Print Film Emulation Workflow

Print Film Emulation Workflow

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Print film emulation workflows are popular among colorists, and the idea is to create a film look by treating the image as if it was printed onto a specific film stock. This used to be a straight forward process, but new modern workflows have added some complexities and opportunities that will be discussed in this insight.

We'll cover how to access true print film emulations and set up a modern print film workflow inside of DaVinci Resolve. You will learn how to use, create and invert 3x3 Matrixes and how to incorporate better distribution of saturation and print hues with new available methods.

Next, we look at best-practices for decoupling the print characteristics from the tone mapping of PFE LUTs, as well as strategies for rebuilding curves to make them work for both scene- and display referred workflows. Finally, you will learn about component based look building and print implementation.

Some transforms, film style responses and other assets that can be used in component based workflows are made available for download.
 

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It is a cool article that open possibility but a lot of questionnement, the fact that you show ethos using your ditch plugin is in both way nice and not, I would love to understand how to it without in case I don't have the plug-in near by on a remote computer. 

Still this is really informative and I learn every time I pass by the platform 

Ps: I still need to understand how to properly convert Slog3.cine to Arri Log c3.

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3 hours ago, James K Barbosa said:

It is a cool article that open possibility but a lot of questionnement, the fact that you show ethos using your ditch plugin is in both way nice and not, I would love to understand how to it without in case I don't have the plug-in near by on a remote computer. 

Still this is really informative and I learn every time I pass by the platform 

Ps: I still need to understand how to properly convert Slog3.cine to Arri Log c3.

You don’t need plugins to do anything of the above, and to go from Slog to LogC3 you just apply a CST first thing in your node tree. 

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5 hours ago, Tom Evans said:

You don’t need plugins to do anything of the above, and to go from Slog to LogC3 you just apply a CST first thing in your node tree. 

As far as I know DTCL is kinda plug-ins 

so the grade and all the new stuff made by ravengrade is to use them  would love to see an explanation of how to do it without those dtcl that’s what I mean. 
 

And I know how to use color space transform and Aces but now with the introduction of Adx10 with the aces node it change again everything and both on Lowerpost and ravengrade the used nodes tree is always different and there’s no a regular way how to process. I’ve also downloaded Tom boles cineprint v2 and is use of halation and node tree is completely different and nothing is clear. As a person who love to know the deep of the things I do it is really frustrating there’s no informations on the internet you can trust 100%. 
 

I’ll post my node tree tomorrow so if someone will be able to tell me if I’m doing well that would be much appreciated. 
 

I’m doing proper colorgrading since more than a year but still not confident to take other job than the music video and corporate stuff I’m doing on my own ! 

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James, you do not need to pay for any Plugin / DCTL to set up your node tree exactly as in the examples, including the use of CSTs, ADX and Matrixes. If you want to use GradeLAB for subtractive grading it's totally up to you, but it got nothing to do with setting up your nodes for a film workflow.

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9 hours ago, Tom Evans said:

James, you do not need to pay for any Plugin / DCTL to set up your node tree exactly as in the examples, including the use of CSTs, ADX and Matrixes. If you want to use GradeLAB for subtractive grading it's totally up to you, but it got nothing to do with setting up your nodes for a film workflow.

Well I think my English is maybe not good enough to explain myself it’s all good the article is also very good don’t get me wrong. And I know using gradelab is up to me ! It’s just to understand how to get similar result without using in in case I don’t have it on an other computer that’s what I mean. 
 

don’t want to bother you more 

 

kind regards 

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On 1/28/2023 at 8:11 AM, Ryan Moser said:

I figured I should mention that the quote from Matthew Tomlinson should be corrected as he works at Harbor Picture Company and not Picture Shop.

Thanks Ryan!

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Hello, and thanks for this interesting article. 

 

I'm not sure to totally understand your rebuilding strategy in a RCM workflow... 

Let's assume I'm working in RCM, with LogC files and DaVinciWideGamut as my timeline (ie "working") color space, and Rec709 as Output. And that I want to rebuild the classic Kodak Lut from Resolve. 

 

First, to correctly feed my Lut, I would assume to add a CST node, from DVWG to Arri LogC, or Aces transform node, from DVWG to ADX 10, and then my Kodak on a new node. 

Then I could grab my still and start rebuilding my Lut. Am I correct there, or am I missing something ? 

Moreover, I don't exactly understand this whole part :

 

That's why we recommend a slightly different strategy when rebuilding the curves of the PFE LUT for use in a display-referred workflow. Instead of building the Y+RGB curves from a straight line as in the example above, simply start the building process from the color managed tone curve you plan to grade under and tweak this curve to match the curves of the PFE LUT. This delta component can now be saved and combined with other tone curves in the color managed workflow."

 

Could you elaborate please ? 

 

Thanks a lot again

 

Best

 

Julien 

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Thanks for your kind words Julien!

You do not have to bring your PFE LUT into a color managed environment to make the reference. Simply add the LUT to a Grey Scale with no color transforms applied at all, and the result you see on the Waveform will be what you want to recreate. Save a still so that you have a reference.

Then you'll have to set up your color managed workflow with the transform curve you want, and project it onto the Waveform. From there on you can use your reference still and the curve operator to make an "offset" that basically will be the difference between your reference and the color managed display curve.

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