7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction - Hurlbut Visuals

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7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR ColorCorrection

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Color correction is just one step of the entire filmmaking process…but oh, what a difference it canmake. You can take average footage and really make it pop, sing and enhance the viewingexperience of your project. If you have excellent footage, then the sky is the limit. You can alsomake images look garish, ugly and destroy all the hard work the crew did to capture those imageson the day of the shoot. The challenges and choices are many and it comes with greatresponsibility if you are the one applying the Color Correction and Color Grade. In the indie filmworld, jobs are more often merged and unified and Color Correction is more and more falling intothe hands of the Editor. The smaller the budget and tighter the deadline…the more often thisbecomes true. Shane asked me to take this opportunity and pass on some tips and tricks I havelearned over the years of Coloring features, shorts, ads, music videos and documentaries. Ichoose to use Adobe CS5.5 for my Color post work and bounce between After Effects,Photoshop and Premiere as I love the seamless integration it provides. I am ecstatic to beintegrating Speedgrade into my workflow as it will be part of the upcoming CS6 release. That said…the tips I would like to share with you are applicable to all Color Correction software.

To get on the same page, let’s quickly go over some terminology that clarifies what is what in thisrealm.

COLOR CORRECTION is the process where every clip is manually tweaked to get a good exposureand balance of light. Each clip is adjusted to match color temperature to a predefined choice foreach scene. This tedious and mechanical process is essential and in its own way, an art form. Theuse of SCOPES (Waveform, Vectroscope, Parade) is critical to this step and luckily most NLE’s andGrading software have them built-in. Without them you are literally flying blind and solely trustingyour eyes, which have to adjust to room light ambience, fatigue, funky monitors and other factorsconstantly. Trust the SCOPES and let them guide you into accurate and creative decision making.

COLOR GRADING is the creative process where decisions are made to further enhance orestablish a new visual tone to the project through software including: introducing new color themes,re-lighting within a frame, films stock emulations, color gradients and a slew of other choices. Beingthat this is purely creative, there is no wrong or right…only what the DP, director and colorist feel isappropriate for the story. It can be subtle and invisible or over-the-top and uber-stylized. Thereinlies the challenge…The challenge of choices. The tools available are so numerous, powerful andoften free (Davinci Resolve Lite!) that you have no excuse not to explore these options furtherbefore you embark on the Grading journey.

LIFT-GAMMA-GAIN / SHADOWS-MIDTONES-HILIGHTS / BLACKS-MIDS-WHITESThese are the 3 interchangeable assignments used to describe what portion of the image you willbe working with. Every program uses one of the 3 naming conventions above, but in essence theyare all the same. Even when working with LEVELS or CURVES, you rely on numericals but still have3 sliders (at least) to make your adjustments. With these 3 controls, you can mold images almost atwill.

There are so many different elements to Color Correction that trying to fit it all into one blog wouldbe futile. I would like to focus on several specific tips that will allow the indie filmmaker to be as

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effective as possible in creating imagery that will help serve the story. I would like to thank MichaelEvanet, the director of “HWY”, for allowing me to share his footage for this blog. I just finishedediting and Color Correcting his film.

TIP #1 – SHOOT WITH A FLAT OR LOG PROFILEShane has learned over his extensive research and testing of every profile available that choosinga flat profile will allow you to capture as much information as possible into the camera. When Ishoot on the 5Dmkii, I like to use Technicolor Cinestyle or Canon Neutral with minimal sharpnessand contrast. I’m also about to test the Similaar Flaat profiles that just became available in 4different flavors. The camera companies often have stock profiles that look contrasty and rich incamera but when analyzed on a monitor, you will have crushed blacks and blown-out highlights.That is information that is gone forever and you cannot get it back. We, as filmmakers with the toolsin our hands, cannot accept stock anything! Just as auto anything on the camera is a recipe fordisaster, stock profiles are for rank amateurs. Tweak away!

Click the image to view high resolution.

