New v14b5 Pickers

[Peter Chamberlain]

For the new black and white color balance picker...
Select the black picker icon next to the Lift wheel, primary palette top LHS, and then click on the black point in the viewer. Then select the white picker icon next to the Gain wheel, primary palette top RHS, and then click on the viewer white point. This will set the black and white point and also balance the grade.

For the new white picker... you can use the temp/tint based white balance picker next to the “A” button on the Primary palette. Select the white balance picker in the primary palette, bottom LHS, and then select the white reference on the viewer.

They are not designed to both operate at the same time.

A nice addition. Thank you BMD.

In principle it works: we can not say the opposite but it is rather very aggressive => so to use with some adjustments after ... Thanks BMD in all cases for this innovation.

Thanks, Peter. Searched for this this morning in the manual but couldn't find it. I'll see if the method also applies to the Log version of the Colour Wheels since I prefer the Log behaviours.

Jean, you're right; this is just a starting point that may not work in all situations and assumes you're making other adjustments to get to your desired look.


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I wish we could use this to adjust Camera Raw temperature settings too!

Great addition by they way, thank you BMD!

Is it possible to add same pickers to the curves tool for black, white and middle grey point? It is so common tool in any app that uses curves. There are many situations when curves middle grey point works better than white balance sliders.

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Also it seems very unlogical to use different icons (Puppet and Crosshatch) for same picker tools.

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I can see, why a lot of folks want this, but be aware, that a technical white balance, actually sucks a lot of life out of your material. All the delicate shades and nuances, that make your image realistic, and interesting, are going out of the window, and you end up with something, that is technically correct, but rather boring and emotionless.

Its always good to at least have the tools and the choice, even if you hardly use it. So thanks BM !!
Personally for a quick colorbalance as comparison i like the bottom picker thingy, but never seen the need to pin my black at zero and white at 100 for any video project. What "would" however be interesting is if you could set the black and white target values for the picker (like a little number field next to it). That way you could quickly set those on a bunch of shots to your desired target and then dial in the rest.

I can see, why a lot of folks want this, but be aware, that a technical white balance, actually sucks a lot of life out of your material. All the delicate shades and nuances, that make your image realistic, and interesting, are going out of the window, and you end up with something, that is technically correct, but rather boring and emotionless.

*cough*
you might, but i don't have that issue.... i've not seen the similar tool in Baselight, DS or MC do anything but make something that should be white into white, turning what is now white into shite is up to the colorist

it's a timesaver, no more, no less in my hands, if it works as other tools do, but it seems from user reports it only works in 709 tho? blows up in ACES or RCM with a timeline that's not 709?

Paul Dore wrote a freeOFX plugin that works much as Baselight's ballance picker does, and works in ACES, so i guess i'll stick with that one myself, i use ti as a part of my basic node tree, in the first node, for a base grade

i hoped it would be faster to use someting i can mapp more elegantly to my Artist color surface - currently i have a macro that hovers over theOFX panel, clicks on Pauls' eyedropper location, selects "log" and moves the cursor to center of the viewer - that's mapped to a softkey on Artist Color, but that means 1) i have to leave the OFX panel open, and restricts the mem's display to 3 across and 2) kills any chance of sorting timeline by OFX to make notes if i hand over a DRP to machine without HitFilm, BCC or Saphire plugins that i have on my main machine

[quote="Glenn Venghaus".... never seen the need to pin my black at zero and white at 100 for any video project. What "would" however be interesting is if you could set the black and white target values for the picker (like a little number field next to it). That way you could quickly set those on a bunch of shots to your desired target and then dial in the rest.[/quote]


+1

I wish we could use this to adjust Camera Raw temperature settings too!

Great addition by they way, thank you BMD!

Use resolve color management and you get all the benefits of raw

...a tool, I will never use....

