creating color contrast

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Benjamin de Menil

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creating color contrast

PostSun Aug 13, 2017 4:30 pm

I read somewhere that it's good practice as a final step to de-saturate highlights and shadows - and I do like that effect. But I've also read that the typical 'cinema' look is to warm the mid tones and highlights and cool the shadows. I've been warming midtones, cooling highlights, and desaturating the extremes. While I can see that pushing mids and highlights to different color temperatures is creating some depth to the image, I'm not sure if my approach is good, or if I might have more success warming highlights and de-saturating them less. Any suggestions? I realize it can also be a matter of taste...
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Cary Knoop

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Re: creating color contrast

PostSun Aug 13, 2017 4:36 pm

Benjamin de Menil wrote:I'm not sure if my approach is good....

Do you or your client like the results?
That's all that matters!

I would caution against a formulaic approach to color grading, your (or your client's) eyes and taste should be the reference for what to do!
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: creating color contrast

PostSun Aug 13, 2017 4:52 pm

I typically run a shadow desaturation curve and I have a personal dislike toward color in the shadows. I tend to leave highlights alone unless there is weird coloration in them which makes them distracting.

As it's been said above, just do what looks good to you and your client and don't worry too much about what others do.
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Uli Plank

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Re: creating color contrast

PostSun Aug 13, 2017 11:54 pm

If you compare films graded for cinema, you'll see lots of different grading styles. There is no 'cinematic' look other than production value and on the technical side better dynamic range than video (instead of harsh, blown-out highlights).

OK, recently there is this overused orange/teal stuff which I can't stand any more. But if your client wants that, do it.

Creating color contrast, as your title implies, starts with choice of locations, props and costumes and subtle enhancements when grading. Check "La La Land" for something very obvious ;-)
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Benjamin de Menil

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Re: creating color contrast

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 6:54 pm

I'm shooting mostly documentary - which limits my control over lighting - though there is generally some control - at the very least over camera and subject position relative to light sources. Also do some music video where lighting is more controlled.

I'm doing video to support my organization's musical/cultural mission. The client is the general audience, and it doesn't normally weigh in on what color treatment it prefers ;) I think there must be some proven formulas though.

+1 on desaturating shadows. I'll try leaving saturation in highlights and just sculpting the color more there. Maybe desaturating the highlights is just a quick and dirty way of fixing issues there
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Jamie LeJeune

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Re: creating color contrast

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 7:45 pm

I've seen film stock emulations enhance color contrast nicely, but that does depend heavily on what colors are in the frame. The downside is that these type of LUTs/plugins can often be more trouble than they're worth when trying to maintain balance through a scene, especially between different cameras.

If you want to push existing color contrast in different ways than are possible with standard LGG wheels, you could also try using a couple nodes in LAB color space and tweak the curves -- one node for black and white contrast and another node for color contrast. The source footage needs to be raw or log to get a decent return for the effort. Mixinglight.com has a couple tutorials on the LAB node technique.

You can also play with hue v. sat to selectively saturate contrasting colors or use hue v hue (or the new color compression filter) to compress the range of particular hues.
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