TIP #2 – TRUST THE WAVEFORM, VECTROSCOPE and PARADE SCOPESIn PREMIERE, go to the WINDOW tab and choose WORKSPACE and COLOR CORRECTION.Push the little RGB BUTTON on the bottom right of any window. This will reveal the SCOPES andmore. Waveform=Luminance. Vectroscope=Chrominance. Parade=Red,Green,Blue values. I can’tstress enough how critical and essential it is to use these tools. Once you embrace the SCOPES,you will be confident to plow through footage and have instant visual feedback to confirm you aremaking the right decisions. I won’t broach the calibrated monitor issue that is always lurking ($$$)and will just say that understanding and trusting the SCOPES will get you 95% of the way home.Grab a Matrox Mini and use that to calibrate any LCD TV if you’re in a pinch. This includes finishingprojects for broadcast or passing QC for distribution. I’ve on-lined 4 indie features on Final Cut Prousing only SCOPES that all passed QC the first time around. I was sweating bullets…but survived!Adobe makes it even easier for me now.


TIP #3 – ORDER OF OPERATIONSTo maintain image quality and to preserve as much info as possible, it’s important to do things inthe proper order. Just as you wouldn’t ice a cake before you bake it, when you apply an effect iscritical. I have always achieved great results using Stu Maschwitz’s advice. Doing Color Correctionon your footage in this order will help you maintain extremely high quality in the interaction of all theeffects you use. Not all steps are needed for every shot but in case you have to use them all, herethey are:

1. Remove artifacts and de-noise.2. Balance your shots by adjusting BLACKS/MIDS/WHITES, SATURATION and WHITEBALANCE.

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3. Relight within a shot using power windows or masks.4. Add gradients, diffusion and other lens filters.5. Add vignettes6. Grade your images7. Simulate a film stock of your choice8. Resize and sharpen


TIP #4 – THE FAST COLOR CORRECTER EFFECT in PREMIERE is 32 BIT, EASY ANDEFFECTIVEThis video effect is a great starting point to tackle any shot. This one effect will allow you in REAL-TIME to address levels, saturation, tinting of the image, white balance and more. The shot belowshows how I added contrast by raising the input black slider and lowering the white input slider. Iused the color wheel and dragged towards orange to counteract the blue in the original image. Youcan also use the White Balance dropper to achieve an accurate starting point…but I preferred inthis case to Tint the whole image towards orange and approximate a 1950’s film look. I boostedsaturation by a healthy 40% to make the image pop. Finally, a 2.35 matte was added toapproximate the old Cinemascope aspect ratio.


TIP #5 - ADJUST YOUR LIFT/SHADOWS/BLACKS FIRSTBy adjusting your BLACKS first, you get a baseline started to balance your image. I like workingfrom the bottom up and getting my BLACKS just kissing 0 IRE on the WAVEFORM. I then push theWHITES up to expand my image and get some contrast into it. Finally, I tweak the MIDS asneeded. You will notice that moving the BLACKS or WHITES up or down will affect the entireWAVEFORM so there is a give and take dance as you work back and forth. MIDS do not affect theBLACKS or WHITES too much and that is why you should work with them last. Lastly, if you raiseMIDS, you will lose overall saturation to the image, so compensate by bumping up theSATURATION to keep the colors popping.






TIP #6 - MIDS ARE WHERE FACES LIVEMIDS are where the skin tones live and you can really make a face pop by raising the MIDS afteryou have a good balanced image. Sometimes it feels easy to raise the EXPOSURE in Premiere orAfter Effects to brighten a face or scene…but that raises all the levels evenly and will ultimately notbe as effective as separately adjusting the 3 zones. A good IRE for a properly exposed face is 60-70 IRE on the WAVEFORM. If you raise the MIDS too much, you will introduce the beast of digitalnoise, so use judicially!


TIP #7 - Look for the FLESH LINE on the VECTROSCOPE to see how far off your skin tone is. Onthe 3-Way Color Corrector effect, or on a plug-in like Colorista, you can change the specific zone ofcolor where the flesh tones live. By adjusting the color of the MIDS wheel you can introduce theproper hues into a face that need tweaking. Move the wheel in the direction of the color you needmore of in your face. Watch the section of skin tone move until it lines up with FLESH LINE. Aninteresting note is that the FLESH LINE is accurate for all races and skin tones. We all share thesame skin pigment that registers as numeric FLESH color. Proper WHITE BALANCING earlier willmake this a minor but still important adjustment. If you are going for a natural look, no one likes apink, red or green face. SATURATION should be dialed in at this point to give a natural look to theflesh tone. Here’s a subtle example of adjusting for skin…and an overt example for comparison. Neither is right or wrong….it’s all up to what feels right for that moment.







