LCD for Color Grading

I'll need to dive into Color when I finish editing my one-hour long documentary in a couple months. The doc is intended to be shown on a large theatre screen one time, then broadcast on community-access television and lent through our regional public library system on DVD. My question(s): Can the Apple 30" Cinema Display be used for color grading? Or HP's 2480zx LCD Monitor? Would the Spyder3Elite Display Calibration product be useful? Thanks in advance.

Interestingly enough, the options for trying to push a computer text display into being a grade monitor are narrowing down to nothing. The harder people have been trying to make a silk purse out of these sow's ears has resulted in the inevitable conclusion that hey, there really is no such thing as free lunch. Even the vaunted ACD's after watching two of them for nearly three years now, can't hold a calibration for more than a couple of hours and then go magenta. Its because we need so much green to make D65 white. Those poor green dots just peter out and then red and blue take over. So you better be fast, because you will be working with a different monitor for the second half of the day.
An interesting thread on a pro telecine site has been discussing the HP Dreamcolor... the general conclusion is that it is probably great for a cubicle farm full of compositing and animation artists who more need a match between them than truly accurate colorimetry. At least its consistent. A high end grading device company member warned against using certain types of "probes", since at varying resolutions of display, you really have no idea what the thing is integrating to come up with a white point.
One of the really huge things that is missing is the ENVIRONMENT that the grade is taking place in. Sure, the monitor is important... but almost equally so is the room in which it is situated... its ambient illumination and the requirement for a constant contrast neutral 18% D65 background against which to judge the monitor itself, not just what it is trying to display.
That's one of the reasons that the COLOR GUI is that "ugly" grey.... even though its probably not grey at all if the monitor you're using to display it is whacked. Every time you look at it... it is influencing the balance of your target image. Imagine you're the beer taster at the world's finest brewery.... and what (hold on a minute while I savour the fantasy.... okay, I'm back) but between samples you take a big gulp of vinegar. Right. Is that going to work?
jPo

Similar Messages

  • After Effects for color grading

    Hello. I requested as a new feature the next:
    "A special timeline only for import EDL, with only three layers, for video A, B and a transition layer between both, and also perhaps several adjustment layers above, for professional color grading with effects as Colorista 2, for example. After Effects is more suitable for color grading than Premiere for its color management, precise control (mask, tracker, etc) and OpenGL realtime playback. Color grading in the current timeline is possible with only 10-20 layers, but with +100 layer is very dificult, almost impossible.
    Also will be interesting the full screen playback mode as Premiere on desktop second monitor, for video preview."
    Do you think this is a good idea?

    Don't be too anxious to get an entire feature into AE as a single project. Back in the day when we cut and spliced film we worked with a maximum reel size of 1000 feet. That's 10 minutes. Even the colorist at the lab only worked on 1000 feet at a time. When It's time for me to color grade in AE I render to a nearly lossless or lossless 10 bit codec segments or scenes of the movie that go together so that I'm not dealing with every shot.
    This is actually the same way I cut. I cut Scenes together as individual sequences then I drag all of the scenes into a new timeline that is the movie. If a scene needs work then I just open up that scene's timeline and make the changes. This is easier in the long run, faster, and especially easier when you're trying to fine tune the story and the performances. I know a lot of editors that work this way. I've never seen anyone with a bunch of experience just start at 00:00:00;00 and start cutting a show from the first shot to the last. I've never known anyone that was that good.

  • Which monitor is best for color grading?

    I am new to Editing & color grading,i am working for films,using Adobe CS6 & davinci resolve now i am looking for 2nd monitor(reference or preview purpose) which one is best to choose in budget.
    my monitor is dell 27 inch ips monitor,and what to choose second one ,is it a broadcast monitor or one more ips monitor is enough? broadcast monitor is expensive then which is best budget monitor to choose?plz help me

    Hi all,
    I've got a DeckLink 4K Extreme and Premiere Pro CS6. I am wondering what is the best monitor to plug it into for colour grading (via Speed Grade or Da Vinci Resolve Lite), as are the rest of you, it seems. As 4K monitors are now coming out I wondered about the Dell UltraSharp UP2414Q, connected via HDMI:
    http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=8452 18
    What do you good people reckon? This is bang on my budget of £1000 + VAT. Or is there a better bet?
    The colour support says:
    Colour Gamut (typical): Adobe RGB 99%, sRGB 100%
    1.07 Billion colours (8 Bits +AFRC)
    The much larger (and double the price) UP3214Q is here:
    http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dell-up3214q?c=uk&l=en&s=dh s&cs=ukdhs1&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=0&~ck=baynoteSearch
    The colour support says:
    Colour Gamut (typical): Adobe RGB 99%, sRGB 100%
    1.074 Billion colours (10 Bits)
    Is that difference between 8bit and 10bit going to seriously hamper me? Is there a 10bit 4K monitor in my price range or should I go for a 10bit 2K monitor?
    (And yes, I know the DeckLink 4K Extreme is a hefty piece of kit for plugging into a 'relatively' cheap monitor but rather nice circumstances meant I ended up with one, albeit with no suitable monitor.)
    Thanks.

