My grading Style. Feedback appreciated.

So...
I've not been completely satisfied with my previous looks for the BMCC in my gigs although my clients were happy enough. I wasnt confident I was taking the best out of the camera and software. So, I've been trying some techniques, reading and digging a lot, learning and also a lot of trial and error till I finally got to a point I think is good enough for what I have (BMCC + Resolve).

But... as in this matter there is no right and wrong, really, I thought I could share it with you and get a feedback to help me.

It's just one take and only a few seconds long. It´s an excerpt from a tv commercial I shot in february. I've been playing with already shot footage in my free time and this is one of those. More details on video description.

Here it is:


NEW GRADE. Cleaner and with much more details:

ORIGINAL FILE:
http://www.upmdfilmes.com.br/clientes/Teste.mp4

Feedback appreciated. Thanks!

Here's the DNG if someone wants to play around (righ click, save as...):
http://www.upmdfilmes.com.br/clientes/B ... 000370.dng


Resolve Node tree:

Teste_LUTs.JPG

Really like it!! Although i don´t know what the story is, it looks really good.

Just watch out for her eyes, the part that is supposed to be white is also teal. Maybe a power mask would be the best way to exclude them out of the key.

Great job!

Yeah, it indeed have some teal but its part of the technique. The LUT also helps giving some green/cyan to the mids and lows and give me accurate reds with not oversaturation. It was much stronger before I added some orange to the mids. I also have spotted it on some movies before and thought it was nice so that is why I didnt bother much to remove it.

But thanks anyway for your feedback. I'm planning to use similar goals when color grading the shorts I'm writing right now and plan to release still this year.

I thought it looked great. I thought maybe you could desaturate the other person the scene just a little bit make the subject stand out a little bit more in that one part. But that is like super minor, I thought that was one of the best things I've ever seen from the camera


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What lens that you used by the way?


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Very nice.

Thanks very much! Really appreciated!

I used the Tokina 11-16mm, the DX II version. Also crancked up the sharpness to 50 on the Raw tab. Sometimes I cranck up till 100 when aliasing are not so evident. But when you play on a HDTV you see that much sharpness is not much needed.

I think it's absolutely beautiful! Wouldn't change a thing...!

But why is she bobble-heading, and the scene outside is not moving?

I think it's absolutely beautiful! Wouldn't change a thing...!

But why is she bobble-heading, and the scene outside is not moving?

Ahahahaha!

That's the thing. The bus should be moving so I asked them to fake it and then I would change whats in the windows or just blow it out. I just needed about 2 seconds from her looking out from the window. In the end, it just worked ok with the blowing out and a fast cut.

Thanks very much for the compliments.

cool.. I was checking the others to see if they bobbled too.. nice job man, looks realistic..

Auhauauhauhauha

Thanks, man!

I'm gonna include on the first post a DNG straight out of the camera and a print from Resolve to see the node tree. It would be good if anyone is interested in trying new looks and we discuss about.

I gave it a shot:
Out with tweaks from ACR:

Busgirl_ACR_basis.jpg (614.98 KiB) Viewed 7294 times

Grading to a mood I liked with her:

Busgirl_ACR_Grading.jpg (699.99 KiB) Viewed 7294 times

Made her happier:

Busgirl_ACR_Grading_Sunrays.jpg (677.9 KiB) Viewed 7294 times

As I don't know the real context of the scene I went with the grading were I felt it could be.

I gave it a shot:
Out with tweaks from ACR:

Busgirl_ACR_basis.jpg

Grading to a mood I liked with her:

Busgirl_ACR_Grading.jpg

Made her happier:

Busgirl_ACR_Grading_Sunrays.jpg

As I don't know the real context of the scene I went with the grading were I felt it could be.

I like picture #2 the best, the one in the middle. I feel like the girl in the background should be desaturated a bit though.

I feel like the girl in the background should be desaturated a bit though.

Agreed.

I gave it a shot:

As I don't know the real context of the scene I went with the grading were I felt it could be.

That's the idea. Besides what it is about, we can discuss the grading styles, what was already accomplished and try new approaches based on what was discussed.

I´m finishing a new grade that I like even more, much more. I´m gonna post the link here in a few moments.

Shot changed to Joe's suggestion:

Busgirl_ACR_Grading_Desat.jpg (683.48 KiB) Viewed 7267 times

Shot changed to Joe's suggestion:

Busgirl_ACR_Grading_Desat.jpg

Thanks man! I like it...looks stylized but still natural. I'm still super impressed you got this image with the Tokina 11-16....I actually sold the lens, couldn't get anything half this good from it.

Looking forward to seeing the whole thing.

Very nice shoot, which Asa ?

A quick grade with my VisionT LUT applied,

its a nice shot - thanks for sharing!

Three more looks before I have to get back to real work:

Busgirl Autumn Hope - on the way through a rainy day but she just fell in love.

