Theory

When grading I sometimes get the whole film as one clip which I then split up in pieces, but I always ask my clients if they can provide me with the original files so I can conform from them. The reason is that I want to work with the best quality possible. But does rendering […]

If you want to display your film in a digital cinema at highest possible quality, equivalent to a 35mm film print, DCP is the way to go. DCP (Digital Cinema Package) is a world wide standard ‘file format’, playable in every digital cinema all over the world. Since colorists are one of the last persons […]

A few days ago I saw a tweet from someone who needed help with a corrupted EDL. Since I like challenges and to help out I contacted him and he sent me the EDL. The original EDL was 70 events long and he wanted to add another 50 events to it which where in another […]

The ACES system has been created by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science technology committee in order to achieve a more accurate color pipeline, regardless which camera you are using. The idea is that this pipeline will be manufacturer independent and of course HDR compatible. The ACES color space is based on a […]

If you are working in video you will at some point find yourself using an EDL. I have found that many people barely can read an EDL so here is an explanation about what all the numbers and letters mean. Some History Before None Linear Editors (NLE) came into the world of video the way […]

Have you ever wanted to move a primary grade from one system to another one. For example you are on set and do a basic grade on the footage using “Iridas Speedgrade On Set” just to get a look for the Dailies, but when you get to the final grade you are using another grading […]

For this Tutorial I will be using Colorista Free from Red Giant Software together with Apple Final Cut Pro to create the CDL values and DaVinci Resolve from Black Magic Design to use as the final grade system. This tutorial is for understanding the CDL format. Do NOT use this workflow in a production since […]

In this article I will try to explain the math behind converting RGB values to HSL and back. RGB is a way to describe a color in a cube, where Red, Green and Blue are on the different axis. HSL is another way to describe a color. Here we use Hue (the angle on the […]

This tutorial is about using your Vectorscope and Waveform monitor to balance a shot with a cast, like this image which comes from a Viper camera. In order to see each color channel (R, G and B) set your waveform monitor to PARADE. The waveform monitor displays the luminance of the picture from left to […]

Most people know that 4:4:4 is better then 4:2:0, but what is the difference? Have a look at the following image which is a part of Kodaks Marcie LAD. The image color sampling is  below is 4:4:4 When comparing it to a 4:2:0 version of the same image you can see some artifacts, especially in […]