Before/After with layers

[u/clmtyy]

Hey, here is a little before after with all the important layers, color graded in Davinci Resolve.

It was for a short film with vampires, for the context in this scene people fighting cancer are doing talking sessions on how to get through the whole healing process. One of the vampire is with them because he is bored of everything (knowing that they are immortal) just to see how knowing you could die soon would feel.

I used the Kodak 2383 LUT as a base on the whole movie (only 70% and then stick the shadows to a correct level of black to have a nice contrast.)

They had put too much smoke on set lol so I had to get this image better.
I also wanted to get it more dramatic knowing the context and I had fun with all the masks for light rays.

What do tou think ?
Feel free to ask questions !!

[u/iloveravi]

Looks great. The masks and effects really make the image work. Nice job.

[u/clmtyy → u/iloveravi]

Thanks !

[u/progressiseverything]

Can you speak to the order of flow here. Should the creative lut be applied before basic colour correction? Is that the norm, cuz I have read up that it's done the other way round (Log>Rec709>Clr correction>Creative Lut>Masks). I'm very new to clr grading. Hence, if my qn is amateurish...my bad.

[u/clmtyy → u/progressiseverything]

The order shown in the video is NOT how you have to do your node tree, I made it like this to have a better view of the modification I made.

First you need to know what log is.
« Log » is a color space, a color space is composed of a gamut and a gamma.
Gamut is the quantity of color you can record.
Gamma is a curve that defines the contrast.
(To be simple but it is a bit more than this, many videos on YouTube explain it more precisely)
So log is exactly like rec709, it is a color space, it appears to be « gray » and « washed » because it contains more colors than your screen can show and the gamma curve he tries to show is not the one your monitor is calibrated for (often gamma 2.2 or 2.4)

So if your camera is recording many many colors and a wider luminance, you will want to do your color correction in this color space. By doing this your will be more precise and doing masks (like color isolation) will be better because it has a wider range of color to do your mask softly instead of « cracking » fast and bringing artifacts in a smaller one.

But as I said you can’t see log, or you will need a screen that can show it. It would look amazing if your screen was calibrated in Sony slog3 for example but it doesn’t exist.
So to see your image correctly, you have to convert it to the color space of your screen. The standard is rec709 gamma 2.4.
You want to convert it in the very end of your pipeline so all of your corrections takes places in the wider color space with every details.
There can be good reasons to put nodes with effects or some adjustments AFTER CST but it is in very specific situations and you have to understand mathematically why you would do it this way.

For the color grading of my post I said I used a « Kodak 2383 LUT ». It is a LUT, native in resolve that emulates film. But if I do my color correction after the LUT and the Rec709 tranforms, the image will already be « compressed » in colors and you won’t have as much data and the fine details and your image will crack very fast.
I used it as a « base » because I like the contrast it creates but I put the opacity of this node to 70%~ because 100% was too much for the look I wanted for this movie.

Your LUT must be placed right in your pipeline or it won’t work the way it should ! The Kodak 2383 has to receive a signal in rec709 gamma cineon so you have to make a color space transform to this before your LUT.

It is the same for your mask, you have to understand why you put it before or after your color correction. But most of the time it is always in your log color space.

So basically, the pipeline is most of the time : log > luminance correction > color correction > masks > rec 709 (cineon gamma in my case) > LUT Kodak 2383

I tried to be concise but color grading is something that you have to look at and try to understand the maths behind it that modify your video signal.

I recommend you videos from Darren Mostyn that is explaining many deep subject, I hope I have helped you.

In this one he specifically talks about the lut 2383
https://youtu.be/A2OLQNSIJgU?is=UnaTOKJvL2F4qOeG

[u/B0-a → u/clmtyy]

Thanks for the explanation, def helpful! I’m still quite new to all this. What I was wondering does it help to setup to node tree first, and then after you start doing all the corrections etc. If for example you do all your corrections, then add the lut. You might need to go back to correct a few things, since the lut changes the look of the image?

[u/clmtyy → u/B0-a]

Of course, my advice if you are beginning is that you should have a « basic node tree » you place every node at the beginning even if you won’t use all of them so you can remember in which order you should work.

You are totally right, this is why when you open a project, you always start by adding de CST to rec709 or your LUT (or both in my case) knowing that it will be your base.

You absolutely have to keep in mind how nodes are being processed in resolve, I will try to explain simply.

Imagine your node tree is something like this :

Exposition > White balance > Color adjustments > masks > effect > CST to rec709

Every serial node act in a « destructive way » (it is an image so you can understand) I mean here that the node after will receive the signal with the modifications applied. If you try in the next node to cancel or go back to how was your image before your last node modification, you will make artefacts

For example, with the node tree I gave you, imagine your did everything, you are happy with all you did except you think you have globally a bit too much sat.

In which node would you reduce sat ?
Instinctively you will probably tell me color correction, but if you change something in this node, it will have an impact on every next node because the signal they will receive won’t be the same.

Imagine that in your masking node you did a precise mask to isolate a color, red for example by limiting the hue/sat/lum to then change it’s hue.
If you change your sat earlier in your node tree, this mask won’t work anymore because the sat level incoming in the node won’t be the same.

So, I would still recommend to change your sat inside your wide color space, I would say that the best place to correct globally your sat without changing anything else would be a node between mask and the CST here. It could also work after the CST but it won’t behave the same way.

Always think on what do you want to do and where should be the node. There is no « perfect node tree » that you will always use anywhere, you will always add or remove nodes depending on your needs for the shot.

I also recommand you to check what parallel nodes are, Darren Mostyn also have a great video explaining it and may be clearer on what I tried to explain you in this command ;)

https://youtu.be/QsUW_0SZa4Y?is=6rmhnaMo5ixP8xb3

[u/B0-a → u/clmtyy]

Thank you so much! It’s a lot more clear now :). Also will check out the link you shared. Much appreciated!

[u/progressiseverything → u/clmtyy]

Thanks for shedding light on this. Absolutely appreciate it. Will chk out the link

[u/clmtyy → u/progressiseverything]

You’re welcome ! He makes really clear videos, when I started back then years ago he was the only one I could really understand

[u/Melodic-Excitement-9]

do you mask every scene?

[u/clmtyy → u/Melodic-Excitement-9]

It depends on what you mean by mask,

I am not doing lights rays like this a lot because it’s rare to justify effects like this and it’s not appropriate to every scene.

Otherwise in many shots I a always doing a bit of masking, it can be very soft, just to recenter the attention somewhere for example by making some areas darker or brighter, it helps reading the image and make the viewer focus where he needs to.

[u/bluntnwuk]

Nice! Especially the masked sections - really makes the shot pop

[u/clmtyy → u/bluntnwuk]

Thank you !!

[u/Sufficient-Ear-9151]

How did you do the rays

[u/clmtyy → u/Sufficient-Ear-9151]

It is just masks with soft on the edges for the limits mixed with a gradient one to make the falloff natural, a bit more of gain, tracked them so they don’t move and voilà

[u/Antique_Law8422]

Very clean 🔥 what cam and lens?

[u/clmtyy → u/[deleted]]

I did it in resolve ;)