[... i've not seen the similar tool in Baselight, DS or MC do anything but make something that should be white into white, turning what is now white into shite is up to the colorist

You not gonna find any white in the real world.
It's all about psychology of perception, not number values.
But, whatever floats your boat.

You not gonna find any white in the real world.

If someone has a definitive concept of "white" is, I'd be glad to see it. Meantime...

HC-87 Ashley Grey. (Benjamin Moore) is our "feature wall" tint. We recently had our interior re-painted (10 days ago) and we finally settled on the second attempt (of three) to get a match. Try #3 was the worst, and it was $60 a pop to mix up a new batch. The excuse offered was that the eggshell base had ben changed. The issue was that the final result on the wall was too yellow. Painfully so on the last try, so we gave up.

To be blunt, in the past couple of decades of seeing various attempts at AWB, it has only ever slowed me down.
Three factors:
1. What does the tool do? R=G=B... somewhere, pickable, or choose an area... WYSI???YG.
2. Noise
3. Codec (IS each pixel related to its neighbours?)
And I'll add a PS: non-uniform overexposure failure.
All of these apply to the bottom end, as well... maybe even accentuating the noise floor.

No artist in their right mind would ever leave an area "primer" white. Its just not a thing. So a technical solution, while it might be expedient for some applications, and might be valuable as a measuring tool, does not take into account the human visual system, which is relative to every other value in the image. The overall balance of an image is an integrated whole.

The worst job you can take on as a colorist is a project where the producer is just interested in a white balance. Their biggest complaint at the end of the first pass will be that you have drained all the emotion out of their movie. If you have been around long enough, you should have direct experience of this.

jPo, CSI

I wish we could use this to adjust Camera Raw temperature settings too!

Great addition by they way, thank you BMD!

Use resolve color management and you get all the benefits of raw

With or without resolve color management WB in RAW is way better and flexible that regular white balance tool.

So i can add a request for same WB picker puppet in RAW panel as well

I would like an option in Preferences that removed these from the interface entirely so the UI could be a bit cleaner again

I'm with Joe on the efficacy of a white balance. I've been bit from the other direction. I grade my video to my personal preferences and the original raw to ProRes proxy does look decent on my iMac set to Rec.709 while in Resolve. Nice emotional feeling. Then I rendered it out to H.264 and the emotional feeling took a minor hit. The client wants a DVD so I give it the best quality but the result is almost drained of the look I put in the original. I'm disappointed that these canned routines for which I have no control seem to apply their own white balance to 'correct' my image.


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It's just another tool, comes handy in certain situations, saves time. Bottom line, it wont do the job for me, its there to assist me, that's all, its better to have it than not.

I find it useful primarily to help me correct tint issue when my eyes are fatigued after a long day, then apply slight adjustments as needed. If it makes a certain grade look dull I wont use it, plain and simple.

One thing is for sure it's a highly welcome addition to Resolve, thank you BMD for implementing this!

Having a tool like that to get RAW temp WB will be another excellent addition.

The worst job you can take on as a colorist is a project where the producer is just interested in a white balance. Their biggest complaint at the end of the first pass will be that you have drained all the emotion out of their movie. If you have been around long enough, you should have direct experience of this.

I know of a very, very famous classic 1970s film where the studio exec was insistent that the tablecloth be white in a very famous scene, remastered in the 1980s. The colorist (who was not me) reluctantly made it so, at the expense of the skintones and other details. Luckily, before the title got shipped, the director was able to come in for one day for approval and when he saw that scene, he hit the roof and said, "the table cloth was off-white and being lit with warm lights, which should be very pale yellow," which is what the colorist had said all along. It was corrected and nobody was the the wiser... but it's a story I remember.

Auto white-balance would have made the tablecloth technically white, but so much depends on context and intent, white may not really be what is really needed or what the filmmaker wanted.

...
I find it useful primarily to help me correct tint issue when my eyes are fatigued after a long day, then apply slight adjustments as needed...

