so much.
What is the pallette LUt?