Colour Correction Techniques

[user_deleted]

is this one of those compositing books that has a chapter on color-correction and that's it? if this is the best recommendation for cc reference material, seems there's some market potential there...isn't there at least one book dedicated to color correction?

[deke-kincaid]

QUOTE(deepstructure @ 02/07/06, 12:33 PM) [snapback]227685[/snapback]
if this is the best recommendation for cc reference material, seems there's some market potential there
Most cg books are made at a loss. They don't make much money and they don't pay much either. 5-10k at the most. They are labors of love.

[user_deleted]

i actually saw one specifically for colour correction on the Focal Press stand at a trade show in London yesterday. I'm glad i got to glance through it first as it looked rather poor. And for a subject on colour I really hate it when most of the images are black and white with just a set of (poorly printed) colour plates wedged somewhere in the middle. It was also rather expensive for quite a thin book with large type.

I will stick to trying the one mentioned earlier!

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(beaker @ 02/07/06, 10:37 PM) [snapback]227715[/snapback]
Most cg books are made at a loss. They don't make much money and they don't pay much either. 5-10k at the most. They are labors of love.

i'd love to know how you know this. i find it hard to believe these books are labors of love that lose money for their authors (or publishers).

[deke-kincaid]

Because I have many friends and colleagues that have written computer books for a variety of cg subjects (maya, 3dsmax, animation, programming, etc...). They do get paid for it, but no where near as much as to how much time they put into it. Cgi is a really tiny field in the general scope of things. Compositing is even smaller. This is why people like Ed Harris publishes his own book with one of the "publish on demand" services.

That 5-10k i talked about is the Advance, and then they give you a percentage of every copy sold above a certain number. The thing is all my friends said that you will never reach that number. So pretty much the advance is your only payment.

I google'd around and found this blog from a computer book writer:
http://jwikert.typepad.com/the\_average\_joe...\_the\_avera.html

Books are just like movies, video games, music, healthcare, insurance, etc... Companies make a whole crap load of them and most loose money. It's the big blockbusters that sell a million copies that actually pay for all the rest of the loosers.

[user_deleted]

thanks for the follow-up beaker! always interesting to learn more about the process. thanks for the info - i'll check out that blog.

however, do have to say that healthcare and insurance work the opposite - they make their money on the majority of policies that don't ever get anywhere near fully utilizied and count on that revenue to pay for the (relatively) few breakout costs that happen.

[deke-kincaid]

QUOTE(deepstructure @ 02/09/06, 11:32 AM) [snapback]227934[/snapback]
however, do have to say that healthcare and insurance work the opposite - they make their money on the majority of policies that don't ever get anywhere near fully utilizied and count on that revenue to pay for the (relatively) few breakout costs that happen.
Yea I know, but it's all the same idea. The winners pay for the loosers or the loosers pay for the winners.

[user_deleted]

As a particularly well-respected author of a notable character creation book once told me when I asked if he minded me inquiring how much income he drew off of his book... "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Income?"

He said he'd gotten an advance from the publisher when he originally sold it and never expected to see another dime.

There just aren't enough of us to make the books profitable. If there's a million compositors on earth, and 1 percent of those want to buy a book on color correction (and let's be real: 1% is ambitious), that's only 10,000 books sold. And there's nowhere NEAR a million compositors.

Ron Brinkman might be seeing a bit of actual profit off of Art & Science by now... I used it as a textbook for years and can account for hundreds and hundreds of students who have received copies of it - as the Holy Bible of compositing, it may have paid for itself since it seems to be the standard introductory textbook for digital compositing of visual effects all over - but I'm betting he won't be quitting his day job.

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(Ed Offermann @ 02/10/06, 04:38 PM) [snapback]228067[/snapback]
There just aren't enough of us to make the books profitable. If there's a million compositors on earth, and 1 percent of those want to buy a book on color correction (and let's be real: 1% is ambitious), that's only 10,000 books sold. And there's nowhere NEAR a million compositors.

i understand your point, however isn't the market for color correction actually bigger than compositing? not every videographer and independent filmmaker needs compositing skills, but anyone committing any image to screen could use some color correction technique and understanding, no?

[deke-kincaid]

Found this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/157820201...glance&n=283155

Only for digital video though.

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(deepstructure @ 02/10/06, 09:02 PM) [snapback]228070[/snapback]
i understand your point, however isn't the market for color correction actually bigger than compositing? not every videographer and independent filmmaker needs compositing skills, but anyone committing any image to screen could use some color correction technique and understanding, no?