IMHO, if your eyes are fatigued, you would be better served by taking a break than by relying on an algorithm that has no cognizance of whatever aesthetic you have been pursuing.

[soapbox]I understand that BMD is pursuing a larger market share including prosumer or what have you, but in my not as humble opinion, the white balance picker is the same as building a Ferrari (or Lamborghini, or Bugatti if you prefer) with an automatic transmission. I don't appreciate engineering resources (or screen real estate) being spent on colorist "junk food". With the new pricing I can afford lots of two cents opinions. [/soapbox]

Lest I appear too ungrateful, in general BMD has been regularly providing outstanding upgrades to the professional colorists' toolkit, and for these I'm very thankful. It just grates on me for a white balance picker to be counted among them. Thank you BMD for continuing to refine an already outstanding product. Salut!

One of the very cool things in Avid Media Composer and Symphony is the that auto color balance features actually use the Lift, Gamma and Gain wheels or R, G, B Curves.

This way you see an actual color correction using Avid's color tools. This helps you understand better what was done and more easily allows you to tweak it. What you get is often times a pretty good starting point, which you can easily dial down, pump up or just take in a different direction.

I see that the Resolve commands next to Lift and Gain actually do show an adjustment on the wheel, which is way cool!

This is what i forced to use now in manual mode. In all other apps i can just pick one click WB to get starting point and do the rest manually. There are different situations. Sometimes you need artistic feel sometimes you need clinical white.
And to be honest implement that tool in RAW panel it is way more important than in Secondaries because when you shoot RAW you don't care about setting camera WB. And when you shoot ProRes you set WB as close to environment as possible so it needs very minor correction in post.

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I can see, why a lot of folks want this, but be aware, that a technical white balance, actually sucks a lot of life out of your material.

Frank there are a lot of assumptions that are being made here. One of the things I like the MOST about these new tools is that depending on what I pick for white or black, I can create some very intriguing effects. Yes effects, e.g. blowing out the highlights, ADDING a color cast to the image. I can actually come up with looks that are far from technically correct.

Another thing that's kind of cool is to apply a cast to the image, let's say moving the Gain wheel towards magenta, add a new serial node, do a Gain auto balance on that new node by selecting what should be pure white. This is a quick way to ADD a color shift to say skin tone, as the auto balance will not completely reverse the color cast added in the first node.

And you can use the Lift and Gain sliders underneath the wheels to lessen or intensify the black and white auto balances separately. Or use Key Output Gain to control the strength of the entire auto balance.

All the delicate shades and nuances, that make your image realistic, and interesting, are going out of the window, and you end up with something, that is technically correct, but rather boring and emotionless.

Really?

Here's an example where all I did was a Lift balance on her hair and a Gain balance on the pillow, which was light blue on set.

In my diy toolbox i have lots of tools, hammer, screwdriver, some wierd looking tools for sanitary stuff, some i never used , some i use always. Its a toolbox.
With the tools in there i can fix a villa , or a birdhouse, that is up to my skills.
I never understand why people compain about a company adding new tools that suite some users, less others. The sofware , remember, is not build only for 'you'.
Stating why you would use a tool or not can be helpfull to others, or indicating where these tools could even be improved, or like Peter a new creative approach. but thats it. Use it or dont...

I never understand why people compain about a company adding new tools that suite some users, less others. The sofware , remember, is not build only for 'you'.

This quote (along with a handful of others) should be framed and posted as a sticky! I am totally in agreement and I don't get the resentment of a particular tool or function of software coming from the supposedly wiser and more experienced members of this forum.

Amen, Marc.


