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Question about grading.

H

harmonica44

I was reading how some filmmakers will adjust the hue when grading and turn the footage a little bit green, just to give it more of a film look, since with movies shot on film, the skin tones are not as red compared to digital. However am I suppose to do this with every shot? It seems that it only applies to shots in daylight, cause that's when the skin becomes pink, especially around the lips.

But if you do it in shots under tungsten lights, the green is noticeable, so I wonder if the idea is only applied to daylight shots. However, this will give the movie a different hue from shots going to from daylight to tungsten light. Especially if you have to sunlight coming through the window, and tungsten light on the inside. Although I don't know if audiences will notice a small change in hue from shot to shot, such as going from outdoors to indoors.

Another question I have is sharpness. I shoot with the sharpness turned all the way down now, since people have said that the camera tends to oversharpen, especially if you are practicing in order to one day get your movie looks show-able for the big screen. So when I add sharpening in post, how much I am suppose to add, since the regular amount is considered over-sharpened?

Thanks!
 
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To all your questions: It depends on the source and desired output.

It's rare that two shots are exactly the same. The point of grading is to get them to match so grading is adjusting to achieve the desired result. All the variables are based on the difference between the desired final output and the source. There is no more accurate answer than that without samples.
 
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Okay thanks. I did test this week, and on the weekend. It seems to me that I could go either way on the hue. On the hand, it does eliminate the red in the skin, but in the other, it does make the eyes kind of green under certain lights, such as tungsten it seems, as a trade off.

Sharpness I am still not sure on yet, since I don't have a theater screen to watch my footage on, of course.

But as far every shot doesn't match, it doesn't seem that way. In the scenes I shot and helped others shoot so far, I made sure that the settings were the same in camera, for every shot, then when we got to post, the color and exposure, all seemed to match from shot to shot. So it seems you can get matches if you do it right on set, and do not move the lights around, once placed.
 
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I'm not sure if the desire I'm feeling is to smack my own forehead or yours.

If you're so unconcerned with the look and feel of your production (easily taken from you not moving lights) the art of color grading will be lost on you. You seem to be so stuck on trying to find short cuts, you've lost the ability to work out what should be done and why. Learn how to do things properly. Once you've mastered the arts, then experiment and work out better methods. Proper workflow is unlikely to help you if you fail to use it.
 
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It really depends on the film stock - as far as I'm concerned, many of Kodak's more recent (and older) stocks are much more biased towards the red channel than many digital cameras these days. Fuji stocks are different (personally I prefer the look of the Fuji stocks, but that's not really a possibility anymore, hey).

In fact, digital cameras are much more sensitive to green light - which is why digital chroma key would traditionally be green screen, and film chroma key traditionally blue.

As with everything it really depends on the final look you want. I've shot films where I want to add green to give it a weird sickly feeling, and I've shot films where I've pulled a whole lot of green out because the ND filters we were using were giving an ugly green cast. I can't think of many films where I've pulled skin tones noticeably towards green - if anything we're generally attempting to add more red.
 
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Okay thanks. I did more research and I found out that one of the reasons why my color grading might not be going as well so far, is because I am suppose to set my video editor to 16bit or 32bit, so it gives me more grading range. But I use Premiere Pro, and I cannot find that option, when it asks me how I want to format the project.

I also have a Canon T2i camera, and it doesn't seem to go over 8bit. Every website so far talks about bits in computers and not in the camera's original codec. I will continue researching.

As for sharpness I guess I should just leave it all the way down to be safe. As for hue I guess I should make a decision as to whether or not I want the green, cause you don't want to be switching hues from scene to scene possibly forgetting and creating a mismatch, or having too much of a mismatch by not using the same hue the whole movie, and thereby taking the audience out of the story. It's just a hint of green I am talking about to flush out the rosie cheeks. Not enough green to make the movie look sickly or anything.
 
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Having extra bit-depth available to you in your editor or CC software is handy, but basically makes no difference when your input is 8-bit. If you only have 8-bits to work with, you only have 8-bits to work with, and you can only do the best with what you have.

In terms of sharpness - it's been a long time since I've used a DSLR but IIRC, I had very little issue with the sharpness of the images. The correct answer really is - whatever you think looks right. If you think extra sharpening looks right, go with it, if not don't.

If anything, I'd probably prefer to have sharp images taht I can soften, than soft images that I have to try and sharpen.

Also, you shouldn't be adding green to pull rosiness and red out skin. You should be adding Cyan. You'd want to add a hint of green if something was too Magenta for your taste - or if you simply wanted extra green in there.
 