I hope that I was able to pass on some helpful knowledge and that you learned at least one thingyou didn’t know before you read this. There are infinite ways to approach Color Correction and thebest thing is…no one way is the best. You don’t need every plug-in known to man, a 4k projectorand a $20,000 control surface to color correct. You only need time, the simplest effects and asense of wonder and excitement. Feel free to push the footage around and see how it responds.What may look like a mistake on one shot could be the secret sauce you need for a completelydifferent shot. Experiment and enjoy!

VASHI NEDOMANSKY

To inquire about my editing and post services or if you have any questions, please contact me at:

[email protected]

Tags: adobe cs5.5, adobe photoshop, adobe premiere pro, DSLR Color Correction, HD ColorCorrection

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91 Responses to “7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR ColorCorrection”

7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction says:January 20, 2012 at 3:28 pm

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Reply

Carl Olson says:January 20, 2012 at 3:34 pm

I especially enjoyed tip #3 Order of Operations. A few simple steps in the right order and – presto –beautiful “film”. I’ll keep this article bookmarked!

Reply

Vashi says:January 24, 2012 at 4:56 pm

Thanks Carl! Glad you enjoyed the post. The Order of Operations really makes a difference inpreserving quality.

Reply

MJDTV says:January 24, 2012 at 7:56 pm

Hey Vashi–

Say you have a clip where you need to do everything listed in the order of operations, fromdenoising to relighting, to grading, to adding a lens flare, vignette, etc. Would you considerdoing something like denoising, and getting your lift/gamma/gain set, then rendering a file todo the grade and effects on in AE? Or would you just layer all of those things in the properorder and eat the long render time?

Reply


Hi MJ. Another good question. A couple things to think about…hopefully each shot won’tneed all the steps necessary. De-noising is render heavy but most of the other steps canbe done in realtime. Each shot has to have a different de-noise recipe baked into it…butnot every shot should be noisy if shot properly. I would stack all the steps in After Effects ifpossible and eat the renders. With a good amount of RAM it shouldn’t be that much of ahit. Another option is to do send the sequence to Davinci Resolve LIte, which will runrealtime if you have the minimum video card(s) in your editing system. I don’t like bakingin half the effects then adding on as you lose a generation and then if a better de-noisesolution becomes available or if you want more or less of that effect….its too late. Try tokeep the effects available for tweaking until the final render. That’s just my take…but I’msure there are multiple solutions to the optimal workflow.

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Sérgio Miguel Silva says:March 11, 2012 at 10:51 am

Hi! Great tips, thanks.About the order of operations, if you have to do some composing ( like a skyreplacement or set extension, would you color correct first or do all vfx in thebeginning?

Patrick Villela says:January 20, 2012 at 4:24 pm

Great post,thks.

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My pleasure Patrick! Hope you get use some of the info in your work.

Reply

Jorge Alarcon-Swaby says:January 20, 2012 at 4:46 pm

Great Article, incredibly helpfull

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Thanks Jorge! Feels good to share the knowledge…

Reply

Didier Clermont says:January 20, 2012 at 6:34 pm



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Thank you soo… much for posting this Shane, you always come-up with informative content. Can’twait to watch “Act Of Valor” take care.

GOD Bless

Reply

Shane says:January 23, 2012 at 9:20 pm

Didier Clermont, you are so welcome and thank you for your kind words. HOOOOOYAAAAAH!!!

Reply

Oli Kember says:January 20, 2012 at 7:36 pm

Thanks Vashi. Step 3 was super useful.

Reply


Thank you Oli! It really is a great reference list to help maintain maximum quality in your images.

Reply

àndrew says:January 20, 2012 at 8:26 pm

Hey shane, Im a little confused when it comes to picture styles. I’ve tested various picture stylesunder controlled lighting, and while there are all different I have no Idea which ones are technicallybetter?I’ve also been worried about how cinestyle cut off parts of the information.I am courious to see what you think of Flaat and how it compares to cinestyle.