Busgirl Autumn Hope.jpg (614.61 KiB) Viewed 7231 times

Busgirl Winter Blues - melancholic memories

Busgirl Winter Blues.jpg (635.34 KiB) Viewed 7231 times

Busgirl Death is not the End - a good friend has died but his legacy will remain forever

Busgirl Death is not the End.jpg (582.13 KiB) Viewed 7231 times

A quick grade with my VisionT LUT applied,

its a nice shot - thanks for sharing!

Thanks, Tom! coming from you it's an even bigger compliment.

Vincent, I dont remember right now but as it was shot in RAW and I never go over the 800, it doesnt change much.

This is a grade I like much better.

This time it was ACES Log workspace and NO LUT applied. Just used four to five nodes in Resolve.
In this one I tried to achieve a cleaner look with a touch of scifi mood, which I prefer, showing as much details as possible on the lows and highs without clipping any of those, so not highly contrasted. This approach is good to ensure any viewing device wont blow up highlights and/or crush the shadows. Hope you like it as much as I do.

Here´s the link:

This is the full take. You can see the sun getting stronger by the time the clouds pass by but still the grade hold it very well without clipping or crushing. I did not animate any parameter to compensate for the light changes.

A sidenote: When I shot this back in february, the bus windows were intended to be blown out to hide the fact the bus was not moving. In the final piece I had Power Windows tracked to the bus windows to keep them blowed out.

Really excellent and inspiring work, Robert.

I am especially moved by the middle image in the first set as well.

Can you talk about how you got the eyes to be so light, and what you did to smooth her skin?

The techniques are really great, but of course it's your eye and how you balance the ingredients that matters most.

Here's my shot at it using the Osiris Prismo Lut to start:

I like your original grade the best. Just need to replace the windows with a moving shot.

02.JPG

01.JPG

Can you talk about how you got the eyes to be so light, and what you did to smooth her skin?

I used a mask around the iris for separation and applied a brightness curve to raise the mids and add contrast. For adding the colorful look I used a saturation curve strongly raised only in the mid shadows and pulled down in the highlights to reduce the color in the reflections.
All done with the mighty fresh curves plugin from http://www.frischluft.com/curves/index.php in After Effects.

For women's skin I am using the Beautybox plugin from http://www.digitalanarchy.com/beautyVID/main.html. But be warned - it eats your CPU cores alive

Thank you so much for the detailed answer Robert. It's extremely helpful to me, and I'm sure many others

In case anyone wants the original file to try it out and skip the web compression, here it is:

http://www.upmdfilmes.com.br/clientes/Teste.mp4

Thought I'd play around with the footage too.. using FilmConvert. Not nearly as experienced as you guys in grading, but getting there..

Thought I'd play around with the footage too.. using FilmConvert. Not nearly as experienced as you guys in grading, but getting there..

I actually really like this one. I don't know man, they all look solid. I think at this point it's just a matter of your taste.

Thought I'd play around with the footage too.. using FilmConvert. Not nearly as experienced as you guys in grading, but getting there..

I actually really like this one. I don't know man, they all look solid. I think at this point it's just a matter of your taste.

Thanks, I like though how Ulysses seems to project some depth in his last one.. mine looks flat compared.. wondering how to do that (depth perception)..

I'm a fan of a more subtle grade, like this. (Although yes, it could be better. I'm no professional!)
EDIT: holy crap, this looks different across devices. I'll have to work on that

Hmm how bout this

33.jpg (788.81 KiB) Viewed 6855 times

Thought I'd play around with the footage too.. using FilmConvert. Not nearly as experienced as you guys in grading, but getting there..

I actually really like this one. I don't know man, they all look solid. I think at this point it's just a matter of your taste.

Thanks, I like though how Ulysses seems to project some depth in his last one.. mine looks flat compared.. wondering how to do that (depth perception)..

Thanks, Blien. You got the point. I always try to give a deeper perception. I dont like much the look when its king of monochromatic or flat. I try to get there with colors. Balancing the Luminance but contrasting the colors between foreground and backgound, so it gives a better notion of depth.

And as joshman said, it indeed look diferent when viewing from a HDTV, mobile device or computer monitor. So to get a balance between them is another dificultie found when color grading.

That's awesome, thanks for sharing that.

joshman108, the last one looks really good! Has a three dimensional quality to it

Thought I'd give it a quick grade, that girl in the background is really annoying, especially her hand is so distracting.

http://i.imgur.com/NsrY8sc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NsrY8sc.jpg

The problem is that when you watch it through a HDTV or some mobile devices, the lows gets darker and highs gets brighter. So, you need to be more conservative in terms of lumma contrast to try to balance between devices, otherwise the shadows will get crushed and the highlights will be blown out.

I've got another post with a totally different scenario, with much less light and a lot of shadows here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21906