7 Tips For HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction

7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction | Hurlbut Visuals
4/19/2012
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7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction

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Color correction is just one step of the entire filmmaking processbut oh, what a difference it can make. You can take average footage and really make it pop, sing and enhance the viewing experience of your project. If you have excellent footage, then the sky is the limit. You can also make images look garish, ugly and destroy all the hard work the crew did to capture those images on the day of the shoot. The challenges and choices are many and it comes with great responsibility if you are the one applying the Color Correction and Color Grade. In the indie film world, jobs are more often merged and unified and Color Correction is more and more falling into the hands of the Editor. The smaller the budget and tighter the deadlinethe more often this becomes true. Shane asked me to take this opportunity and pass on some tips and tricks I have learned over the years of Coloring features, shorts, ads, music videos and documentaries. I choose 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 be integrating 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, lets quickly go over some terminology that clarifies what is what in this realm. COLOR CORRECTION is the process where every clip is manually tweaked to get a good exposure and balance of light. Each clip is adjusted to match color temperature to a predefined choice for each scene. This tedious and mechanical process is essential and in its own way, an art form. The use of SCOPES (Waveform, Vectroscope, Parade) is critical to this step and luckily most NLEs and Grading software have them built-in. Without them you are literally flying blind and solely trusting your eyes, which have to adjust to room light ambience, fatigue, funky monitors and other factors constantly. 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 or establish 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. Being that this is purely creative, there is no wrong or rightonly what the DP, director and colorist feel is appropriate for the story. It can be subtle and invisible or over-the-top and uber-stylized. Therein lies the challengeThe challenge of choices. The tools available are so numerous, powerful and often free (Davinci Resolve Lite!) that you have no excuse not to explore these options further before you embark on the Grading journey. LIFT-GAMMA-GAIN / SHADOWS-MIDTONES-HILIGHTS / BLACKS-MIDS-WHITES These are the 3 interchangeable assignments used to describe what portion of the image you will be working with. Every program uses one of the 3 naming conventions above, but in essence they are all the same. Even when working with LEVELS or CURVES, you rely on numericals but still have 3 sliders (at least) to make your adjustments. With these 3 controls, you can mold images almost at will.
Shane Hurlbut, ASC
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effective as possible in creating imagery that will help serve the story. I would like to thank Michael Evanet, the director of HWY, for allowing me to share his footage for this blog. I just finished editing and Color Correcting his film. TIP #1 SHOOT WITH A FLAT OR LOG PROFILE Shane has learned over his extensive research and testing of every profile available that choosing a flat profile will allow you to capture as much information as possible into the camera. When I shoot on the 5Dmkii, I like to use Technicolor Cinestyle or Canon Neutral with minimal sharpness and contrast. Im also about to test the Similaar Flaat profiles that just became available in 4 different flavors. The camera companies often have stock profiles that look contrasty and rich in camera 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 tools in our hands, cannot accept stock anything! Just as auto anything on the camera is a recipe for disaster, stock profiles are for rank amateurs. Tweak away!
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TIP #2 TRUST THE WAVEFORM, VECTROSCOPE and PARADE SCOPES In 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 and more. Waveform=Luminance. Vectroscope=Chrominance. Parade=Red,Green,Blue values. I cant stress 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 are making the right decisions. I wont 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 youre in a pinch. This includes finishing projects for broadcast or passing QC for distribution. Ive on-lined 4 indie features on Final Cut Pro using only SCOPES that all passed QC the first time around. I was sweating bulletsbut survived! Adobe makes it even easier for me now.
