Autochrome

[John Chia]

has anyone have experience in coloring their DV footage to simulate the old Autochrome?

[Brett Erskine]

Autochrome? Is that the same thing as Kodachrome?

[John Chia]

i dont think so

but here's a link to a page

http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/autochrome.html

[Patrick MCMurray]

looks a bit like bleach-bypass,... but it needs something else. a little de-saturated, and slightly high contrast. start there and tinker. it is a nice look. for the grain, use a plugin or build your favorite flavor of mini35.

[Michael Robinson]

Do a search under Magic Bullet, I seem to remember there being a discussion about a non-Magic Bullet solution.

[Ken Tanaka]

This has nothing to do with Magic Bullet; it's a color correction/adjustment chore.

You've not given us any information concerning what platform you use for editing and/or color correction. So I would point you toward Digital Film Tools' 55MM suite of filters for a potential solution. It's an extensive set of tools for various color adjustments and effects. Like all powerful, complex tools they require skill and practice to apply effectively. There's nothing push-button in there. But they're worth the investment if you do this work professionally, or even if you're a serious amateur hobbyist. (Look at some of DFT's other products, too.)

[Michael Robinson]

Ken, what in the 55MM filter set do you suggest to assist in getting this kind of look (indvidual plug-ins, etc)? I'd also suggest Walker Effects Colorize, it's supposed to be pretty great for color shifts. Here's some general color correction advice about trying to acheive an Autochrome look (copied and pasted from the info @ creativecow)--

At a quick glance it looks like the highlights are a lot less saturated than the shadows. What you could try to do is duplicate your footage, and apply a keyer to the top layer, preferably the 'extract' filter, using luma to key, and tweak the threshold to get a really soft mask. Now completely desaturate the top layer. This effectively allows for separate color correction for the highlights and the shadows.

For the rest it's hard to tell when there's no source footage, and a lot of difference in the looks of the examples, but some of them have a blue-ish cast to them, and slightly blooming highlights.

And here's a color setting from another poster--

Apply the Adjust > Channel Mixer filter and use these settings to get the pastel colours.

R-R 75
R-G 25
R-B 15

G-R 15
G-G 75
G-B 25

B-R 25
B-G 15
B-B 75

Then a Levels filter added to an adjustment layer (with transfer mode set to luminance), with a raised midtone and a lowered highlight point and I think it will look something simmilar. You may then want to add grain to finish it off.

Hope the above info helps. The best thing I would say to do is have a reference frame/picture nearby and work off of that until you're satisfied. You're definitely going to have to generate some mattes to get the kind of variance in color that you're looking for. The key is always to experiment, you may come out with something that doesn't look like Autochrome at all, but looks equally stunning.

[Ken Tanaka]

Ya got me, Michael. Looking at John's examples it's hard to suggest a generalized approach. Some look almost as though they've been hand-tinted.

If faced with the task I'd be inclined to first work with some frames in Photoshop CS, then attempt to duplicate the results in AfterEffects or FCP with some of the 55MM filters (or whatever I had available). I recommended the 55MM set because many offer matting, something that may come in handy for the job.

[John Chia]

I would agree they look as though they are hand tinted.

I reckon this autochrome coloring would be much too complex for a video. It might be possible for a still tho