Reply

vashi says:March 10, 2012 at 2:32 am

Hi Andrew! For my take on the picture style situation…I use Neutral with Shane’s settings,Cinestyle with full color work after and Flaat 2 as my main three options. Flaat 2 gives mewonderful skin tones and a little more dynamic range than Neutral without all the post work ofCinestyle. Each style has its benefit but between the 3 I can cover all my shooting situations. Ihope that helps…

Vashi

Reply

Dan says:January 20, 2012 at 9:49 pm

Nice article!Do you grade hdslr footage on premiere directly from the h264 file canon gives you or go into a 10bit format? If so, which one?Thanks.

Reply


Thanks for the comment Dan! On my own work ,I edit directly from the native h.264 in Premiereand After Effects. Most effects applied to the h.264 footage is processed in 32-bit and maintainsthe highest level of quality from an 8-bit source. If you are close in-camera to what you need forthe final image, I personally don’t feel you need 10-bit…but the Pro Res, Cineform or DPXoptions are there if you really need to get aggressive with your color work or need the extrarange it provides.

Reply

joe says:January 21, 2012 at 2:45 am

grade HDSLR footage like that and you will have have an ocean of artifacts and heavybanding. HDSLR footage just aint built for that, sadly. don’t matter much when outputting for web,but looks quite ugly when burned to bluray and viewed on a large full hd screen.

Reply


Hi Joe. Which method were you referring to that causes the artifacts and banding? I’ve burnedplenty HDSLR footage to Blu-ray and have seen countless films shot on the 5D that not onlyheld up great on the big screen. Let me know your thoughts! thanks…

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Philippe Kiener says:January 21, 2012 at 6:12 am

Thanks for the tips.

The first thing I do is checking the white balance, I lift the Shadows at about 20 and bring down theWhites at around 60, and then I check on the waveform how the top and bottom of the RGBchannels look like. I can then correct it using the 3 wheels.

I’ve discovered Davinci Resolve, which is now free (there is a paid version but for DSLR the free onis perfect) and I use it now for all my color correction and grading. It’s an amazing tool and I preferto have a dedicated app to do the color work. It’s a lot easier to jump from clip to clip, to match clipand you can do so many things with it. I export my DSLR sequence from Premiere Pro directly toResolve and then back again when I’m done. Resolve can read h264 files, so you don’t need toconvert the files before putting them in Resolve. You can add a 2.35 matte directly in resolve, thetracker is amazing (you can track a face that is moving and do a color correction only on that partof image, you can change settings during the play of a clip, to compensate for exposure if thecamera is entering a room for example). Well, it has opened a new creative world for me.

Reply


I agree! Davinci Resolve Lite is a powerful tool that everyone should try out. The price is righttoo! What do you convert your h.264 native into before you go into Resolve?

Reply

Chris says:February 9, 2012 at 12:28 pm

Nothing! Resolve can read your native h.264 files and you can grade them in real time! I’mjust getting my feet wet with Resolve, but so far am really impressed. It is picky about otherfiles though. For instance, Resolve will not read an h.264 file produced by Premiere with adefault mp4 wrapper.

Reply

Danny Lacey says:January 21, 2012 at 6:21 am

This is very useful information!! Thank you so much for sharing. I’m about to start grading my latestshort film ‘Host’ (shot on the RED EPIC) in Adobe and am so glad I came across this page beforestarting.

Thanks again,

Danny

Reply


Thanks Danny! Glad to hear you picked up a couple pointers and I hope it helps you on thecolor grade. 5K render times! Watch out!

Reply

Maxi Claudio says:January 21, 2012 at 12:13 pm

I’d love to see a video tutorial explain how to use and what exactly are WAVEFORM,VECTROSCOPE and PARADE SCOPES.

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Weston Woodbury says:January 23, 2012 at 7:20 pm

Maxi,

See: http://www.colorgradingcentral.com/archives/fcp-x-color-grading-tutorials-scopes

It’s FC but it applies universally.

Reply


Hi Maxi. I hope Weston’s link helped you out. The scopes really give you great andaccurate feedback to nail your final image. You can literally color correct straight off thescopes without even seeing the image once you wrap your brain around them. And once youhave to deliver for broadcast or feature films you will appreciate their necessity and powereven more. They are a must learn.

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Jim Bachalo says:January 21, 2012 at 1:02 pm

Love this! Agree on importance of sequence of steps.Running a de-noise pass first as long as you work in a higher bit depth will help reduce banding

http://prolost.com/blog/2010/1/26/color-correcting-canon-7d-footage.html

And don’t forget the power of dynamic linking to After Effects. Currently my app of choice for allcolor grading though am migrating to Davinci Resolve.

