Today, I’d wish to share a useful resource that can provide help to shortly—and accurately—arrange the colour administration for each undertaking that you just deal with. You’ll have the ability to grade with confidence understanding that you just’ve obtained your entire particulars, dropdowns, and menus arrange precisely proper. I name it the Color Management Cheat Sheet.
You can seize a replica of the Color Management Cheat Sheet from my website (e-mail tackle required) the place you may obtain the PDF as a useful reference information.
In this text
First, we’ll undergo the settings that won’t change per undertaking. These items might be fixed throughout every little thing you grade. After that, we’re going to take a look at the one setting that can change primarily based on the actual undertaking being graded.
Plug in your undertaking settings
Starting off, open your undertaking in Resolve and go to your Project Settings. Next, go to Color Management and set the Color science to DaVinci YRG Color Managed.
Uncheck the Automatic shade administration field and set the Color processing mode to Custom. Then, change the Timeline shade house to Da Vinci Wide Gamut Intermediate.
I set my Timeline working luminance to Custom 10000 as a result of I don’t wish to restrict the dynamic vary of the picture once I’m grading it. You solely wish to restrict the dynamic vary of a picture when you must, which is when it’s on its approach out to your show. Up till that time, you need entry to the entire scene’s linear picture that was captured in-camera.
Next, set the Output shade house to Rec.709 Gamma 2.4. I selected this setting as a result of it’s the usual that my reference monitor is calibrated to. If you occur to be grading on a laptop computer display or a pc monitor, you may wish to select Rec.709 Gamma 2.2 as a substitute.
I set the Input DRT to None for a similar purpose that I set the Timeline working luminance to Custom 10000. My premise right here is don’t do something. Don’t tone map, don’t compress, and don’t change something in regards to the dynamic vary of the picture. Save all of that for the journey from the working house to the show house.
Next, change the Output DRT. Luminance Mapping is my private choice. Feel free to experiment with any of the underside 4 choices within the drop-down menu. Those are going to get you the very best outcomes. I typically discourage the usage of Simple, however you’re free to strive that as nicely.
Input shade house
The final thing we have to change is our Input Color Space. I’ve saved this for final as a result of that is the one setting that’s going to vary relying on the undertaking that’s being graded. All of the opposite settings are going to remain the identical in each different undertaking you deal with.
The Input Color Space is at all times going to vary relying on the colour house of the fabric within the timeline. In the timeline under, there are 5 photographs that had been shot in ARRI LogC3 and we even have 4 different photographs which can be in numerous codecs.
I’m going to pick out ARRI LogC3 as my Input shade house as a result of that’s the house that almost all of our photographs are in. Just as a result of we’re choosing one house doesn’t imply that each one of our photographs must be in that house. But we wish to choose the house that describes nearly all of the photographs in order that we don’t need to go in and tag the opposite clips individually any greater than is important.
With that in place, we now have all of our undertaking settings established. Once I hit Save on this instance, we’re going to see the picture I’m at the moment on turn into normalized. We’re going to get a wholesome degree of distinction and saturation.
Now, photographs one via 5 are good to go. We’re prepared to begin grading them. Let’s transfer on to the subsequent shot. Number six is an instance of 1 the place I would like to vary the colour house.
The shade house is determined by what digicam was used. In this case, it was not an Alexa. This was shot on a Sony digicam within the S-Log3 S-Gamut3 Sony Cine shade house. Do for this, I’d right-click on the thumbnail of this clip and go to Input Color Space. Instead of Project – ARRI LogC3, scroll down and choose S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3.
This choice made a reasonably minor distinction, however we wish to get these particulars appropriate as a result of we by no means know what distinction they’ll make. We wish to be within the strongest potential place on the outset of our shade grade.
Let’s transfer on to shot quantity seven. This one’s in ARRI LogC4, so I’d right-click the clip and go to Input Color Space, then choose ARRI LogC4.
When doing this, we’re going to see an even bigger distinction.
Now, that single clip is in a unique shade house than nearly all of our photographs.
Working with a number of cameras and sources
Let’s transfer on to working with a number of cameras and sources. This is actually the largest problem in shade administration, in my view. It’s crucial to get the colour house of the digicam proper. We want that data if we wish to shade handle successfully.