  • Should I buy a 20" display or HD 23" display for color grading?

    Even though I shot my film on HD (720p), the end result will be displayed on normal LCD/Plasma televisions, so wouldn't the 20" display be more comparable to do grading work on?
    I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not sure I see the point in buying the 23" HD display when no TV out there can reproduce the quality of that image yet.
    Any input would be appreciated (but budget is an issue, so broadcast monitors are not an option)
    Thanks.
    James

    Jerry- to expand upon this question. I will be upgrading my hardware in the next few months to accomodate FCS2. I currently run 2 20inch Apple cinema displays. If I ad a Matrox box and 23inch display coming off of it, will I still be able to use my 2 20 inch displays to view my timeline, viewer, canvas etc. Or will I need to replace them with a larger display ie 30 inch cinema display? ,thanks.
    Steve

  • Kindly suggest me a free effect or plugin for color grading and correction in fcpx ....

    I can't buy any more third party plugins at the moment .....plz now the only work remaining in my music video is color correction ....I want to give it a film look....can you suggest me a free effect or plugin with some presets to give it a good look.....Thank you....

    I'd have to start by echoing what Tom said - the color tools in FCPX are well capable of creating a "flim look" and fixing color issues - which is all you've said is required.
    I'd start with effects like "Dry Heat" and combine it with other effects and coloring.
    3rd party tools are only going to give you similar presets that won't work in all cases, and you'll have to do the same thing. That is, you still need to figure out how to color properly whether you get 3rd party tools or not.
    Having said that, I use Magic Bullet Mojo, because it ultimately combines many useful "Dry Heat"/filmy type effects into one and is sensitive to, and has several special parameters, for getting skin tones right.

  • HP DreamColor Monitor for FCP Color grading

    Hello, apologies that I posted this question also on the beginners video forum.
    I am about to get a new Mac Pro set up specifically for color grading as I am a cinematographer and need more control over small projects where there is no budget for color grading of images at professional post houses. My vendor suggests using the 24" HP DreamColor LP 2480zx monitor driven from a Black Magic Intensity Pro card using the HDMI output. I have read conflicting reports and read a huge amount on forums such as Creative Cow about this but still not convinced I can get full 30bit grading from a Mac OS X using this monitor. I am in Australia and most projects here are in PAL format in HD at 1080p25 or 50i. I use FCP 7.
    Any advice please?

    are you saying I should look at Da Vinci Resolve to grade? Why?
    It depends on whether you're a day-in and day-out business, and your preferred workflow. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. The Balckmagic-branded daVinci has a number of internal core processing advantages, a tracker that works, far superior color science, especially in secondary processing, but suffers from an old, "tape-to-tape" single-layer capability. However, it is truly "real-time", but that isn't as important to some.
    The latest version of Resolve supports multiple-GPU processing on Mac, so the difference between the OSX offering and the much more expensive LInux may not be that great in actual performance. You can build a faster machine with more hardware.
    The question... is it the software or controller that makes is (sic) so good? misses the point. Its a synergy of elements, just like good grading itself.
    jPo

  • Desktop Monitor for Web Color Grading

    First question is simple: I'm in need of new desktop monitors. Looking towards the Dell Ultrasharps, which have been a favorite in the past, specifically the U2412M. Any other suggestions?
    Second question, more difficult: I do a fair amount of color work with DaVinci Resolve. None of it for broadcast. By this logic, I feel like I can get away with a solid desktop monitor rather than a Dreamcolor, FSI or something pricier. If this is the case, any input on whether the Ultrasharps are a better or worse choice than anything else?
    And third question: Resolve doesn't output to a second monitor without a Decklink. I guess this means I would need the Decklink Studio, or buy an SDI/HDMI converter to get to the desktop monitor? Seems like overkill, but the only option?
    Thanks much!

    Thanks, Shane.
    2 - A computer monitor is never good for color grading. Different colorspace than TVs or broadcast monitors.
    That's sort of the idea-- almost all my work is for the web, and therefore I feel like a good computer monitor is actually (albeit counter-intuitively) a good fit.
    Besides that, I'd love to kill two birds with one stone and have an extended desktop when I'm not grading.
    Faulty logic?