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[... i've not seen the similar tool in Baselight, DS or MC do anything but make something that should be white into white, turning what is now white into shite is up to the colorist

You not gonna find any white in the real world.
It's all about psychology of perception, not number values.
But, whatever floats your boat.

i probbaly do not need a lecture on what white is, i got that one from my prof in art school while taking color theory and through reading Itten's "art of color", and again when i went back to school to take an broadcast engineering degree

now to the real world;

two actors, one against a off white wall, one against a yellow wall.. shooting the scene took from 11am untill 7pm, although the light inside the house was controled, the light from windows was not as well managed, end game the actors stay the same, the color of the walls shift as cool mid-day light bounces off concrete patio, then goes through the green of trees in the yard, and finaly into late afternoon warm

in Baselight qualify the walls, and use "ballance" on a picture frame in one angle, and a coffee cup on a counter in the other angle and use those to park the angles reletive to each in the same place, then move them together into what ever works

i can do the same in Resolve with either Paul Dore's OFX, or by hand, but i'll have the scene done MILES faster in Baselight using Ballance

it's not about finding "white" it's about using tools to get through a film faster while sorting oversights on the part of the camera department... speed speed speed.. i have 10 days to grade a feature, why would i want to waste time doing something that the machine can do faster?

end game, a good implementation in Baselight, and a poor implementation in Resolve does not mean the tool is suboptimal, just the implementation in Resolve is not fully fleshed out.. yet.

if the one software that has issues is also the only software you know how to use, i can see why one would be under impressed and might think the concept is flawed, it's not

Paul Dore's OFX works well, actualy it works pretty much the same a Baselight's "Ballance", for now if i had the same scene and was working in Resolve i would use Paul's OFX as it's faster than doing it by matching with scopes, sill much slower than Baselight tho

Just my opinion but selecting a "white" and "black" point would have been useful if the tool:

- Took into account the gamma (Rec.709, log, linear) (currently it uses Lift and Gain which is useless for Log)
- Would allow you to specify a percentage of white and black and a roll off intensity around it.

Like so:

white-point.jpg (26.69 KiB) Viewed 9751 times

So for instance you could specify that a certain point in your image should represent 95% white and another point 3% black and define the steepness of the roll-off curve around these points.

Good points!

I can see, why a lot of folks want this, but be aware, that a technical white balance, actually sucks a lot of life out of your material. All the delicate shades and nuances, that make your image realistic, and interesting, are going out of the window, and you end up with something, that is technically correct, but rather boring and emotionless.

Frank, are you trying to imply that we actually have to color the image by eyes???

i think he;s saying he's never had to grade three features, an MoW and two Broadcast hour shows in four weeks like i have, so for him it's fine to waste time doing something trivial that a machine can do as well and much faster....

nothing to do with creative, everything to do with making your day and adding value -vs- dealing with dross slowly

in my not as humble opinion, the white balance picker is the same as building a Ferrari (or Lamborghini, or Bugatti if you prefer) with an automatic transmission.

But they do come with automatic transmissions -- although not your dad's "D" selection. Even my A4 has three modes, one of which is a "manual" progressive +/- semi-automatic. Pick your driving mode. I was standing beside a buyer once who would not consider a nice spanky new Maranello because it had paddle shifters, not his 4-on-the-floor stick that made it a driving experience. Not for nothing would I ever go back to that gated thing sticking up out of the driveshaft tunnel. A.) I'm not Clay Regazzoni and B.) Never will be. But those paddles make it possible to change gears faster than he ever could. The quick ones are seamless, even the more deliberate ones (AMG-SLS, for example) are just fine, let the RPM settle, although its a bit disconcerting for a fraction of a second if you get the notion you're waiting for it.

So, Dermot, I get the time-saver... I'm trying to wade through 1,845 clips right here and waiting for yet another render.

But Dmitry.... I never, ever see one of these X-Rite charts in the footage I'm working with, because these things don't generally make it into the movie. Audiences just don't find them that interesting as a plot point. It's movie first, technical second. If the audience gets taken out of the scene, that is a failure. Worth some thinking about, though, if at some point a colorist simply subtracts some of these things from the frontal cortex and just "does it." I don't think D.Gilmour consciously works through... hmmm, maybe I'll do a Major/Minor scale here, in Dorian... I dunno...

jPo, CSI

I can see, why a lot of folks want this, but be aware, that a technical white balance, actually sucks a lot of life out of your material. All the delicate shades and nuances, that make your image realistic, and interesting, are going out of the window, and you end up with something, that is technically correct, but rather boring and emotionless.

