There's next to nothing online about HDR color grading, so this marvelous presentation by Eric Weidt, where the colorist talks about his collaboration with director David Fincher on Mindhunter, is a real treat. Incredible that Film Light thought it worthwhile enough to deliver in HDR. Turn the lights down and enjoy! https://youtu.be/QDDY4B-D15g Scott Miller, Senior... Continue Reading →
RED Komodo Grade Reveal
The clip incorporates many of the techniques discussed in our Monster guide - the most comprehensive and up-to-date free resource on the Internet for HDR10 workflows in DaVinci Resolve Studio 18 that shows how to use false color to nail exposure every time; how to use HSL to selectively target problematic areas for the best... Continue Reading →
Cullen Kelly on Correcting Skin Tones
"In the last five years I have maybe pulled one key for skin. I will avoid it at basically all costs. It's just upside down, it's wagging the dog. What are we trying to make look good with our primaries if not skin? Skin should be like bullseye, dead-on, by the time we've moved on... Continue Reading →
Walter Volpatto Talks Node Structure
Walter Volpatto, Senior Colorist, Company 3 (Interstellar, Homecoming, Dunkirk), drops so much wisdom in this one hour, 45 min video! There isn't a dull moment, but perhaps the most interesting segment begins at one hour, 27 minutes where the colorist describes how he had to make the digital image match the film print of Dunkirk... Continue Reading →
Ditching the Video Look
Stuff we're doing differently now from the past: during shooting, avoiding yellow in false color entirely except for specular highlights (aside from the infrequent occasions when we want to purposely blow out highlights); in post, being meticulous about adjusting white balance prior to color correction, even if it's just a few degrees; adjusting yellow, blue,... Continue Reading →
Alpha Cameras Just Got A Whole Lot Better
With the release of Paul Leeming's 'Athena' LUT, Sony Alpha cameras now have dazzling color. The video was shot with the a7 III, Sony 85mm f/1.8, Cine2 picture profile and edited in DaVinci Resolve using an LG OLED as a grading monitor. https://youtu.be/GC3kx9BJW_o
So Long, Washed-Out YouTube Videos! (DaVinci Resolve)
Update 2022.01: Cullen Kelly just released a free LUT created to counteract the washed-out look when uploading SDR videos to YouTube and Frame.io. We haven't used it yet ourselves, but you might want to give it a try and let others in the community know if it works for you. If you're still trying to... Continue Reading →
Switching to Resolve!
After months of agonizing, I finally broke down and hired a professional calibration technician to adjust my LG OLED C7, calling the very first name that popped up in a Google search for Ho Chi Minh City. The price was steep - $300.00 - but the quest for perfect color has become a crazy obsession.... Continue Reading →
Vincent Teoh: Colorists Should Consider an OLED TV
https://youtu.be/VDG_lmEPc_g?t=1013 Vincent Teoh, in his unboxing video of the Panasonic HZ1000 OLED TV, corroborates what I've been saying for months now, which is that an OLED display should outperform Apple's Pro Display XDR for HDR grading, and just might be the best budget option short of a reference monitor. When I reviewed the Apple Pro... Continue Reading →
Asus PA32UCX-K As A Grading Monitor for YouTube
Asus ProArt PA32UCX (l), iMac (c), LG OLED C7 (r) I thought I'd jot down my first impressions of the PA32UCX solely in its capacity as a grading monitor for delivery to YouTube - the primary purpose for which I purchased the display. For this, I'm evaluating the image quality of an HLG HDR video... Continue Reading →
Pro Display XDR: The New Gold Standard
What we can say for sure is that the XDR is the display HDR content creators have been waiting for and that, while it may not be replacing Sony BVMX reference monitors in production studios, it will most certainly find a place right alongside them; and it is the answer to the prayers of every... Continue Reading →
Asus PA32UCX: First Impressions
Apart from uploading a handful of Sony HLG HDR videos to YouTube last year - mostly out of morbid curiosity - I'd pretty much all but given up on HDR, for the simple reason that there were no remotely affordable monitors. That all changed last month when I learned about the Asus ProArt 32UCX at... Continue Reading →
RocketStock LUT Pack
A freaking awesome deal! 35 creative LUTs from RocketStock absolutely free. https://youtu.be/Y7ae6jjWQSc
Revised Workflow for Leeming LUT One for Panasonic HLG in FCP X 10.4
Update: New, simplified workflow for Leeming LUT One - Panasonic HLG v501 (16-235) here. Once you've created your library, event and project and imported footage, you'll notice that clips in the browser appear blown-out like the image below. What you'll want to do is go into Final Cut Preferences and select 'Show HDR as RAW... Continue Reading →
Paul Leeming Releases Fixie LUT
Final Cut Pro users need no longer be left out in the cold when using the Leeming LUT as a result of not being able to select proper data levels. The Fixie LUT is designed to be applied to footage before the Leeming LUT and is available for free download here. Without Fixie LUT (L),... Continue Reading →
Panasonic: Shitty Color Science?
I'm tired of reading comments in the forums that Panasonic's color science is crap. I am not a professional colorist, but I find the colors of the GH4 to be quite pleasing. Perhaps if I'd used Filmconvert, the results would have been even more impressive.
Lumix GH4 + Osiris Jugo LUT
A year ago when I posted a video shot on a Lumix GH3, many viewers expressed an interest in the Osiris Jugo LUT I'd used. So I thought readers might like to see how the same LUT looks when applied to footage from the GH4. The screen grabs below are from the timeline of a... Continue Reading →
How to Import XML Files into Resolve Without Crashes
I'd had Resolve in my applications folder for forever but not for one second did I think I would ever need it, let alone learn to use it. But since I became interested in color grading, I realized FCPX wasn't going to cut it. There remained only one obstacle - importing XML files into Resolve from... Continue Reading →
First Look: Tiffen ND Filter Kit
In my last test, I hoped to show that the Lumix GH3 is fully capable of producing beautiful skin tones and satisfying bokeh, at least when coupled with the Vario 35-100mm f/2.8 lens. But because they were shot under mixed lighting, the results were perhaps not the final word. One of the reasons for doing... Continue Reading →
The Daejeon Chronicles 