Also recommend Stu’s DV Rebel Guide!

Reply

Samuel Hurtado says:January 21, 2012 at 2:14 pm

can’t wait to hear what you think of my Flaat picture stiles!!

Reply

Samuel Hurtado says:January 22, 2012 at 6:14 am

also: I originally made them for my own use, so they’re very tightly taylored for my T2i; I guessyou’d like to use them most on 5D2; if you like them, we can try to make a version that is bettertaylored for the 5D2 (or the 1DX, if you’re moving to that)

Reply

Samuel Hurtado says:February 22, 2012 at 11:38 am

This story is leaving the front page soon, and I still haven’t heard back from your tests withFlaat. I’m worried that maybe you didn’t, but I’ll ask: did you like my little babies?

Reply


Flaat 2 is now one of my top 3 styles that are on all of my 5Dmkii cameras. The skintones are wonderful and the exposure and dynamic range are very close to my finalimage in the camera. Thanks again for sharing Samuel!

Reply

Matheus Oliveira says:April 15, 2012 at 10:35 am

Flat 2 is already on my styles ! Thanks.

Reply

Hurlbut Visuals: 7 Tips for HD & DSLR Color Correction | Kelly On A Tangent says:January 21, 2012 at 2:37 pm

[...] 7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction | Hurlbut Visuals. [...]

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Bob says:January 21, 2012 at 9:30 pm

Very informative as always, thanks a lot sir. However, I do have one question, when you givea video a color tint in grading like the famous green shadows and yellow highlights, is it okay thatthe parade channels will be misaligned and sometimes a channel will be overblown? or do I stillhave to figure how to realign them even when the shot has a stylistic tint? in short, does thefootage fail the test if the channels in the parade don’t align perfectly?

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Good question Bob. When the parade channels are misaligned, it just means that the colorbalance of the red, green and blue values are at different values. The higher the color channelappears in its section of the parade, the more intense that color is. If any of the colors reachpast the top or bottom of the chart, you have exceed chroma limit for broadcast legality. You willhave to pull back those colors or cap them with a filter. For your other question, if all 3 channelsare aligned evenly…that only means you have an equal distribution of the colors. It will still beillegal if goes above or below the limits. Hope that helps!

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Bob says:January 28, 2012 at 12:13 am

Thanks a lot Vashi, I guess the colors don’t have to be even, they only have to be belowthe limit therefore, I hope I’m right,m thanks a lot for the info : )

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Wayne says:January 22, 2012 at 2:11 am

Thanks for this.What do you use to Denise in PP?

Wayne

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Good question Wayne. I like to use NeatVideo or Magic Bullet Denoiser in After Effects. Don’tapply too much as skin starts to turn “plasticky” and unrealistic.

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Brett Williams says:January 22, 2012 at 8:40 pm

Shane, Thank you so much not only for this post, but ALL of your posts. I’m new to thetechnical, and creative demands of being my own DP / cinematographer. And also since I justbought the canon 5d mark ii to make shorts with, you have been an invaluable resource of amazinginformation. Thank you so much and hope to be able to hire you someday for a film :P

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Brett Williams, thank you so much for those kind words and all your support. You are verywelcome and I look forward to working with you as well. Keep up the hard work. Staypassionate, never say die, be excellent.

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Lliam Worthington says:January 23, 2012 at 8:12 am

Fantastic blog as always. This site is such a great film community resource.Thanks again

Best Wishes

Lliam

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Very kind words Lliam! Thanks for the comment. It feels good to share with other filmmakers.

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7 Tips for HD Color Correction | Hany Anber says:January 23, 2012 at 10:14 am

[...] To read the full article, go to 7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction [...]

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Kris says:January 23, 2012 at 4:21 pm

Amazing post! It’s great to have the process laid out like this!

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Thanks Kris! There is so much to color correction, but I felt it important to focus on tips that youcan use everyday, no matter what the project.

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Lawrence says:January 23, 2012 at 7:44 pm

This is the post I’ve been looking around for. Very helpful and informative! Thanks for thepost.

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Thanks for kind words Lawrence!













