New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing

Chris Barcellos · May 8th, 2011, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd Coleman

Chris,

Curious why you are using the 5248 LUT rather than the CineStyle? Do you find it more accurate or pleasing? For me the CineSytle is on the verge of being too flat and the 5248 even more so. I'm just starting to play with this and trying to find what works best for me and would love to hear what you have found.

Thanks, Lloyd

Lloyd:

Technology is moving so fast. Actually, I made this test film just about an hour before I found David Newman's post re: Cineform Cinestyle .lut. I could not get the Cinestyle download to work in FIrst Light, so I pick 5248 as a based to edit from in Vegas. I have since looked at the Cineforms Cinestyle look, and I think it looks pretty nice and willl be working with that.

Jeff Troiano · May 9th, 2011, 09:25 AM

I posted this in another thread about this topic, and thought I'd ask the same thing here.

Could someone correct me if I'm wrong, would using the LUT be like using a "canned" look, inside magic bullet looks? I could take the flat profile video and put into color, or some other grading program, or use color correction in my NLE, and dial in a similar look. With the LUT, it gets me there, then I can tweak, or I can stay with the flat profile, and create my own look?

Ted Ramasola · May 9th, 2011, 10:37 AM

The LUT is your base point for your grade.
The LUT is not the same, strictly speaking, as the "canned" look that you mentioned as it merely "reverses" the s-curve that lifted the shadows and controlled the highlights in the image.
However, how useful the provided LUT is depends on the program that you use to open it as some can provide better tweak controls than others.

Chris Barcellos · May 9th, 2011, 11:06 AM

The way I look at Cineform's FirstLight is I am applying the "in camera" look I want after the fact and in a file that is better suited to take the adjustment. So I shoot the very flat file (now Cinestyle), process it all to Cineform and then apply the adjustment instantaneously to the files using first light. Then in opening in my NLE (in my case, Vegas Pro) all my footage for that scene has been processed that way, and I can then make less adjustments in the NLE for the final product.

I think this is very similar to what those who like to do in camera setups, but in this case, you don't burn the look into the original footage.

Nigel Barker · May 10th, 2011, 04:22 AM

I am really not sure what use the LUT file is a using the LUT Buddy plug-in for Final Cut Pro it takes 3-4 minutes to process a 20 second clip on my 2.5GHz MacBook Pro i.e. it's basically unusable because of the excessive processing time. It also crashes FCP if you just apply the supplied LUT so inside LUT Buddy you have to import, convert to 3D & hen export the LUT ready for re-import. I am assuming that this is the correct way to use the LUT but am surprised that no other FCP users have mentioned the crashing. It looks like you can get back the correct look using the 3-way colour corrector in any case & this does work instantly.

Lance Watts · May 10th, 2011, 10:55 PM

I'm not sure why you're crashing. It works fine for me.

Jon Braeley · May 11th, 2011, 06:05 AM

While I think this profile is a step in the right direction and I do not want to put a damper on this workaround, it also tells me my choice of abandoning the 7D was right. On it's release I jumped on the 7D but right away had worries over the final results unless I changed my workflow - especially grading for final output.
The end result was a very flat profile, like many users I guess. But I come from old school photography and could'nt help analysing my footage before a color grade .... not a good idea. Grading 7D is especially difficult and quite often it left me actually changing the look, whereas the original intention is to improve the image.

Now it's easy to see why Bullet Looks are so popular with these cameras. My workflow uses color as the final grading tool. I guess I was used to Sony's cine-gamma curves which are superb ... so I am heading back that way with the F3. I will head back to DSLR's to check out 5DIII and my fingers are crossed - hopefully there will not be so many workarounds... hey we may even get uncompressed out.

Nigel Barker · May 11th, 2011, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lance Watts

I'm not sure why you're crashing. It works fine for me.

It works OK for me now I downloaded the new LUT that Technicolor released that doesn't crash FCP when you render the footage. It still takes way too long to render.

