Why a mild color regrading is useless...

[spoRv]

I learnt that a mild color regrading project - I mean, that the only thing done is not a huge color regrade - is useless.

Why? Well, our brain is amazing, and operate also as a good white balance device; sure, it's not instantaneous, it takes some time (I guess few minutes), but at the end ANY movie, even the ones with a strong color blanket would end as perfectly color balanced (for our brain).

Proof? Just take any movie that you know has altered colors - possibly with clear blue sky, white clouds, and snow in daylight - and watch it from the beginning to the end. Then, after it is finished, think about those shots with white clouds or snow, and get back to watch them again... you will be amazed to discover that the white is everything but white! (hint: Titanic) - note: even the most expert project maker with a perfect color vision and calibrated display works in the same way as the average Joe!

So, what's the point to mildly correct an almost right movie, whenever even the worse grading is "automatically corrected"? Sure, for the peace of mind and/or to make the things right, but if it's the only thing you are going to do, better to spare your time and do something else - I know that often is just a matter of tweaking some settings and let the PC do the rest, but it could takes hours, then you have to encode, upload etc... to me, it's just futile. Exception is when you do something else to video - like AR, cleaning, adding scenes etc. - or you tweak not lightly the contrast.

Just my looong two cents!

[deleted user]

I politely disagree.

[spoRv]

I politely disagree.

We often agree to disagree... but this time, about color grading futility, or brain white balance?

[deleted user]

I politely disagree.

We often agree to disagree... but this time, about color grading futility, or brain white balance?

Both I think. I have the feeling I can definitely tell when a movie has an annoying tint to it and it bothers me. It reduces the saturation of other colors and makes everything look kinda drab.

It's weird because I think you are right about the brain white balance in general but for regrades eeeh, for some reason I'm not sure it applies so well.

There's another aspect too though. Regrades don't affect merely the white balance. They can contain other forms of color transformation that aren't necessarily expressible through white balance adjustments.

[spoRv]

Just an example of one of my own previous projects:

the difference is not that great even as static image: do you really think ANYONE (me included) could guess which version has watched just by memory, and not getting back checking screenshots? I bet not.

Frankly today, personally, I'd not spent time and energy ONLY for this kind of mild regrading; of course, if I'd make something else - let's say, logo removal, noise reduction, regraining - along the regrading, then it would be OK. Again, IMHO. By the way, I saw many other projects with even milder color grading (mostly not here), but I don't see the point to release something with, who knows, RGB/YUV variations of +/- 2 or 3 steps and call them "regrading" - even if technically they are, it's like IMHO to take an audio track with low volume, increase level by 3dB and call it a restoration. With such low level of deviation, a simple audio/video setting tweak would be enough.