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Mark Strand says:January 24, 2012 at 10:56 pm

I echo Lawrence’s comments; this is the post I have been looking for, too. I do not have aspirationsto work in Hollywood, but want my videos to look their best, and want to be able to makeadjustments on purpose and understand the concepts. This is the best explanation of colorcorrection and color grading that I have seen. I made my own notes from it, which always helps medig in and remember things. Looking forward to putting this new understanding to work… thanksvery much!

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Thank you Mark for your post! I’m so glad you took away some knowledge and get to useit in your work. The principles are the same for Hollywood films as for any video shoot. Make itlook great Mark!

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Robert says:January 25, 2012 at 1:59 am

This is a great post! I throughly enjoyed reading it. I must say that i did learn a great deal from this.Currently I’m a film student and i just got out of editing class last month and they didn’t teach uscolor correction. One of the instructors kind of dipped into Final Cut’s Color but I feel that this postwas a lot more helpful than what the instructor briefly talked about in my editing class. I personallydidn’t like Color as i’m more of an Adobe guy. I have found out that Adobe’s color correcting effectsto be more detailed and easier to use. I pretty much learned it on my own just playing around withit. The one thing that really caught my eye was in tip 6 i didn’t know that skin tones live in the 60 to70 IRE range that was something that I didn’t know. This post will definitely help me with my futureprojects. once again thanks so much. :)

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Thanks Robert! Glad you took something away from the post and let me know if you have anyquestions in the future!

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ziad says:January 25, 2012 at 2:56 am

Dear Vashi

I don’t know how to thank you for this great post, its simple, clear, and a must need for everyone tostart learning color grading.

I wish you can do a video tutorials for important Tips and how to solve problems that may face us incolor correction or grading.

What we need also is to learn how to achieve a Creative style for our footage. I heard that thereare styles that are considered as standard, i wish you can teach us some of these techniques andstyles.

Thank you again and again for this great post.

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Thank you Zlad for your awesome comments. The great thing about creative style is thatit’s different for each and every project and there is no right or wrong. If it looks good…it is! Thatis the only rule. Best of luck!

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Sasha says:January 25, 2012 at 5:43 am

I was waiting for the post like this for years!!!! Thank you very much, Shane! amazing blog!

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My pleasure Alexander! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

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Sasha, you are so welcome. Vashi rocked this baby out! Thanks for the support

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Ignacio says:January 26, 2012 at 2:11 pm

Vashi, excellent tutorial, I love the way you teach things. Thanks a lot.A question with your permission:Do you use power windows, trackers,etc very often with the dslrs footage?I ask this because all the cinematography masterpieces that we love and atempt to imitate did notuse such techniques.What is your opinion.Thanks

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I believe in lighting properly on the set so you can capture what your creatively envisioned. Thatsaid…power windows and trackers are now free and powerful (Davinci Resolve Lite, etc) andcan be used as needed to improve upon what you shot. Sometimes you run out of time andcan’t relight for a shot on set. Sometimes the EVF or external monitor runs out of batteries orcraps out. Sometimes you forget to check the historgram before you hit record…or you are in aflat camera profile that misleads your eye visually and you set the wrong exposure. All thesereasons and the tumultuous nature of shoot days can lead to a blown or technically imperfectshot. We have the tools to fix that now in post and h.264 DSLR footage can be pushed aroundand tweaked to correct that…just not as far as other codecs or RAW files from other cameras.Get it close in camera and triple check your settings! In regards to the cinematographymasterpieces of the past…I’m sure IF they had the option, they would have tweaked within theframe a bit too!

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Kyle Vincent says:January 27, 2012 at 1:24 am

Thank you so much! Just brilliant! Great for those of us who are making the switch from FCP toPremiere – just made understanding the Color Grading process in Premiere that much easier!!! -

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My pleasure Kyle! Glad you took something away from my post. Keep learning and havefun with it!

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Blogs, Journals and Articles | Pearltrees says:January 27, 2012 at 5:28 am

[...] 7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction | Hurlbut Visuals [...]

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Payton says:January 27, 2012 at 11:51 am

HI, great post. I was wondering, How exactly did you put the 2:35 matte on there? As well ason Act of Valor. What was the workflow to convert from 16×9 to 2:35 there?

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In Premiere, I import a 2.35 mask made from a Photoshop file (png). I then place this image fileon a track above the footage and extend it for the duration of the project. This gives me theaspect ratio that I prefer and also allows me to reframe vertically (up or down) to adjust mycomposition. I’m sure Shane will chime in but I know that AOV was shot 16×9 in camera thencropped in post using a similar technique.