But what if we simply don’t know what the colour house is and might’t discover out? Say our manufacturing counterparts can’t inform us and we’re left with no matter we will work out within Resolve. I’ve ready a call tree that can stroll us via some potentialities.
Let’s use shot quantity eight as our first instance.
Is the picture in some form of log shade house? No, it’s not. It’s not low-saturation. It’s not low-contrast. If something, our drawback is the alternative. There’s an excessive amount of shade and distinction.
Let’s return to our resolution tree. We’re going to say, no, the picture shouldn’t be in a log shade house. So our subsequent step is to flip between these 5 choices and discover the very best match. It’s not essentially the most scientific, however it’s the very best we will do.
Essentially, we’re concluding that because the picture shouldn’t be a log shade house, it’s in all probability in some form of show house. The most typical show areas are the 5 which can be listed within the Color Management Cheat Sheet.
You might not see an enormous distinction between these choices, however it’s a good suggestion to audition all of them. I’m going to say Rec.709 Gamma 2.2 is the very best match for this one. The course of is to seek out the very best match on your picture and name that your baseline. Let’s take a look at one other situation.
This picture has low distinction and low saturation, so we will safely say we’re working in some form of log house. The very first thing we wish to do is see if there may be metadata on this file that may inform us the colour house that we’re working in. To do that, go over to the Edit web page, click on the Metadata tab, and choose All Groups from the higher right-hand nook dropdown menu.
We can scroll via this menu to see if any of those fields comprise details about shade house. This data can pop up somewhere else, however you’ll usually see it seem within the Gamma and Color Space notes. It may also be additional up within the earlier items of metadata.
If you discover one thing right here, that’s nice. You can set your enter to match what you discovered within the metadata. If you may’t discover something, which is the case in our instance, right here’s what you are able to do. Let’s return to our resolution tree.
If you may’t discover any metadata, return to the timeline, right-click in your clip, and set your Input Color Space to Same as Timeline. This implies that you’re treating the picture as whether it is in DaVinci White Gamma Intermediate, which is a giant high-volume log shade house. It’s not the craziest alternative for a log format.
Notice that this shot is nearly actually going to want some love as a result of it’s not totally, correctly color-managed. But it’s at an affordable beginning place. We merely can’t discover the data that we might ideally have, so we have to do our greatest to get the picture to an excellent start line. Any extra grading to get correct publicity, distinction, and saturation must occur as we’re working our approach via the primary move.
Things to recollect
That’s the nuts and bolts of the Color Management Cheat Sheet. Let’s stroll via some issues to recollect. First, set your shade administration up at first of your undertaking. Don’t begin grading after which change your shade administration later. Remember, altering your shade administration can also be going to vary your grading context. Make certain to arrange your shade administration proper at first to provide your self a greater basis.
Also, Resolve will typically ignore your Project Settings. It will robotically set your Input Color Space to one thing apart from what you selected in your Project Settings.
If you get a picture that appears bizarre regardless that you recognize that you just’ve arrange the suitable Input Color Space, go in and be sure that Resolve isn’t making an attempt to “help” you. Resolve typically tags what it thinks is the suitable Input Color Space regardless that that’s not what you requested for. That can occur and it’s one thing that’ll drive you nuts should you don’t know the way to resolve the issue.
This final merchandise used to drive me loopy. Camera uncooked codecs corresponding to R3D, BRAW and ARRIRAW don’t must have their Input Color Space set or modified, as Resolve handles this robotically. This is why you gained’t see an possibility to vary Input Color Space for such clips.
For instance, if I had a bit of R3D media on this timeline and I had been to search for its Input Color Space, I wouldn’t see it in any respect. Be conscious that in any uncooked format, you don’t want to vary its shade house by way of enter. You don’t even have the choice to do it in Resolve.
Wrapping up
This may all sound pretty apparent and simple, however if you’re at first of your course of, there are plenty of little particulars that you just wish to get proper.
Hopefully, you may hold the Color Management Cheat Sheet useful and seek the advice of should you can’t bear in mind what a specific setting ought to be. If you ever end up questioning, “Is that what Colin said to do?” seek the advice of the cheat sheet and ensure that every little thing is ready up for the strongest potential grade proper from the beginning of your course of.
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