Beginners Guide to Colour Grading

[alleycat]

Thanks PDB, that’s a great idea for dissolves - looks like they’re easy to add in DaVinci so will give it a go. Not had any fade to blacks/whites yet but would you need two LUTs in that situation normally?

Yes cross desolves all the way, works really well. With the fades to black, I would cut at the beginning of the fade and apply a LUT to the scene before it, then cut after the black as the new scene is appearing and apply a LUT to that scene - but leave the black segment without any LUT because the LUT will make the pure black shot no longer pure black. Then apply two cross disolves either side of the black. I don't know about resolve but with Premiere you can play around with the duration of the disolve, although it's not often needed.

Scene by scene is a pain for sure but it yields the best results and once you get in the rhythm it goes quicker than you first expected it to.

[PDB]

I also concur with what alleycat said.

[alexp2000]

Started working on a regrade of Total Recall using the 35mm scan that's out there, seem to be getting the hang of it now but feedback welcome (not done any real contrast/saturation adjustment yet)


   


Using the Italian 4K as the base and will look at which tracks to include in due course (and start a proper thread!)


(and if you look closely there's a shot I've not done yet, doh!)

[alleycat]

Glad you are getting the hang of it.

I'm not that well versed in Resolve, but I've picked a few things up over time with Premiere that makes my life easier. I've started using scene detection to cut the video up into shots, then work through them one at a time. I find that makes error spotting easier but at the same time it takes ages. Sometimes I'll cut a scene that takes place in a certain environment, then apply a LUT to the whole scene, then cut that scene into shots, then double check each shot. I find I miss less errors this way.

Also I find using lumetri scopes helps me to spot issues with black levels. Again this is premiere, but I look for any gaps between the bottom of each color and the bottom of the graph. Sometimes it's all three of them with the same gap in which case I adjust the black levels or sometimes it's just one of them and I adjust with RGB curves. Just depends on the particular LUT.

Look forward to checking this out once it's all done.

[alexp2000]

Thanks Alleycat, the scene cut detection in DaVinci seems to work really well - I've not had to use the trick with dissolves or fades yet but I'm sure that will come up soon enough (Total Recall has been all hard cuts so far).

I don't suppose you've got a good guide around what to look for with scopes? I'm a bit lost by what you mean about gaps - I take it the idea is to ensure consistency accross shots though?

[alleycat]

So I find with certain shots, and certain Dr Dre Settings, you get a scenario where the colors look ok but the shot is really washed out. The scope sometimes looks like this, with that gap at the bottom.



But playing around with the black levels or the RGB curves master (again Premiere terminology might be different for you) you can adjust so it looks like this, i.e. no gap:



Which makes the shot look like it should. All depends on the sources, I find some projects this never happens and some projects it happens for every other LUT. The reason I like using the scope is even if it's just a little bit off, something I might not notice by eye when looking at shots over and over again, the scope will show it. You obviously have to be careful about going too far the other way and crushing the blacks.

Again sometimes if you are getting results like this, using a different set of images to produce the LUT will help, but with some sources it just seems to happen a lot. 

The scope I use is Parade RGB but again that's in Premiere.

[alexp2000]

Nice one, that all makes sense - I've definitely noticed a few of the Dre matches come out understurated so glad it's not just me haha. Resolve has RGB Parade too so I'll have a look when correcting those shots to try and make to sure it looks right.