William Dowling

On 3/27/2022 at 11:43 AM, Abby Bader said:

People have different ways of working, I think it's about finding a workflow that you feel comfortable with. Personally I prefer to start with global exposure and balance prior to the transform and build from there if needed. Also, look into what color management (RCM/ACES) can do for you. It can take you to a nice place pretty quick.

I think I have a tendency to want to make things harder than they need to be and I just need to put more trust in my primary wheels.

13 minutes ago, Abby Bader said:

People have different ways of working, I think it's about finding a workflow that you feel comfortable with. Personally I prefer to start with global exposure and balance prior to the transform and build from there if needed. Also, look into what color management (RCM/ACES) can do for you. It can take you to a nice place pretty quick.

I'm guessing you work with RAW files. RED has a set of LUTs with different contrast and rolloff that have been my best starting point. If I adjusted exposure and balance then applied the transform, any work done before the transformation would be for nothing.

I've watched everyone. It's tough without someone right there with you to say you are doing it all wrong.

4 hours ago, Abby Bader said:

I think it's safe to say that the transform is happening at the end of the node stack in most professional workflows. Most of the grading controls are designed to be applied in camera space and the results of their corrections are designed to go through a transform.  That said, there are no rules in creativity.

I'm working on a 10,000th  pass on a project as I try to practice trial and error. Once everything is near where you want it before the transform node, it seems like you can make fine tuned adjustments more easily after the transform node. At least with RED Gemini footage. When I compare the results of other LUTs it seems easier to create those looks as well post transform node. There is also a good chance I'm doing everything wrong for the 10,000th time.

It's always made sense to me to do a majority of grading after the CST/LUT node, but in RED's pipeline diagram they say to do everything before their Rec709 LUT node. It gets awfully frustrating getting so much mixed info. I guess you have to do what's best for you. I know the Hue vs Lum curve doesn't hardly do anything unless applied after the Rec709 node.

After some time experimenting with these techniques I can say this is hands down the best training I've seen. Thank you so much!!!! 

This is exactly what I needed to see right now!!! Thank you for the course!!! I'm excited to practice and apply the techniques!!!