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Payton says:January 28, 2012 at 8:59 pm

Thanks for the quick feedback! So would you export a 16×9 file? I mean, once you haveused that png. file to help with the re-framing, is your export cropped to say 1920×817, or doyou stay with your 16×9 aspect ratio and just have the bleck bars be part of the file?

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Page Lynch says:February 2, 2012 at 5:16 pm

Hey, Payton and Vashi. I was wondering how to do this in Premiere too. I’ve done a mask









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before, but that seemed unnecessary being as FCP has the widescreen filter with avertical positioning slider that won’t allow you to drag the footage too far into the openspace between the 2:35 bars. I thought I was just missing some filter somewhere butapparently not. I switched to Premiere, but I REALLY miss using that FCP filter! Anyway,YouTube, Vimeo, television, DVD players, and projectors can all handle the 817 crop (inmy limited experience), but I’ve run into sizing errors within the NLE when trying tocombine previous 2:35 cropped footage and 16:9 footage in the same sequence. It’s easyto give the NLE a wrist slap for that (telling it not to stretch that footage to fill the 16:9frame) but a bit of a nuisance. So, if you think you’re going to pull the completed projectinto something 16:9 in the future, it’s easiest to just leave the bars and export a 16:9 inmy opinion.

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Good question Page. In Premiere I use a 2.35 png matte that I overlay on thevideo track above my footage. This allows me to interact and reframe footage just likeI used to do in FCP but with more range.

Michael Solomon says:January 29, 2012 at 5:46 pm

What exactly does the matrox do?

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The Matrox Mini i use allows me to use any LCD TV as a color accurate monitor via HDMIout from the Matrox box. It allows for 1:1 pixel accuracy and comes with Calibration software toset up your LCD TV. This allows me to have a 42� client monitor available in my edit bay to givea very accurate broadcast final image available directly out of Premiere.

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Great Tips for DSLR Color Correction | Pro Digital Group -- Professional Video Production Servicessays:January 29, 2012 at 7:24 pm

[...] one shot could be the secret sauce you need for a completely different shot. Experiment andenjoy! (HurlbutBlog and [...]

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Dave says:January 31, 2012 at 10:14 pm

Hi, nice post!

I was wondering how you de-noise in the beginning…Do you run every single H.264 file through After Effects, apply Neat Video and render out asProRes?

Thanks,Dave

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Hi Dave. I use Denoiser or Neat Video on a shot by shot basis depending on visible noiseof each shot. With Denoiser I can do it directly in Premiere or After Effects and Neat Video isonly in After Effects. The render out depends on my final delivery format. It could be DPX for filmout or projection, Pro Res for broadcast or h.264 for web delivery. Hope that helps!

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Wilson says:February 3, 2012 at 9:13 am

Congratulations for the post!I am Brazilian and here we enjoyed your blog:)Question, what is the best cost versus benefit in relation to VGA Video Card?Make and model.RAM, I use Kingston memory modules (4g) have a total of 20 gigs in 1333, what do yourecommend to work flat on the AP and AE?

thank you

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Hello Brazil! In my 2 Mac Pro edit stations I use a Nvidia gt 120 and GTX 285 in one….anda gt 120 and GTX 470 card in the other. Both of my systems enable the CUDA and MercuryPerformance in Premiere and both of them also power my Davinci Resolve 8.2 LIte withunlimited nodes for amazing color correction potentials. I have 12g RAM in my older Mac Proand 20g in my 8 core. I hope that helps!

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Justus says:February 4, 2012 at 3:42 pm

Hey Shane, I know you put a ton of time in this post, and it’s an incredible post! This isextremely helpful. Sometimes, for me, it’s kinda hard to figure it out with just reading and pictures. Iwould love to be able to color correct my footage to look like that first picture with the guy and thecar behind him (By the way that looks incredible.) Do you think you could do a video tutorial withPremiere Pro on how you got to that point? This post has helped greatly, but it’s just a request thatI am mentioning that would help me alot. I learn alot more by following along with you in a videothan just looking at pictures. If not, I understand, This post has helped me already. but if it’spossible, that would be great. -Thanks-

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Shane says:February 9, 2012 at 2:01 pm

Justus, you are so welcome. Thank you for your support. That will be a huge commitment. I ama working cinematographer. I don’t run a blog that talks about the work I should be doing, I do it,then write about it. That would be something that Adobe would have to generate. We willcontinue create, educate and innovate. For now this is all I got. Peace

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DRaganche says:February 7, 2012 at 4:33 am

I learned a lot from this post!Thank’s Vashi and Shane.I would also like to watch such as Justus how professionals use Premier Pro for color correction!But if you can,understand it,this is enough for now :-)

Greatings for Serbia!