The other point (which Dermot touches on) is that we typically have to work at a fairly fast pace. It's a rare film where I can spend 1 minute on every single shot, particularly if it's a typical 1800-2000-shot feature. 2000 minutes is 33 hours for the first pass, and then we need to do a second trim pass with the client, and at that point we've just hit 50-60 hours and it's time to render. If there's changes and fixes, this can quickly go to 80 hours and beyond. There's no time to hunt for little buttons and check this stuff -- you've gotta grab the knobs and go. Even more so when there are matching problems within the scene -- and that includes matching problems that are far beyond any Auto Match control.

I think a lot of people getting enamored by this stuff are all people who have never learned the basics of what cinema & TV color correction is all about, and they've never used a hardware panel. Once you have the knobs in your hands, and can tweak multiple knobs at one time -- with each other or against each other -- you can get the results very quickly without having to find the automatic knob switch the mode, and position the cursor. Scopes and eyeballs will get more pleasing results, plus it works better in a client-supervised session when the client says, "can you make it just a touch more red?" There's no button for that -- it's taste and judgement.

I have absolutely no problem with automatic knobs being used for temporary grades and for dailies. To me, this is no different than a one-light grade down for workprints at the lab, which is a film tradition going back 100 years. But as a creative tool? Naw. I think users would be much better off just learning what all the controls do and to try to avoid doing anything automatic. Scopes are important, eyeballs are important, and "feel" might be the most important thing of all.

Well guys, there seems to be a pretty significant bug in the auto white and black features when a clip has video (not full) levels, which is often the case.

Essentially, using auto black or white on video level material blows out the highlights or crushes the blacks by a very significant amount. This is because the auto features assume 0, 0, 0 is black and 255, 255, 255 is white.

At first I thought these types of results were from not choosing the darkest or lightest part of the image to balance off of. But even when choosing the most extreme end of the image, the result is still crushed or blown out.

I've tested this with Prores, XAVC-S and JPG files using Video levels, and found the problem in all instances.

Solutions could be:

1. Have the auto balance pickers be aware of the what the levels are for the clip being worked on.

2. Have a setting for the pickers' default level, Video or Full.

3. Have a setting for the pickers' default level, Video or Full, along with an option to override that to the other choice. E.g. Auto balance default is set to Video, but Ctrl Clicking would use Full instead.

They are cool tools, but right now their functionality is greatly hampered by crushing/blowing out Video level material.

Well guys, there seems to be a pretty significant bug in the auto white and black features when a clip has video (not full) levels, which is often the case.

Essentially, using auto black or white on video level material blows out the highlights or crushes the blacks by a very significant amount. This is because the auto features assume 0, 0, 0 is black and 255, 255, 255 is white.

At first I thought these types of results were from not choosing the darkest or lightest part of the image to balance off of. But even when choosing the most extreme end of the image, the result is still crushed or blown out.

It is always possible to scroll Gain wheel back and set desired level manually same time keep RGB adjustments created by Auto Picker tool.

Essentially, using auto black or white on video level material blows out the highlights or crushes the blacks by a very significant amount. This is because the auto features assume 0, 0, 0 is black and 255, 255, 255 is white.

