I do use them at full opacity, they are designed to work in that way, but you need to transform the color space LOG you have in cineon log/709 primaries (that is what the lut is expected for my understanding)

It will be boring as hell….

hehe not for us I promise you! pleeeease 🙂

Great! I have had wayyy too much excitement this year! 😆

At home I use lightillusion, at work I have to ask the engineer team, but the most difference is fine by the probes we use, those are 20k…

Yes rec709/2.4 for tv, P3D65/2.6 for cinema (usually), p3PQ for hdr

Now, if you’re talking about the setting in the resolve color management, that match the logarithmic hero camera (the log space im working on)

There is the philosophical approach and the practical one.

if I want to emulate negative film grain that modify with the color, it should be before the balance node. Nobody does that really, but it is a though.
if I want to emulate as if the negative was perfectly exposed, then it will go before the LUT/Look/main tonal mapping, usually for me that is in the Timeline node before the “look”

if you want to emulate print grain, it should go after the main look.

But, all of this is purely academical: ALL of your material will pass thru a compression pass to be able to be seein: from theatrical (low) to streaming (technical term is “shit-ton of it”). So, the compression will attack the hi frequency of your signal first, if you have light grain it will be gone, if you have a lot, it might reduce the efficiency of the compression algorithm.

it is a losing battle.

I still like to see grain, resolve OFX is good for me, and it is mainly before the main LOOK in the timeline, if a shot or a scene need more, It will be in the shots.

for a movie where two different worlds LOOK where created (Bliss, amazon, this coming February) the look and grain was moved at the group/scene level, so each set of scene had its appropriate look. But it was a bot of an odd ball… the fact that I did not use the group for anything (not corner yourself if you don’t have to) allow me to do that.

Thanks for the insight Walter. As most of my stuff goes to the web, I realise I need to add LOTS more grain to be able to even see it.

I used resolve luts in the past as well as we do our luts from analytic data from film.

At Co3 we have a proprietary system for film profiling, in the past at fotokem i used truelight profiling system.

“Hustler” look was initially modeled to a resolve film lut (modified to taste).

There is no secret in “compressing the luminance” the idea is to build a tonal curve that has a goos “S” curve, you want to preserve in a linear fashion the 7(ish) stops around the 18%gray, then gently put toe and shoulder to flatten the extra black and whites, the more gently you do it, the softer the image is, the harder you do it, th more contrast the final image is.

Thank you!

You most work in YRGB or Color managed?
Or maybe ACEScct?
Would love to hear how you think about the Color Management.

I often work in Color Managed and set my input for the camera and output Color Space to Rec.709 Gamma 2.4.

If the client has no preference, I work in YRGB and i manage my own color.

I have lots of space and I turn on [smart caching]… usually it works…

The basic idea works in HDR/SDR/and ACES…. there will be appropriate transforms either at group level, timeline level or ODTs.

i just played with V17, the color warp interest me, I played with teh Nobe plugin and I can do things that are difficult in a normal situation, but it is more for either repair a shot or create a look…

the reordering of node in V17 is highly aggravating…..

Thank you so much for your answers! I assume you’re working in Arri Log C whenever you can, and manage the transforms/IDTs/ODTs at a node-level – but an ACES-workflow would demand having the grading space in ACEScc/ACEScct. How do you approach this? DaVincis controls in ACES often work…unexpectedly bad.

I like the math with luma mix at 0, especially when I need to use LGG controls (rarely)

Funny enough, in ACEScc/cct the logarithmic is such that a offset is really mathematically equivalent to a exposure change.

I really like the offset-focused approach for its simplicity and easy transfer using different grading spaces, and I’ll be surely playing around with your node tree for a while.

I’d love to see a full master class with you – I think all of us here could learn a lot watching you grade.

it will be boring like hell!!!!

keep in mind that when you work with excellent DoP, colorist have nothing much to do….. I work with excellent photography…

2021 is 13 days old, and you’ve just won understatement of the year.

Roughly speaking, yes, just basic balance on the shot, then scene look, replicate the look to the scene then matching the shot to the hero one

BTW after a while I got used to do the contrast as is, I dont turn into BW anymore… I think is practice….

Using OFX color space transforms, you can pretty much do the same math that is is in RCM. It is identical…

so it is a matter of knowing how to do it and where to put it.

The idea is that at the trim node you are doing a “scene” look (if any) or client trims: it is not uncommon that after a scene is done, you need to do a small exposure adjustment or make it warmer or overall less contrast or whatever. Threat that as an overall..

The basic idea is that the main tonal mapping is done at the LOOk level: LUTs, curves, look whatever you wan it to be

at the node level, you are in the LOG of the camera and printer light simulate close enough exposure and white balance as if it is done in the camera. Therefore I use almost exclusively Printerlights/offset. Luma mix at 0. Gain if I need more contrast.

Why do you set the luma mix at 0? It doesn’t seem to affect offset settings, only lgg

Not that I know, go to the blackmagic forum and add your name to the complain list.

Never.

I work in log space and my main look/lut whatever is in the timeline node

Yes, if you want, of course.

It’s just time and I started when there was no shared nodes, in used to it.

When I do the balance of the shot, I look at the subject: usually teh subject is a person, hence skin tone.

i want the subject to be right after exposure/balance. i dont give a rat about the background shadow not being perfectly black. If I have to change the background shadow, that will be a secondary correction.

so: balance for the skin/subject
secondary on the “secondary” parts of the image.

Thanks a lot for answering! You’re a legend! 🙂

Either as DCTL on the media page (preferred) or it depends.

if the shot is already in a LOG like i usually put it on the first node, a OFX color transform will act before the primaries in a node (order of operations) therefore your correction will still be in LogC.

if the shot needs some hard transform, i might put it in the second node, (repurposing) so i can color some in the original space and then transform it.

Ah that makes sense. Thanks Walter!

Is working with DCTL’s in the media page a similar workflow to setting an IDT and working in YRGB colour managed? If you were replicating your workflow in a YRGB project, would the Log-Rec709/P3 transform go right at the end of the node structure? This would still allow you to work in Log C throughout?

I’ve yet to try colour managed or using DCTL’s so just trying to get my head around it in a standard project. Cheers Walter really great insight into your workflow. The ‘hail mary’ comment had me in stitches!