To the editors at Linus Media Group...

[Proctie]

I'm not trying to be a douche here, though I sense some of you already flaming me with excuses or hate, but cmon guys, add some contrast curves You guys have INSANE setups and camera / editing equipment for far over 10 grand I bet, but still either slack on editing or don't have the knowledge to use the gear properly yet.

This is just a friendly push in the butt.. Sometimes even the best needs a push in the butt.. And butt-pushing is good, it makes us all better

With the limited image data I could squeeze out of a compressed .mp4 file from youtube, I made some few corrections to show that there's PLENTY of improvement that could be done.

Again... Don't take this as any offence in any way, I would just like to see some better editing since you have equipment that costs 5 times more than my car...

 

[miyabwah]

dezeltheintern

[old reece frost]

Lol "Butt push"

[TheProfosist]

So what you tweaked the gamma curve making it look more bright and poppy but less realistic?

[Proctie]

Lol "Butt push"

No freaky thoughts behind that, I swear

[Ex0Thermic]

Nice point on the video editing,  Butt i can't help worry about your butt pushing!    
 

[Proctie]

So what you tweaked the gamma curve making it look more bright and poppy but less realistic?

They shoot with a flat picture style which needs tweaking. With my source being encoded .mp4 I can't tweak as well as they can by having the raw files. But when you shoot with a flat picture style you have to tweak it.. 

[legopc]

i like it it does look better

[Proctie]

Nice point on the video editing,  Butt i can't help worry about your butt pushing!    

 

Lol.. Well it's healthy to get your butt pushed from times to times..

[Ex0Thermic]

Lol.. Well it's healthy to get your butt pushed from times to times..

true nothing wrong with a good push..... It's when people start poking the trouble starts 

[LinusTech]

One of the big issues is that while the Sony FS700 (our primary cam) has a 4K sensor and is generally pretty awesome, we are working with AVCHD, which means that when we shoot with a flat profile it gives us some flexibility to do colour correction, but a lot less flexibility than we'd have if we were shooting RAW or even ProRes.

 

I dropped the camera off today at Sony for the firmware upgrade that will give us S-log and the capability to record with alternate codecs. Out of the box it will support CinemaDNG, but there's some other stuff coming including RAW.

 

This'll help a lot.

[Proctie]

One of the big issues is that while the Sony FS700 (our primary cam) has a 4K sensor and is generally pretty awesome, we are working with AVCHD, which means that when we shoot with a flat profile it gives us some flexibility to do colour correction, but a lot less flexibility than we'd have if we were shooting RAW or even ProRes.

 

I dropped the camera off today at Sony for the firmware upgrade that will give us S-log and the capability to record with alternate codecs. Out of the box it will support CinemaDNG, but there's some other stuff coming including RAW.

 

This'll help a lot.

I'm sure, glad to hear that you guys react to this and it's really unfortunate when you get over exposed images, then there's really nothing to do. I'd rather get some under exposed footage to light up rather than the opposite. 

Anyway good luck man, but a little contrast curve would have done it though

 

*Edit*

Also I do understand what you guys are working with, I myself work with h.264 from a Canon 5D Mark II, but when I shoot with a flat profile, regardless of the crappy headroom you have for cc, you are still able to add some contrast curves to make it "look" better. The "Raw" file formats are really only to get a larger dynamic range and the ability to adjust the levels more because of the huge amount of information within the file. Those Raw files will also produce a flat look, but regardless of file type, a contrast curve can be applied to any footage to convert that flat look. If you look at the first picture, I personally think it looks a lot better and the product really pops. Now the grading is an art form by itself, so it's up to the editors to produce the right look. The reason I started this thread is simply because of the overall flat look and not the dynamic range or ability to "recover" overexposed images.

[LinusTech]

Yeah I prefer a more "poppy" look myself, but I leave those kinds of decisions to the folks who are actually doing the colour work. I assure you if Edzel wanted to apply a curve to make it look more vibrant, he knows how to do that. For some reason he preferred this aesthetic for this video, though.

[Proctie]

Yeah I prefer a more "poppy" look myself, but I leave those kinds of decisions to the folks who are actually doing the colour work. I assure you if Edzel wanted to apply a curve to make it look more vibrant, he knows how to do that. For some reason he preferred this aesthetic for this video, though.

 

Good to know, and I don't doubt that Edzel knows his stuff. Maybe sometimes you just need another pair of eyes to evaluate the final product, I've noticed that being in the business of producing videos for clients. But I assume that you guys are busy as hell and are pumping out videos constantly. Anyway my finals words would be that you guys have come a freaking long way and best of luck to ya in the future

[TheProfosist]

Yeah I prefer a more "poppy" look myself, but I leave those kinds of decisions to the folks who are actually doing the colour work. I assure you if Edzel wanted to apply a curve to make it look more vibrant, he knows how to do that. For some reason he preferred this aesthetic for this video, though.

I dont, I prefer a all natural look, the more realistic the better. If you want colors that pop use stuff with colors that pop, dont make things that dont do. This is just my opinion though and comes from the editing and filtering I have done. This also makes me go to any tv and fix their settings as their normally all gamma'd up because that apparently what people like and what sells them in the store because it catches customers eyes.

A lots of what im seeing has to do more with lighting and exposure than needing the gamma curve adjusted. The last two especially the tent to me looks quite warn and used so probably really does look like that and in the last pic it looks very "dry" probably because it is (id say its a bit over exposed as well). I do know they were tweaked quickly but i wouldnt say it was for the better.

[TheProfosist]

Yeah I prefer a more "poppy" look myself, but I leave those kinds of decisions to the folks who are actually doing the colour work. I assure you if Edzel wanted to apply a curve to make it look more vibrant, he knows how to do that. For some reason he preferred this aesthetic for this video, though.

