Workflows and coloring tips and approaches

[Karel_od_martiny]

Hi,
please share your workflows and coloring approach for working with cinema dng files or other files capable by Sigma fp (Braw, or prores Raw).

[Karel_od_martiny]

WARNING: I am absolute amateur, this post is meant more to start the topic and maybe to find advices from you. It is not meant to inspire or teach you (actually, I need to be teached).

WORKFLOW
My workflow is to have 2x 1TB SSD.
1-Shoot to Cdng 10bit
2-Losseless convert with SlimRaw (1/3 of size)
3-Bring to Davinci Resolve.

The reason i use Cdng is, that I have very good PC, so the post compression inside my PC is not a problem. And I like to be without external monitor.

COLORING
For ultra simple speedgrade I use only this colorspace transform:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T31lBQymEPs&t=272s

Between the colorspace transform nodes I put node with Filmconvert and adjust some RAW settings. I also use Lum vs Sat to desaturate the blacks and render.

If you think, that it is bad coloring please let me know .

[PT1]

As far as post workflow goes I do everything in ACES color space (ACEScct to be exact). The benefit of using ACES is that you get normalized image out of the camera without having to do anything, and if you have footage also from other cameras they pretty much match automatically. You still want to click the Highlight Recovery checkbox in Camera Raw because by default Resolve doesn't give you all the data from the DNG. Another thing to keep in mind is that the "Apply pre tone curve" must be unchecked with Sigma FP or the colors will be wrong (it's in the project Camera Raw settings). There's no official IDT for Sigma FP (yet) but the DNG contains the camera reference color space in XYZ so Resolve automatically converts all color information from that camera reference color space to ACES.

I find ACES works best for me and I don't miss doing it in any other way. I find it the most consistent and simplest way to to work with any footage (no nodes or separate color space transforms needed). And it's a standard, it works the same way (more or less) with any camera.

[Gualbert]

Hi PT1! Thanks for the tip! Do you have a YouTube channel wehre we can see some samples of your stuff? Thanks in advance!

[PT1]

I don't for now, but to learn more about ACES head over to https://acescentral.com/ and for the basic ACES workflow in Resolve see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqK3Jxiu4HU.

[Gualbert]

I'm aware of ACES and how to use it. Was more curious about your work using it. Thanks! 😉👍

[Karel_od_martiny]

Thank you very much PT1! I will take a look at it as soon as possible, it sounds very interesting .

[Karel_od_martiny]

Well thanks again. The ACES workflow saved me a lot of trouble.

I was acutally running crazy while trying to color correct 1 hour long wedding video shot on two different cameras. After more complex color corrections I was lost between all those color space transforms etc. And with complex nodes there were so many errors and glitches (when applying the stills massively), that it actually made my workflow 3 times longer. To be fair, I was actually learning, so the longer workflow was expected.

Neverthless, after two days of another unsuccesfull attempt to color correct everything I tried ACES. And after 1 hour I have a look, that works everywhere. Magic.
Thank you a lot.

By the way I used this Power Grade from Juan Melara.
https://juanmelara.com.au/products/k...ces-powergrade

-From his folders I grabbed Sample Grade 03. In this Power Grade I turn off Tint Extreme (no tint seems to work better for me) and also the Native WP (makes weird highlights to the cDNG). Then I select Curve instead of Curve2 and done. Works for me.

[PT1]

That's great to hear. Some people find that the ACES "look" is too contrasty, especially as a starting point for color grading, but it does work in most cases.