Yes, your point is true. Then again, people should also learn more about driving, even after they've passed their first driving test. The operative word is "should", which doesn't sell many books.

On another note -- it doesn't address color much -- I would add that for compositing I've really enjoyed the book "Digital Compositing for Film and Video" by Steve Wright. It has a lot of good stuff in it, and I was able to adopt one of his tips for greenscreen spill removal and it was AMAZINGLY useful. (Slow, due to the node I used to implement it, but I'll fix that.)

[user_deleted]

thanks for all the suggestions everyone...I have ordered my copy of "the art and science..." and should have it tomorrow.

On a related note - what kind of monitoring are you all using for colour accuracy? I'm just looking into kitting out an online digital edit suite, and when asking about grade one monitors, i'm getting a lot of "pursed lips sucking in sharp intakes of breath". It seems no-one makes crt's anymore, and we are gonna have to rely on lcd's. Anyone using these yet? Its quite a nervy time to have to make this kind of choice - the standard has been halted before an agreed replacement is in place!

[user_deleted]

color correction for digital video has a fair bit of background information and not much of interest about the actual mechanics of color grading.

If you want to understand how lighting an edit suite, calibrating broadcast monitors and using vectorscopes relates to colour correction, buy this book. If you understand what gain (multiply), gamma and offset (add) is and want to go deeper, you wont learn much of interest.

Reading this book will definately deepen your understanding of color grading but will also leave you fustrated. "Art and Science" is definately a better starting point though.

As for a calibrated device, what is the output medium of your composites?

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/13/06, 09:08 AM) [snapback]228143[/snapback]
As for a calibrated device, what is the output medium of your composites?

we are looking at using a fcp/shake system running on a quad mac, with inputs from both digibeta and possibly hdv material. Output will be mainly to digibeta. I/O will be via either Kona3 or blackmagic cards.

[user_deleted]

so a crt monitor wont help you. You need a broadcast monitor connected to your sdi/composite/component video out properly calibrated using smpte bars and the blue only button on your monitor. I will attempt to list all the reasons why but I might miss a few.

1) You need to see how the YUV (or YIQ) color space, gamma, temperature and lower dynamic range affect your image.
2) You need to see the motion over an interlaced medium otherwise it doesnt make any sense.
3) You need to judge how the composition looks with overscan.
4) You need to see how your colours bleed if they are too saturated.
5) You need to be looking at the correct pixel aspect ratio.
6) You should be aware of any interlace flicker, flashing horizontal lines and field dominance reversal.

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(mikemarcus @ 02/13/06, 02:54 PM) [snapback]228150[/snapback]
so a crt monitor wont help you.

I agree with all those points mike, however, when i say crt i meant cathode ray tube, which is what broadcast monitors used to be made with (ie.Trinitron). I had forgotten they are still used for many pc monitors.

The dilemma (which only became apparent to me when needing to think about new kit) is that sony have ceased production of trinitron tubes, and whilst you will still be able to get tubes for a while, stocks will run out. Sony are now pushing a range of broadcast specific lcd monitors, as are other manufacturers. Some are claiming to be close to grade one status.

BUT they all are progressive, which makes accurate judging of interlaced footage a real problem, and hence my uncertainty about what to buy.

[user_deleted]

i find it incredibly hard to believe that sony are scrapping their CRT based professional sdi monitors for LCD ones which cannot display the interlaced signals which come out of their own hardware. are you sure you have your information correct?

[deke-kincaid]

It's really annoying, but this pattern looks to be true. You can't even get any more sony CRT computer monitors and more of their broadcast monitors on their site are being replaced by lcd ones every few months.

I'm sure LCD fully catches up by the time the CRT becomes extinct in the next 5 years. Either that or OLED which is the next big thing.

[user_deleted]

98% positive i'm right. I was speaking to both sony reps and resellers at the TVTech show in London last week. They were all saying no more trinitron, the future (for now) is lcd.

I did see some stunning displays that convinced me that lcds are improving, but there is still the interlace issue that needs addressing. Just because sony don't want to sell tubes anymore, doesn't mean all the viewers are instantly going to swap their tv's for new ones.

Worth checking out are lcd screens made by ecinema and frontniche. Absolutely stunning quality on both of their 23" hd widescreens.

[user_deleted]

Hiya,

I've got a couple of notes and links on the subject here:
http://www.miafx.com/23/tiki-index.php?pag...ur+Manipulation
--
Rafs Ome
www.miafx.com