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Thanks DRaganche for your comment! I’m glad you learned some good stuff from thepost! All the best to you….Vashi

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Jose Prada says:February 7, 2012 at 7:22 pm

Excellent article!! I have a question though: when correcting a color cast looking at the rgbparade… The lines have to be aligned or it depends on the fact that the shot has more informationof a color than another -ex a blue sky-? I’ve found that correcting certain shots trying to align theRGB parade I end with unnatural skin colors… I’m a bit confused by this!!

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Macar says:February 18, 2012 at 5:39 pm

You only want the portions of the image that are supposed to be neutral to line up…It’s aparticular skill to recognize in the parade the parts the scope that are supposed to berepresentations of neutral colors, especially because every single shot and set up is unique.After a while, though, you get the hang of it.

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FLAIN says:February 13, 2012 at 11:10 am

Some people say;Premiere pro HDSLR native edit doesn’t give 10-bit color space..Is it true?Thank you!

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Hi FLAIN. Canon HDSLR footage is 8-bit but once it’s dropped into a timeline…Premierewill apply many effects in 32-bit float to gain you full access to the most color space available to










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h.264 footage. The other option is to convert the HDSLR footage to 10-bit Pro Res and edit thatbut that takes time and much more hard drive space. I cut/color everything natively in Premiereand have had wonderful results. I hope that helps!

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Ignacio says:February 16, 2012 at 5:22 am

Hello Vashi and Shane, thanks for this inspiring post.I got a question not far away from this topic, it´s about black and white shooting.Shane told us in the blog that it would be better to shoot with the monochrome PS, for betterlattitude.Vashi, did you find it better for grade? and Do you tint the footage to get an old look?.I find that the monochrome is too cold and plastic and I would like to get a vintage look, How could Iachieve this?Thanks Masters.

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Hi Ignacio. I defer to Shane on this one as he is the HDLSR master. I’ve edited and coloredboth color and BW footage that was delivered BW for final image…each has its own challengebut from discussions with other colorists…they prefer color footage so they can have moreoptions in making the final BW grade which could have Sepia or Duo-tone or a number of otherBW tinted final looks. Good luck!

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Shikai says:March 3, 2012 at 6:21 am

I cannot express enough how great this article is. It’s been of great help. Thank you verymuch. However, I do have questions. I still don’t really get the waveforms entirely.First, I use Premiere Pro, so, can I simply use the Luma Corrector effect to fix the luminance or do Ihave to use many other effects? Or should I stay away from that effect?

Moreover, where should my final IRE levels be at? I heard from 7.5 to 100 was the normal,although another version says from 0 to 100 is what you should be comfortable with.

Sorry if you covered these questions already and somehow I did not get it.

Thank you.

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Good question Shikai. For basic color correction in Premiere, I recommend the Fast ColorCorrection to keep things in real time and have accesss to luminance, saturation, contrast andcolor cast. In terms of IRE…0 to 100 is the normal range you need to stay inbetween. 7.5 is astep-up which refers to analog only video images and I doubt that is in use for anyone usingHDSLRs or any other HD format. I hope that helps!

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Flain says:March 16, 2012 at 2:02 pm

Thanks Vashi.

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Die richtige Einstellung… says:March 21, 2012 at 2:32 pm

[...] Hurlbut auf die Frage eines Lesers, ob er anstelle eines Artikels ein Videotutorial zum ThemaColor Correction mit Premiere Pro aufnehmen könnte: I am a working cinematographer. I don’t runa blog that talks [...]

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Rafa says:April 16, 2012 at 11:38 am

Thank you Vashi for this fantastic article!

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vashi says:March 16, 2012 at 3:39 pm

My pleasure Flain! Thanks for taking the time to read it.

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