Swaps linus's color calibrated PA279Q out for a samsung TV on default settings and wait for him to tell him how much better it looks

[Proctie]

I dont, I prefer a all natural look, the more realistic the better. If you want colors that pop use stuff with colors that pop, dont make things that dont do. This is just my opinion though and comes from the editing and filtering I have done. This also makes me go to any tv and fix their settings as their normally all gamma'd up because that apparently what people like and what sells them in the store because it catches customers eyes.

A lots of what im seeing has to do more with lighting and exposure than needing the gamma curve adjusted. The last two especially the tent to me looks quite warn and used so probably really does look like that and in the last pic it looks very "dry" probably because it is (id say its a bit over exposed as well). I do know they were tweaked quickly but i wouldnt say it was for the better.

 

TheProfosist, there's a difference between color correcting and color grading. I agree that these kinds of videos got to have a natural look, not lots of fancy colors and all, but flat formats regardless of the file type has to be color corrected. My examples aren't that great because I'm dealing with a encoded .mp4 file, but even that can be adjusted slightly. Regardless of the look they try to achieve (with color grading), a S-Curved Luma correction while monitoring the luminance steps in the waveform monitor is a must when dealing with flat picture styles. That's all I'm trying to say. It's not a matter of gaining the preferred look (which you can do this way..) but a matter of correcting a flat image in post production.

[Edzel Yago]

#yolo

 

You're right, the S-curve makes it more vibrant and the product shot did need it.

 

One problem I've found though is that there's a big contrast shift when exporting and uploading (to Youtube). To counter this, I usually grade and then put down a track node stepping back on the saturation and contrast for the Youtube copy. Still haven't figured it out yet though, as you can tell.   Sometimes it seems to bump up the contrast and other times it doesn't. Who knows?? I don't.

 

Edit: Added a screenshot for effect.

[Theo]

#yolo

 

You're right, the S-curve makes it more vibrant and the product shot did need it.

 

One problem I've found though is that there's a big contrast shift when exporting and uploading (to Youtube). To counter this, I usually grade and then put down a track node stepping back on the saturation and contrast for the Youtube copy. Still haven't figured it out yet though, as you can tell. 

#swag

[Recon-UK]

Nice point on the video editing,  Butt i can't help worry about your butt pushing!    

 

[Proctie]

#yolo

 

You're right, the S-curve makes it more vibrant and the product shot did need it.

 

One problem I've found though is that there's a big contrast shift when exporting and uploading (to Youtube). To counter this, I usually grade and then put down a track node stepping back on the saturation and contrast for the Youtube copy. Still haven't figured it out yet though, as you can tell.   Sometimes it seems to bump up the contrast and other times it doesn't. Who knows?? I don't.

 

Edit: Added a screenshot for effect.

 

That's odd, I'm assuming you are using Adobe Premiere Pro? I've had a similar problem back when I used Sony Vegas Pro 12 and exporting it with a different file format apparently solved that problem.

If you could tell me your workflow from importing footage to final product, I could try to troubleshoot that for you if you want. I highly doubt that it's random like that..

 

*Edit

Also I've heard in a video or an episode of the wan show or something that you guys use Davinci Resolve to CC. I'm a big fan of that program too and we work with it to grade music videos / TV commercials etc. But we also use some much less time consuming CC options like the Fast Color Corrector within Adobe Premiere Pro just to correct our gamma levels if we have a bunch of short videos and it works awesomely fast. If you guys produce videos that don't require color grading to shift the color tones and make an entire new look / feel, I'd highly suggest just doing color correcting within Premiere Pro since it's highly capable of doing so. Here's a quite in depth video on adjusting tonality with Fast Color Corrector: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR1EC8fFLIc (go to 13:41 for an example) it'll save you guys a lot of time and honestly, using Davinci Resolve to CC videos like reviews for youtube and stuff is a bit overkill even though it's hella fun working with

[Edzel Yago]

I'll give you the current goings on for this video since it's a bit different.

 

BMCC RAW -> Davinci -> .MOV Cineform (Proxy) -> Premiere Pro (Editing) -> Davinci (Colour/Export) (Possibly publish through Premiere Pro) h.264

[Proctie]

Now I'm a bit confused, I didn't know that you guys had a BMCC   Well in that case, you workflow is fine although there's too many factors for me to pinpoint the problem since I've done a bit research and many have had a similar problem, but the reason or workflow was always different. However they all had "problems" with their Quicktime settings.

If you haven't noticed yet, I've edited my last post with an incentive to remove Davinci Resolve from your workflow if you don't need it - it may make things easier and faster when you are working with footage from the Sony FS700. Although when working with BMCC RAW it's quite easier to use Davinci Resolve. I have a similar workflow and usually just do some quick Luma correction right when I import the footage if it's not a big production and doesn't need color grading to shit the look / feel of each scene.

But I thought that you guys used the Sony FS700 for this video, that's why I made the edit with the incentive to ditch Davinci Resolve since you are working with a compressed file format that just needs some quick tonality adjustments which can be done within Premiere so that your workflow isn't so time consuming.

[megadarkwood]

#yolo

 

You're right, the S-curve makes it more vibrant and the product shot did need it.

 

One problem I've found though is that there's a big contrast shift when exporting and uploading (to Youtube). To counter this, I usually grade and then put down a track node stepping back on the saturation and contrast for the Youtube copy. Still haven't figured it out yet though, as you can tell.   Sometimes it seems to bump up the contrast and other times it doesn't. Who knows?? I don't.

 

Edit: Added a screenshot for effect.

#YoloDopeSwag420BlazeItUp

[Recon-UK]

twiliasax