A side the bug you mentioned, this allow me to add a little issue to the table.

as stated before, what's white? a 255/255/255? that is only stating maximum RGB luminance of the color space you're working on: 709 - P3DCI - XYZ - ACES - HDR with all the flavours - any LUT - hell i was working under a P3D52 white point for the last project; all of this value will show a different white visually with the signal at 1/1/1.

there's stable / known target in say 60 shots... lets say a picture frame on a wall not substaintialy affected by actors shadows

now lets say the light on the wall, and hence the picture frame changes throughout the scene

now let's say we want the scene to look like it all happened in a few minuites, not the 7 hours it took to shoot

with Baselight's "Ballance", or with Paul Dore's "Ballance" OFX in Resolve one could put an eyedropper on the picture frame and they will set the RGB values to match so 180/190/320 become 240/240/240

now go to the next shot in the scene as edited, and the same picture frame reads 210 /180 / 120, and it becomes 220/220/220, tweak exposure / contrast / pivot a bit and bingo you have a match

I don't care what defines white in any given workflow... i care that the base grade matches, and i can move on the the next scene quickly

as i mentioned, i have a background in both art school and broadcast engineering, i get the white point thing, deeply and truly, and it has less than zero to do with how i chose to use these tools

now admittidly the Resolve native auto white/black is crap at this game, but Baselight and Paul Dore's OFX have it covered... and for that matter so did DS & Jaleo decade ago... because the implementation of Reslove's native tools is far from usefull, esp in ACES, that does not mean either the concept or other implemenation's are not valid...

just say'n it can save considerable amount of time on a bad day, in the right hands

Here's an example where all I did was a Lift balance on her hair and a Gain balance on the pillow, which was light blue on set.

With all due respect,
but if I want an image like that, I light it like that, instead of destroying it in post.

But what do I know of art.

It is always possible to scroll Gain wheel back and set desired level manually same time keep RGB adjustments created by Auto Picker tool.

I realize that, but then it makes the process significantly less "auto."

With all due respect,
but if I want an image like that, I light it like that, instead of destroying it in post.

But what do I know of art.

Hey Frank, AFAU, this forum is place for people to share ideas, ask questions, get help and communicate with BMD.

So I really don't see the purpose of your post, other than to be obnoxious. Perhaps you are this great editor, colorist and cinematographer all rolled into one who I've never heard of. But even if you are, please don't respond to me unless you have something helpful, constructive or instructive to say.

I wish not to deal with the attitude.

For the white and black pickers I saw a few days ago on YouTube a clip where the guy reduced the contrast and it had given him quite good results (of course after applying the pickers).

Here's an example where all I did was a Lift balance on her hair and a Gain balance on the pillow, which was light blue on set.

With all due respect,
but if I want an image like that, I light it like that, instead of destroying it in post.

But what do I know of art.

He still bring a good point: stretching an image to reach a desired value intrinsically reduce the quality of it, hence is better to shot it closer to what you need that post-process it...

It's an effect. The intent is to look broken.

He still bring a good point: stretching an image to reach a desired value intrinsically reduce the quality of it, hence is better to shot it closer to what you need that post-process it...

Very true. It's always better to enhance good cinematography, rather than trying to save bad cinematography. Day-for-night scenes require a lot of talent to pull off, particularly on the DP's side.

Again, I do think the auto-white-balance and auto-black-balance buttons have a use, and I also get that there are projects that have zero time and just have to be delivered very, very quickly. If I had a 1-hour show and 4 hours to deliver it, I might well grab for some auto knobs, but I'd be grimacing and wincing the entire time. As long as the producers and clients are happy with the final results, it doesn't matter how you get there.

It's an effect. The intent is to look broken.

The risk of presenting an image that deliberately looks "broken" is that you may pull the audience right out of the story. I think you can slam the viewer's head into the curb every so often, but if you do it for too long a period, the risk is you'll drive them away in being too over-the-top and ostentatious. I think it can work in short bursts, like for a music video or a commercial. My own inclination is to try to lean towards something that at least recalls something bordering on natural and then stylizes it from there, as opposed to stomping on the image with a sledgehammer.

On the other hand, I can do really heavy orange & teal, too, if that's what the filmmaker really, really wants.