  • Connecting Mac Pro to Panasonic BT-LH2550 monitor for Color

    Dear All,
    I am planning to have a setup to connect a Panasonic BT-LH2550 monitor with my Mac Pro to view the footage pixel-pixel for serious color grading with Color from FCP Studio.
    I am wondering what kind of connection I need to have between the monitor and the Mac. In fact, do you I any extras card or connector. Someone told me that as LH2550 has DVI connection, I can just plug the monitor to the computer, but I wonder if this method is accurate enough to show the footage for color grading.
    I also heard about AJA, but I really don't need any capturing. Is there any another cheaper way (yet still with good color reproduction on the monitor for color grading).
    Thanks a lot in advance.
    King

    No...if you want to capture this is a good card. But get the LHi...the LHe isn't available anymore anyway. The LHi will upconvert SD to HD, and cross convert 720p to 1080i on the fly. As will the MXO2...
    Shane

  • Color grading with scopes?

    Hello everyone,
    When color grading in After Effects, is there a reference scope built in?  If so, I haven't been able to find it?
    Can anyone suggest a good workflow for color grading with AE... For example, I have simple grading to do consisting of mainly balancing colors, but would like a way to check my work.
    Any ideas?
    Thanks
    Bgub.

    Here's where to start when looking for information about Color Finesse:
    "Resources for Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse"

  • HD TV or LCD monitor with HDMI,DVI supported to preview and color grading

    Finally I got my canon HFS100 and Intensity Pro now what type of the monitor should I get to preview and color grading video via intensity pro between HD TV or LCD monitor with HDMI,DVI supported and how to calibrate monitor via intensity pro.
    Please help.
    narkin

    The main downside is that an HDTV is designed to be used at TV viewing distance. So it would work fine for presentations, where the audience is sitting more than 5 feet away. But at typical computer screen distance of 2-3 feet, it is the same 1920x1080 pixels spread out over a 32-inch screen. Oh, actually, that HDTV you mentioned is only "720p", which is only 1280x720. That may not look all that good at TV distance either, if you are displaying images that are static (non-motion).
    Your eyes will have to work harder to see the same screen real estate, because everything is bigger on the screen. Images and text will not look as sharp (more pixelated) because each pixel is larger. It won't be like using a 30-inch Cinema Display, which has 2560x1600 pixels. Each pixel on that 32-inch 720p HDTV is more than 4 times larger.
    A 1080p HDTV would be somewhat better, because that is 1920x1080 resolution.

  • Looking for Pre-Rendered Editing / Color Grading Workflow suggestions.

    Looking for Pre-Rendered Editing / Color Grading Workflow suggestions.
    All my material is rendered via RenderMan, our resolution is 1280x544, and our format is generally .exr in 32 bit space.
    Our editor has been converting over to 32-bit tiffs, and using Apple Intermediate Codec for editing, mostly for speed concerns.
    We need to re-vamp our workflow so that we can edit our footage, and then do color grading of the edit head to tail to smooth the look between scenes. We want to do this in Color, being fed by Final Cut Pro's timeline.
    We want to keep our bit depth as high as possible when coming into Color.
    My question is, does anyone here have any workflow suggestions for doing what I am talking about.
    I wasn't sure if we should just export and EDL from FCP and try to get Color to load our single frames from that. Or if there is a special Quicktime wrapper we should be using, or converting our 32-bit .exr files into some other format more readily available for using in Color?
    Any thoughts would be great, thanks in advance!

    You're not going to get anywhere beyond 10-bit. That's it.
    Try encoding to 10-bit LOG dpx if you need upscale RGB.
    jPo

  • Advice for logical workflow for color correcting and color grading

    I am an experienced user of  PPRO CS5.  I am a novice with color correcting and color grading.  I am also just barely competant in AE CS5.  It has been suggested that I use AE for color correcting my footage.  Can you advise me as to the most logical workflow for doing this in coordination with PPRO CS5?  Are there some tutorials that you recommend?  I subscribe to Lynda.com and I think that they have some great tutorials, I am unsure as to where to begin looking and what to search for.
    Thanks so much,
    Lisa