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Okay then. But in the hue settings, you have to move the wheel past green before you get to cyan, so wouldn't you have already added the green anyway, since you moved past it? Sorry I just don't understand how you add cyan without moving past green on the wheel since it goes to green first.

Unless of course I don't use the hue wheel and use something else.

I was told before though that you cannot take away sharpness as easily cause it's a filter that is permantally baked on to your footage. I see what they mean. If you add a sharpness filter on top, it can't be removed if baked on. But if it's best to dull the image with the filter on it, then I will do that :).

When it comes to what I think looks right personally... Well I think that not adding hue looks right, and leaving the sharpness flat may look right. It may look more like a film look since film doesn't seem to have any sharpness added or has a softer look, depending on how it's graded. But I will have to do more sharpness test to make a decision.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay then. But in the hue settings, you have to move the wheel past green before you get to cyan, so wouldn't you have already added the green anyway, since you moved past it? Sorry I just don't understand how you add cyan without moving past green on the wheel since it goes to green first.

.............
Click to expand...

This really shows you don't understand the tools you are using.
You don't add every hue you pass by.
You turn the colorpallette along the colorwheel.

Starting position is red, by turning to green, you move reds to green. By turing to cyan, you turn red towards cyan. Not green and cyan.

Do this:
Set saturation to +75% and turn the hue around to see how the color shifts.
 
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If you added every hue you passed on the colour wheel, you could add every hue there is just by waving your cursor around the wheel.

Also, you don't need to pass green to get to cyan, but regardless it doesn't make a differene what you 'pass'.

I would suggest reading up on colour theory etc.

In the end, you'll do better collaborating with people who know more about these things than you.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I did more research and I found out that one of the reasons why my color grading might not be going as well so far, is because I am suppose to set my video editor to 16bit or 32bit, so it gives me more grading range.
Click to expand...

That's not your problem at all. This is your problem:

jax_rox said:
you shouldn't be adding green to pull rosiness and red out skin. You should be adding Cyan. You'd want to add a hint of green if something was too Magenta for your taste - or if you simply wanted extra green in there.
Click to expand...

Your tools have very little impact on your ability to grade well - it's all about your understanding of basic color theory and it's practical application to image adjustment. If you want to get better at this you'll need to start with the basics - it'll help you far beyond just color correction; color theory informs lighting, filtration, and production design (and it's sub-disciplines like costume, set and makeup design) as well. Start by working through the top links here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=basic+color+theory


jax_rox said:
Having extra bit-depth available to you in your editor or CC software is handy, but basically makes no difference when your input is 8-bit. If you only have 8-bits to work with, you only have 8-bits to work with, and you can only do the best with what you have.
Click to expand...

I almost don't want to further complicate this particular discussion, but this isn't entirely true. While it's true you can't improve 8 bit source material by working in a higher bit-depth in post, the higher bit depth ensures you preserve as much of the original information as possible. Any manipulation of the source material's color characteristics results in a re-quantization of the original values; quantization always results in a loss of information. Working in a higher bit depth allows that to be more accurate and minimize the amount of information that gets lost in the process.

Now this has absolutely no bearing on h44's problems, of course. It's only important when you're concerned with producing the absolute best finished product you can, which shouldn't be a particular concern until you've learned the basics first.
 
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Okay thanks. I tried going past the green into cyan. Here's what happens in the video example. The first shot is of me, shot with the camera and no grading is done later. As you can see, it has that pink-ish skin some people say looks like digital compared to film and wish to make it more like film, by adding a bit of green in the color tone or hue, like I read.

The second shot, is the same shot, but with a little green added on the hue wheel to flush out the pink and try to make it more of a film skin tone. The third shot, I went past the green into cyan. As you can see this happens, when you turn the wheel as far as cyan:

http://youtu.be/rU_PRPmJEKs

So I haven't figured out to get to cyan on the wheel, without getting this much blue in the image, cause going past the green more than a little gives more green, and then eventually all green, then all blue it seems.
 
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LOL!

I hope you now discovered you don't add cyan this way, but that you are shifting all colors with the hue-wheel?
What was red turns cyan when you rotate the wheel 180 degrees. Yellow turns blue. Green turns magenta.

I watched it on a non-calibrated iMac (my girl's computer) and both ungraded and the first graded looked fine to me.
I don't know what your screen looks like, or what your obsession is with pink lips, but it seems like you are making a huge problem out of a minor detail.
 
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