TIP #3 ORDER OF OPERATIONS To maintain image quality and to preserve as much info as possible, its important to do things in the proper order. Just as you wouldnt ice a cake before you bake it, when you apply an effect is critical. I have always achieved great results using Stu Maschwitzs advice. Doing Color Correction on your footage in this order will help you maintain extremely high quality in the interaction of all the effects you use. Not all steps are needed for every shot but in case you have to use them all, here they are: 1. Remove artifacts and de-noise. 2. Balance your shots by adjusting BLACKS/MIDS/WHITES, SATURATION and WHITE BALANCE.
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3. Relight within a shot using power windows or masks. 4. Add gradients, diffusion and other lens filters. 5. Add vignettes 6. Grade your images 7. Simulate a film stock of your choice 8. Resize and sharpen
TIP #4 THE FAST COLOR CORRECTER EFFECT in PREMIERE is 32 BIT, EASY AND EFFECTIVE This video effect is a great starting point to tackle any shot. This one effect will allow you in REALTIME to address levels, saturation, tinting of the image, white balance and more. The shot below shows how I added contrast by raising the input black slider and lowering the white input slider. I used the color wheel and dragged towards orange to counteract the blue in the original image. You can also use the White Balance dropper to achieve an accurate starting pointbut I preferred in this case to Tint the whole image towards orange and approximate a 1950s film look. I boosted saturation by a healthy 40% to make the image pop. Finally, a 2.35 matte was added to approximate the old Cinemascope aspect ratio.
TIP #5 - ADJUST YOUR LIFT/SHADOWS/BLACKS FIRST By adjusting your BLACKS first, you get a baseline started to balance your image. I like working from the bottom up and getting my BLACKS just kissing 0 IRE on the WAVEFORM. I then push the WHITES up to expand my image and get some contrast into it. Finally, I tweak the MIDS as needed. You will notice that moving the BLACKS or WHITES up or down will affect the entire WAVEFORM so there is a give and take dance as you work back and forth. MIDS do not affect the BLACKS or WHITES too much and that is why you should work with them last. Lastly, if you raise MIDS, you will lose overall saturation to the image, so compensate by bumping up the SATURATION to keep the colors popping.
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TIP #6 - MIDS ARE WHERE FACES LIVE MIDS are where the skin tones live and you can really make a face pop by raising the MIDS after you have a good balanced image. Sometimes it feels easy to raise the EXPOSURE in Premiere or After Effects to brighten a face or scenebut that raises all the levels evenly and will ultimately not be as effective as separately adjusting the 3 zones. A good IRE for a properly exposed face is 6070 IRE on the WAVEFORM. If you raise the MIDS too much, you will introduce the beast of digital noise, so use judicially!
TIP #7 - Look for the FLESH LINE on the VECTROSCOPE to see how far off your skin tone is. On the 3-Way Color Corrector effect, or on a plug-in like Colorista, you can change the specific zone of color where the flesh tones live. By adjusting the color of the MIDS wheel you can introduce the proper hues into a face that need tweaking. Move the wheel in the direction of the color you need more of in your face. Watch the section of skin tone move until it lines up with FLESH LINE. An interesting note is that the FLESH LINE is accurate for all races and skin tones. We all share the same skin pigment that registers as numeric FLESH color. Proper WHITE BALANCING earlier will make this a minor but still important adjustment. If you are going for a natural look, no one likes a pink, red or green face. SATURATION should be dialed in at this point to give a natural look to the flesh tone. Heres a subtle example of adjusting for skinand an overt example for comparison. Neither is right or wrong.its all up to what feels right for that moment.
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I hope that I was able to pass on some helpful knowledge and that you learned at least one thing you didnt know before you read this. There are infinite ways to approach Color Correction and the best thing isno one way is the best. You dont need every plug-in known to man, a 4k projector and a $20,000 control surface to color correct. You only need time, the simplest effects and a sense 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 completely different shot. Experiment and enjoy! VASHI NEDOMANSKY To inquire about my editing and post services or if you have any questions, please contact me at: vashi@me.com 310.526.1400 www.vashiedit.com Tags: adobe cs5.5, adobe photoshop, adobe premiere pro, DSLR Color Correction, HD Color Correction
This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Post Production, Workflow and Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
91 Responses to 7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction
7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction says:

January 20, 2012 at 3:28 pm
[...] Hurlblog | Read the Full Article [...]

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4/19/2012
Carl Olson says:

I especially enjoyed tip #3 Order of Operations. A few simple steps in the right order and presto beautiful film. Ill keep this article bookmarked!
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Vashi says:
Thanks Carl! Glad you enjoyed the post. The Order of Operations really makes a difference in preserving quality.
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MJDTV says:
Hey Vashi Say you have a clip where you need to do everything listed in the order of operations, from denoising to relighting, to grading, to adding a lens flare, vignette, etc. Would you consider doing something like denoising, and getting your lift/gamma/gain set, then rendering a file to do the grade and effects on in AE? Or would you just layer all of those things in the proper order and eat the long render time?
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Vashi says:
Hi MJ. Another good question. A couple things to think abouthopefully each shot wont need all the steps necessary. De-noising is render heavy but most of the other steps can be done in realtime. Each shot has to have a different de-noise recipe baked into itbut not every shot should be noisy if shot properly. I would stack all the steps in After Effects if possible and eat the renders. With a good amount of RAM it shouldnt be that much of a hit. Another option is to do send the sequence to Davinci Resolve LIte, which will run realtime if you have the minimum video card(s) in your editing system. I dont like baking in half the effects then adding on as you lose a generation and then if a better de-noise solution becomes available or if you want more or less of that effect.its too late. Try to keep the effects available for tweaking until the final render. Thats just my takebut Im sure there are multiple solutions to the optimal workflow.
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Srgio 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 sky replacement or set extension, would you color correct first or do all vfx in the beginning?
Patrick Villela says:

Great post, thks.

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Vashi says:
My pleasure Patrick! Hope you get use some of the info in your work.
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Jorge Alarcon-Swaby says:

Great Article, incredibly helpfull

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Vashi says:
Thanks Jorge! Feels good to share the knowledge

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Didier Clermont says:

6 / 16
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Thank you soo much for posting this Shane, you always come-up with informative content. Cant wait to watch Act Of Valor take care. GOD Bless
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Shane says:
Didier Clermont, you are so welcome and thank you for your kind words. HOOOOOYAAAAAH!!!
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Oli Kember says:

Thanks Vashi. Step 3 was super useful.

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Vashi says:
Thank you Oli! It really is a great reference list to help maintain maximum quality in your images.
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ndrew says:
Hey shane, Im a little confused when it comes to picture styles. Ive tested various picture styles under controlled lighting, and while there are all different I have no Idea which ones are technically better? Ive 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.
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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:32 am
Hi Andrew! For my take on the picture style situationI use Neutral with Shanes settings, Cinestyle with full color work after and Flaat 2 as my main three options. Flaat 2 gives me wonderful skin tones and a little more dynamic range than Neutral without all the post work of Cinestyle. Each style has its benefit but between the 3 I can cover all my shooting situations. I hope that helps Vashi
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Dan says:
Nice article! Do you grade hdslr footage on premiere directly from the h264 file canon gives you or go into a 10 bit format? If so, which one? Thanks.
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Vashi says:
Thanks for the comment Dan! On my own work ,I edit directly from the native h.264 in Premiere and After Effects. Most effects applied to the h.264 footage is processed in 32-bit and maintains the highest level of quality from an 8-bit source. If you are close in-camera to what you need for the final image, I personally dont feel you need 10-bitbut the Pro Res, Cineform or DPX options are there if you really need to get aggressive with your color work or need the extra range it provides.
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joe says:
January 21, 2012 at 2:45 am
grade HDSLR footage like that and you will have have an ocean of artifacts and heavy banding. HDSLR footage just aint built for that, sadly. dont matter much when outputting for web, but looks quite ugly when burned to bluray and viewed on a large full hd screen.
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Vashi says:
Hi Joe. Which method were you referring to that causes the artifacts and banding? Ive burned plenty HDSLR footage to Blu-ray and have seen countless films shot on the 5D that not only held up great on the big screen. Let me know your thoughts! thanks
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7 / 16
4/19/2012
Philippe Kiener says:

Thanks for the tips. The first thing I do is checking the white balance, I lift the Shadows at about 20 and bring down the Whites at around 60, and then I check on the waveform how the top and bottom of the RGB channels look like. I can then correct it using the 3 wheels. Ive discovered Davinci Resolve, which is now free (there is a paid version but for DSLR the free on is perfect) and I use it now for all my color correction and grading. Its an amazing tool and I prefer to have a dedicated app to do the color work. Its a lot easier to jump from clip to clip, to match clip and you can do so many things with it. I export my DSLR sequence from Premiere Pro directly to Resolve and then back again when Im done. Resolve can read h264 files, so you dont need to convert the files before putting them in Resolve. You can add a 2.35 matte directly in resolve, the tracker is amazing (you can track a face that is moving and do a color correction only on that part of image, you can change settings during the play of a clip, to compensate for exposure if the camera is entering a room for example). Well, it has opened a new creative world for me.
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Vashi says:
I agree! Davinci Resolve Lite is a powerful tool that everyone should try out. The price is right too! What do you convert your h.264 native into before you go into Resolve?
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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! Im just getting my feet wet with Resolve, but so far am really impressed. It is picky about other files though. For instance, Resolve will not read an h.264 file produced by Premiere with a default mp4 wrapper.
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Danny Lacey says:

This is very useful information!! Thank you so much for sharing. Im about to start grading my latest short film Host (shot on the RED EPIC) in Adobe and am so glad I came across this page before starting. Thanks again, Danny
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Vashi says:
Thanks Danny! Glad to hear you picked up a couple pointers and I hope it helps you on the color grade. 5K render times! Watch out!
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Maxi Claudio says:

January 21, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Id 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:

Maxi, See: http://www.colorgradingcentral.com/archives/fcp-x-color-grading-tutorials-scopes Its FC but it applies universally.

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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:36 am
Hi Maxi. I hope Westons link helped you out. The scopes really give you great and accurate feedback to nail your final image. You can literally color correct straight off the scopes without even seeing the image once you wrap your brain around them. And once you have to deliver for broadcast or feature films you will appreciate their necessity and power even more. They are a must learn.
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8 / 16
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Jim Bachalo says:

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 dont forget the power of dynamic linking to After Effects. Currently my app of choice for all color grading though am migrating to Davinci Resolve. Also recommend Stus DV Rebel Guide!
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Samuel Hurtado says:

cant wait to hear what you think of my Flaat picture stiles!!

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also: I originally made them for my own use, so theyre very tightly taylored for my T2i; I guess youd like to use them most on 5D2; if you like them, we can try to make a version that is better taylored for the 5D2 (or the 1DX, if youre moving to that)
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February 22, 2012 at 11:38 am
This story is leaving the front page soon, and I still havent heard back from your tests with Flaat. Im worried that maybe you didnt, but Ill ask: did you like my little babies?
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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:38 am
Flaat 2 is now one of my top 3 styles that are on all of my 5Dmkii cameras. The skin tones are wonderful and the exposure and dynamic range are very close to my final image in the camera. Thanks again for sharing Samuel!
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Matheus Oliveira says:

April 15, 2012 at 10:35 am
Flat 2 is already on my styles ! Thanks.

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Hurlbut Visuals: 7 Tips for HD & DSLR Color Correction | Kelly On A Tangent says:
[...] 7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction | Hurlbut Visuals. [...]
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Bob says:
Very informative as always, thanks a lot sir. However, I do have one question, when you give a video a color tint in grading like the famous green shadows and yellow highlights, is it okay that the parade channels will be misaligned and sometimes a channel will be overblown? or do I still have to figure how to realign them even when the shot has a stylistic tint? in short, does the footage fail the test if the channels in the parade dont align perfectly?
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Vashi says:
Good question Bob. When the parade channels are misaligned, it just means that the color balance of the red, green and blue values are at different values. The higher the color channel appears in its section of the parade, the more intense that color is. If any of the colors reach past the top or bottom of the chart, you have exceed chroma limit for broadcast legality. You will have to pull back those colors or cap them with a filter. For your other question, if all 3 channels are aligned evenlythat only means you have an equal distribution of the colors. It will still be illegal 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 dont have to be even, they only have to be below the limit therefore, I hope Im right,m thanks a lot for the info : )
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4/19/2012
Wayne says:
Thanks for this. What do you use to Denise in PP? Wayne

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Vashi says:
Good question Wayne. I like to use NeatVideo or Magic Bullet Denoiser in After Effects. Dont apply too much as skin starts to turn plasticky and unrealistic.
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Brett Williams says:

Shane, Thank you so much not only for this post, but ALL of your posts. Im new to the technical, and creative demands of being my own DP / cinematographer. And also since I just bought the canon 5d mark ii to make shorts with, you have been an invaluable resource of amazing information. Thank you so much and hope to be able to hire you someday for a film :P
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Shane says:
Brett Williams, thank you so much for those kind words and all your support. You are very welcome and I look forward to working with you as well. Keep up the hard work. Stay passionate, never say die, be excellent.
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Lliam Worthington says:

Fantastic blog as always. This site is such a great film community resource. Thanks again Best Wishes Lliam
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Vashi says:
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:
Amazing post! Its great to have the process laid out like this!
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Vashi says:
Thanks Kris! There is so much to color correction, but I felt it important to focus on tips that you can use everyday, no matter what the project.
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Lawrence says:
This is the post Ive been looking around for. Very helpful and informative! Thanks for the post.
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Vashi says:
Thanks for kind words Lawrence!

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4/19/2012
Mark Strand says:

January 24, 2012 at 10:56 pm
I echo Lawrences comments; this is the post I have been looking for, too. I do not have aspirations to work in Hollywood, but want my videos to look their best, and want to be able to make adjustments on purpose and understand the concepts. This is the best explanation of color correction and color grading that I have seen. I made my own notes from it, which always helps me dig in and remember things. Looking forward to putting this new understanding to work thanks very much!
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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:01 am
Thank you Mark for your post! Im so glad you took away some knowledge and get to use it in your work. The principles are the same for Hollywood films as for any video shoot. Make it look great Mark!
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Robert says:
This is a great post! I throughly enjoyed reading it. I must say that i did learn a great deal from this. Currently Im a film student and i just got out of editing class last month and they didnt teach us color correction. One of the instructors kind of dipped into Final Cuts Color but I feel that this post was a lot more helpful than what the instructor briefly talked about in my editing class. I personally didnt like Color as im more of an Adobe guy. I have found out that Adobes color correcting effects to be more detailed and easier to use. I pretty much learned it on my own just playing around with it. The one thing that really caught my eye was in tip 6 i didnt know that skin tones live in the 60 to 70 IRE range that was something that I didnt know. This post will definitely help me with my future projects. once again thanks so much. :)
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Vashi says:
Thanks Robert! Glad you took something away from the post and let me know if you have any questions in the future!
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ziad says:
Dear Vashi I dont know how to thank you for this great post, its simple, clear, and a must need for everyone to start learning color grading. I wish you can do a video tutorials for important Tips and how to solve problems that may face us in color correction or grading. What we need also is to learn how to achieve a Creative style for our footage. I heard that there are styles that are considered as standard, i wish you can teach us some of these techniques and styles. Thank you again and again for this great post.
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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:05 am
Thank you Zlad for your awesome comments. The great thing about creative style is that its different for each and every project and there is no right or wrong. If it looks goodit is! That is the only rule. Best of luck!
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Sasha says:
I was waiting for the post like this for years!!!! Thank you very much, Shane! amazing blog!
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Vashi says:
My pleasure Alexander! Im glad you enjoyed it!

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Shane says:
11 / 16
4/19/2012
Sasha, you are so welcome. Vashi rocked this baby out! Thanks for the support
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Ignacio says:
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 not use such techniques. What is your opinion. Thanks
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Vashi says:
I believe in lighting properly on the set so you can capture what your creatively envisioned. That saidpower windows and trackers are now free and powerful (Davinci Resolve Lite, etc) and can be used as needed to improve upon what you shot. Sometimes you run out of time and cant relight for a shot on set. Sometimes the EVF or external monitor runs out of batteries or craps out. Sometimes you forget to check the historgram before you hit recordor you are in a flat camera profile that misleads your eye visually and you set the wrong exposure. All these reasons and the tumultuous nature of shoot days can lead to a blown or technically imperfect shot. We have the tools to fix that now in post and h.264 DSLR footage can be pushed around and tweaked to correct thatjust 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 cinematography masterpieces of the pastIm sure IF they had the option, they would have tweaked within the frame a bit too!
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Kyle Vincent says:

Thank you so much! Just brilliant! Great for those of us who are making the switch from FCP to Premiere just made understanding the Color Grading process in Premiere that much easier!!! Reply
vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:06 am
My pleasure Kyle! Glad you took something away from my post. Keep learning and have fun with it!
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Blogs, Journals and Articles | Pearltrees says:

[...] 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 as on Act of Valor. What was the workflow to convert from 169 to 2:35 there?
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Vashi says:
In Premiere, I import a 2.35 mask made from a Photoshop file (png). I then place this image file on a track above the footage and extend it for the duration of the project. This gives me the aspect ratio that I prefer and also allows me to reframe vertically (up or down) to adjust my composition. Im sure Shane will chime in but I know that AOV was shot 169 in camera then cropped in post using a similar technique.
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Payton says:
Thanks for the quick feedback! So would you export a 169 file? I mean, once you have used that png. file to help with the re-framing, is your export cropped to say 1920817, or do you stay with your 169 aspect ratio and just have the bleck bars be part of the file?
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Page Lynch says:

Hey, Payton and Vashi. I was wondering how to do this in Premiere too. Ive done a mask
4/19/2012
before, but that seemed unnecessary being as FCP has the widescreen filter with a vertical positioning slider that wont allow you to drag the footage too far into the open space between the 2:35 bars. I thought I was just missing some filter somewhere but apparently 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 (in my limited experience), but Ive run into sizing errors within the NLE when trying to combine previous 2:35 cropped footage and 16:9 footage in the same sequence. Its easy to give the NLE a wrist slap for that (telling it not to stretch that footage to fill the 16:9 frame) but a bit of a nuisance. So, if you think youre going to pull the completed project into something 16:9 in the future, its easiest to just leave the bars and export a 16:9 in my opinion.
Reply
vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:09 am
Good question Page. In Premiere I use a 2.35 png matte that I overlay on the video track above my footage. This allows me to interact and reframe footage just like I used to do in FCP but with more range.
Michael Solomon says:

What exactly does the matrox do?

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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:12 am
The Matrox Mini i use allows me to use any LCD TV as a color accurate monitor via HDMI out from the Matrox box. It allows for 1:1 pixel accuracy and comes with Calibration software to set up your LCD TV. This allows me to have a 42 client monitor available in my edit bay to give a 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 Services
says:
[...] one shot could be the secret sauce you need for a completely different shot. Experiment and enjoy! (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 as ProRes? Thanks, Dave
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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:15 am
Hi Dave. I use Denoiser or Neat Video on a shot by shot basis depending on visible noise of each shot. With Denoiser I can do it directly in Premiere or After Effects and Neat Video is only in After Effects. The render out depends on my final delivery format. It could be DPX for film out or projection, Pro Res for broadcast or h.264 for web delivery. Hope that helps!
Reply
Wilson says:
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 you recommend to work flat on the AP and AE? thank you
Reply
13 / 16
7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction | Hurlbut Visuals vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:19 am
4/19/2012
Hello Brazil! In my 2 Mac Pro edit stations I use a Nvidia gt 120 and GTX 285 in one.and a gt 120 and GTX 470 card in the other. Both of my systems enable the CUDA and Mercury Performance in Premiere and both of them also power my Davinci Resolve 8.2 LIte with unlimited nodes for amazing color correction potentials. I have 12g RAM in my older Mac Pro and 20g in my 8 core. I hope that helps!
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Justus says:
Hey Shane, I know you put a ton of time in this post, and its an incredible post! This is extremely helpful. Sometimes, for me, its kinda hard to figure it out with just reading and pictures. I would love to be able to color correct my footage to look like that first picture with the guy and the car behind him (By the way that looks incredible.) Do you think you could do a video tutorial with Premiere Pro on how you got to that point? This post has helped greatly, but its just a request that I am mentioning that would help me alot. I learn alot more by following along with you in a video than just looking at pictures. If not, I understand, This post has helped me already. but if its possible, that would be great. -ThanksReply
Shane says:
Justus, you are so welcome. Thank you for your support. That will be a huge commitment. I am a working cinematographer. I dont 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 will continue create, educate and innovate. For now this is all I got. Peace
Reply
DRaganche says:
I learned a lot from this post! Thanks 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!
Reply
vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:21 am
Thanks DRaganche for your comment! Im glad you learned some good stuff from the post! All the best to you. Vashi
Reply
Jose Prada says:

Excellent article!! I have a question though: when correcting a color cast looking at the rgb parade The lines have to be aligned or it depends on the fact that the shot has more information of a color than another -ex a blue sky-? Ive found that correcting certain shots trying to align the RGB parade I end with unnatural skin colors Im a bit confused by this!!
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Macar says:
You only want the portions of the image that are supposed to be neutral to line upIts a particular skill to recognize in the parade the parts the scope that are supposed to be representations 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:
Some people say;Premiere pro HDSLR native edit doesnt give 10-bit color space..Is it true? Thank you!
Reply
vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:24 am
Hi FLAIN. Canon HDSLR footage is 8-bit but once its dropped into a timelinePremiere will apply many effects in 32-bit float to gain you full access to the most color space available to
4/19/2012
h.264 footage. The other option is to convert the HDSLR footage to 10-bit Pro Res and edit that but that takes time and much more hard drive space. I cut/color everything natively in Premiere and have had wonderful results. I hope that helps!
Reply
Ignacio says:
Hello Vashi and Shane, thanks for this inspiring post. I got a question not far away from this topic, its about black and white shooting. Shane told us in the blog that it would be better to shoot with the monochrome PS, for better lattitude. 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 I achieve this? Thanks Masters.
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vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:28 am
Hi Ignacio. I defer to Shane on this one as he is the HDLSR master. Ive edited and colored both color and BW footage that was delivered BW for final imageeach has its own challenge but from discussions with other coloriststhey prefer color footage so they can have more options in making the final BW grade which could have Sepia or Duo-tone or a number of other BW tinted final looks. Good luck!
Reply
Shikai says:
March 3, 2012 at 6:21 am
I cannot express enough how great this article is. Its been of great help. Thank you very much. However, I do have questions. I still dont 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 I have 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.
Reply
vashi says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:32 am
Good question Shikai. For basic color correction in Premiere, I recommend the Fast Color Correction to keep things in real time and have accesss to luminance, saturation, contrast and color cast. In terms of IRE0 to 100 is the normal range you need to stay inbetween. 7.5 is a step-up which refers to analog only video images and I doubt that is in use for anyone using HDSLRs or any other HD format. I hope that helps!
Reply
Flain says:
March 16, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Thanks Vashi.
Reply
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 Thema Color Correction mit Premiere Pro aufnehmen knnte: I am a working cinematographer. I dont run a blog that talks [...]
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Rafa says:
April 16, 2012 at 11:38 am
Thank you Vashi for this fantastic article!

Reply
vashi says:
March 16, 2012 at 3:39 pm
My pleasure Flain! Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Reply
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91 Responses to 7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction

7 Tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction says:

[...] Hurlblog | Read the Full Article [...]

Carl Olson says:

Srgio Miguel Silva says:

Patrick Villela says:

Great post, thks.

Jorge Alarcon-Swaby says:

Great Article, incredibly helpfull

Thanks Jorge! Feels good to share the knowledge

Didier Clermont says:

Oli Kember says:

Thanks Vashi. Step 3 was super useful.

Philippe Kiener says:

Danny Lacey says:

Maxi Claudio says:

Weston Woodbury says:

Maxi, See: http://www.colorgradingcentral.com/archives/fcp-x-color-grading-tutorials-scopes Its FC but it applies universally.

Jim Bachalo says:

Samuel Hurtado says:

cant wait to hear what you think of my Flaat picture stiles!!

Samuel Hurtado says:

Samuel Hurtado says:

Matheus Oliveira says:

Flat 2 is already on my styles ! Thanks.

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

Brett Williams says:

Lliam Worthington says:

7 Tips for HD Color Correction | Hany Anber says:

Thanks for kind words Lawrence!

Mark Strand says:

My pleasure Alexander! Im glad you enjoyed it!

Kyle Vincent says:

Blogs, Journals and Articles | Pearltrees says:

Page Lynch says:

Michael Solomon says:

What exactly does the matrox do?

Jose Prada says:

Die richtige Einstellung says:

Thank you Vashi for this fantastic article!

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

HP LP2480zx Dream Colorspace

When I began workin 17 monitor to light w

Reaper Making HD lo essential ingredients You have ...

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