Jeff Troiano · May 12th, 2011, 08:19 PM

I'm going to post this here as well in the other thread about the technocolor profile.

On a site I read, in their weekly news letter, they had an article discussing what a LUT is. It was written by a professional colorist. Basically he was saying a LUT used to make you flat video look nice for editing, but should be removed, so that the flat picture could be the base for coloring.

May 9th, 2011, 09:25 AM	#17
Jeff Troiano Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: Nashville TN Posts: 480	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing I posted this in another thread about this topic, and thought I'd ask the same thing here. Could someone correct me if I'm wrong, would using the LUT be like using a "canned" look, inside magic bullet looks? I could take the flat profile video and put into color, or some other grading program, or use color correction in my NLE, and dial in a similar look. With the LUT, it gets me there, then I can tweak, or I can stay with the flat profile, and create my own look?

May 9th, 2011, 10:37 AM	#18
Ted Ramasola Trustee Join Date: May 2005 Location: Allen, Texas U.S.A Posts: 1,117	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing The LUT is your base point for your grade. The LUT is not the same, strictly speaking, as the "canned" look that you mentioned as it merely "reverses" the s-curve that lifted the shadows and controlled the highlights in the image. However, how useful the provided LUT is depends on the program that you use to open it as some can provide better tweak controls than others. __________________ Ted Ramasola http://ramasolaproductions.com

May 9th, 2011, 11:06 AM	#19
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing The way I look at Cineform's FirstLight is I am applying the "in camera" look I want after the fact and in a file that is better suited to take the adjustment. So I shoot the very flat file (now Cinestyle), process it all to Cineform and then apply the adjustment instantaneously to the files using first light. Then in opening in my NLE (in my case, Vegas Pro) all my footage for that scene has been processed that way, and I can then make less adjustments in the NLE for the final product. I think this is very similar to what those who like to do in camera setups, but in this case, you don't burn the look into the original footage. __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

May 10th, 2011, 04:22 AM	#20
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing I am really not sure what use the LUT file is a using the LUT Buddy plug-in for Final Cut Pro it takes 3-4 minutes to process a 20 second clip on my 2.5GHz MacBook Pro i.e. it's basically unusable because of the excessive processing time. It also crashes FCP if you just apply the supplied LUT so inside LUT Buddy you have to import, convert to 3D & hen export the LUT ready for re-import. I am assuming that this is the correct way to use the LUT but am surprised that no other FCP users have mentioned the crashing. It looks like you can get back the correct look using the 3-way colour corrector in any case & this does work instantly.

May 10th, 2011, 10:55 PM	#21
Lance Watts Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 69	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing I'm not sure why you're crashing. It works fine for me.

May 11th, 2011, 06:05 AM	#22
Jon Braeley Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Miami, FL Posts: 528	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing While I think this profile is a step in the right direction and I do not want to put a damper on this workaround, it also tells me my choice of abandoning the 7D was right. On it's release I jumped on the 7D but right away had worries over the final results unless I changed my workflow - especially grading for final output. The end result was a very flat profile, like many users I guess. But I come from old school photography and could'nt help analysing my footage before a color grade .... not a good idea. Grading 7D is especially difficult and quite often it left me actually changing the look, whereas the original intention is to improve the image. Now it's easy to see why Bullet Looks are so popular with these cameras. My workflow uses color as the final grading tool. I guess I was used to Sony's cine-gamma curves which are superb ... so I am heading back that way with the F3. I will head back to DSLR's to check out 5DIII and my fingers are crossed - hopefully there will not be so many workarounds... hey we may even get uncompressed out.

May 12th, 2011, 08:19 PM	#24
Jeff Troiano Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: Nashville TN Posts: 480	Re: New Technicolor Profile Is Amazing I'm going to post this here as well in the other thread about the technocolor profile. On a site I read, in their weekly news letter, they had an article discussing what a LUT is. It was written by a professional colorist. Basically he was saying a LUT used to make you flat video look nice for editing, but should be removed, so that the flat picture could be the base for coloring.