    lisaellensegal wrote:
    I am an experienced user of  PPRO CS5.  I am a novice with color correcting and color grading.  I am also just barely competant in AE CS5.  It has been suggested that I use AE for color correcting my footage.
    You can do it that way, sure. But you don't have to. You can accomplish quite a lot without leaving PPro. This has two major advantages. First, if you aren't using AE for anything else, it gets you out of using AE at all, so gets you out of climbing another set  of learning curves.
    Second, even if you are using AE for other things (I use AE to make motion lower thirds, for example), doing the work in PPro can improve exporting speeds. This is because AE gets restricted to a single processor core in some workflows as discussed in this thread and others (search around if you're interested). This can make exporting take 3x as long or longer, depending on how much footage has to be processed by AE.
    So, how to do color correction without leaving PPro? Use either a luma corrector or luma curve effect to set black and white points, and contrast (use a waveform monitor to help). Then use a three way color corrector effect to get rid of any residual color casts (use the vectorscope to help, and the RGB parade, etc.).
    If you find you have specific colors that need to be fixed, you can apply another three way color correction effect and use it to make that secondary color correction (for example I find the blue dyes used in many labels tend to fluoresce under fluorescent lighting, and has to be desaturated with a secondary color correction or it "blooms" on an HDTV -- IOW, it has to be made "broadcast safe").
    If you want tutorials for using these tools, the ones on Creative Cow by Andrew Devis are quite good, and free. The ones on color correction with PPro cs6 start at tutorial number 47. There's a bunch of them. All good.
    Finally, get a copy of Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook. May be the best technical book I've ever read, and it'll certainly point you in the right direction for doing color correction work regardless of which tools you use to do it.

  • Color grading for wedding short movies ?

    Hi, we are currently using Red Giant Looks in Premiere Pro for our wedding videos color grading.
    We use the presets like INDIE and EPIC color sets, but im not satisfied with the output, as they really dont give me the wedding warm feeling.
    See those 2 videos :
    https://vimeo.com/87237247
    and
    https://vimeo.com/52295126
    Im looking to achieve the exact same color tone like the 2nd one.
    What do you guys suggest ?

    Without wishing to state the obvious, have you tried analysing the grade you're tring to replicate, and then having a go yourself?
    Looks is such a versatile package, it's a waste to simply rely on its presets.  You'll ptrobably find that the one you like in the examples given is not an off-the-shelf preset.
    Find a preset in Looks that is close to the effect you want to achieve, and then add/subtract custom filters, experiment a bit - see what they all do.  It's not that difficult.
    You need to start with:
    - diffuse
    - colour balance - warm
    - vignette
    - saturation

  • Proper Video output signal from FCPX for Color correction

    I have bene color grading/correcting on my Macbook Pro, but I recently found out (should have known better) that the colors are not very accurate or even universal so I am really correcting colors in the dark.
    I want to get a proper device that I can get a REAL UNIVERSAL VIDEO SIGNAL out form my macbook pro to a monitor.  Right now it is a computer signal.
    I heard of the Matrox box, but I am not sure how it works.
    Really looking for something inexpensive to do some basic correct color grading.
    Anyone can help me steer in the right direction?
    Do I need a new seperate monitor, or justa  device to get the correct video signal?
    Thanks

    Bump... anyone?

  • Need To Purchase Color Grading Monitor Today. Please Help

    I've been color-correcting via the 3-Way plugin in FCP for years. At SD, normally DV, resolution via Firewire out to a color, CRT broadcast monitor. So now I'm color grading with Apple Color. Love it. But, I need a new output device and monitor. I say I need a new monitor b/c I now work (sometimes) at HD resolution. It's not often but I do. So my question are:
    • Overall which card and monitor combo should I get?
    • Should I stick with a SD CRT since most of my work is SD?
    • And, if I do, can I still color-correct HD projects with it when the time comes?
    • Should I do some type of HD monitor set-up?
    Right now I'm working with the following:
    • Dual 3Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon G5 Tower
    • 8GB RAM
    • NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT
    • 1 Apple Cinema Display and 1 Wacom Cintiq display

    Jonathon,
    Did you not read my very post to your question? I answered this question for you. Look above, you'll see I tell you that the Kona LHe downconverts hd on the fly and I view it through component analong in my Sony PVM. I don't mind helping but you've asked this question 3 times now.
    Worst case scenario (I guess) would be to down convert the HD footage to SD and color-correct in FCP via a Firewire and a SD CRT monitor. Correct? And if that's the case how would you do the the down conversion before the color-correction?
    Yes, that is a very worst case scenario and one you should avoid. Personally, shooting hd to deliver in sd makes no sense to me at all. Darn near every show I've worked on this year is acquired in hd and then broadcast in sd and we use hardware downconverters that are horrendously expensive and yet the product is marginal.
    If this is the workflow you're going to use, you'll want to use Compressor to change formats but geez, why on earth would you do this when a Kona LHe will do everything you want it to, right out of the box.

Maybe you are looking for