🎨 Colorist Newsletter #447

Published: Sun, 06/21/20

Issue CDXLVII: The Creative Self Edition
The Tao of Color Grading Newsletter
Curated links of news, reviews, thoughts, career advice, and humor 
for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sundays.
----
View in Browser | Web Archives | Rosetta@Home Team Page
As I write this it's late on Saturday night, so once again: Let's just jump right into the action!

I'll see you next Sunday. Stay busy. Stay healthy.

Happy Grading!

(and remember - if you have a story that's a fit for this Newsletter, hit reply or email it to 'newsletter@taoofcolor.com'! Include a quick reason for the suggested link.)

- Patrick Inhofer
Colorist | Publisher | Coach

Join the 'Color Cartel' Protein Folding Team - Rosetta@home allows you to donate the spare CPU cycles of your rig to the scientific fight against corona viruses and cancers! The Tao Newsletter's Color Cartel is a Top 5% team and climbing. Join Rosetta@home, set up an account, start 'folding', and connect to The Color Cartel team! 
Sponsor
ENDCRAWL.com is the only good way to make end credits.
Want to see what we're all about?

 TAO newsletter subscribers get to skip the waitlist. 
Get your free ENDCRAWL demo project.
The Craft
Featuring the work of creative craftsmen, the theory of color, and industry news. Learn practical workflows, useful theories, and actionable insights from existing (and emerging) leaders and teachers in our industry.

(video) A recent installment of the Filmlight series on YouTube. Good stuff.

I like the idea presented here: "Coach Tina Essmaker's interactive workbook provides five days of exercises to tap into your voice, purpose, community, and deepen your creative practice." The workbook can be downloaded or executed online.

(podcast) "Team Deakins sit down with JZ and dig deeply into the color science of it all. We talk LUTs, resolution, color space, pixels, workflow and lots more. He really knows his stuff!" (via Twain Richardson)

"But while humans have three types of cones (making us “trichromatic”), many creatures have four, expanding their visible spectrum into ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths." Click through for an experiment that attempts to prove this theory... with hummingbirds.
Great insight that I think talks to the future of our craft, "Rather than using published data sets from the Machine Learning (ML) community, [Thiago Porto, VFX Supervisor] gathered the best paint-out shots he himself had done over his career. He then got the software to train on his own before and after digital cleanups. Once he had trained the ML engine, he started using Flame to generate ML ‘Thiago’ level marker removal."

As you read through this analysis, you may be as surprised as I was at some of the numbers.

You've heard of MPEG. But do you know how they're organized, who controls them, and what are their plans for the future? You will - after clicking through and reading this article.

Sponsor
Flanders Scientific Professional SDR & HDR Paired Reference Monitors
The DM240 SDR Mastering Monitor pairs perfectly with the XM311K HDR Mastering Monitor.

They are an excellent visual match allowing you to be certain that the differences between your HDR and SDR monitors are from your grade–rather than differences in display technology.
SHOP NOW at ShopFSI.com
The Tools
Our craft keeps changing. And growing. Learn about updates to your favorite software. Discover new tools to help you work faster or more creatively. Build your toolchest with new techniques and approaches. 
Besides the usual bevy of fixes, this update includes support for Dolby Vision 2.9 trims and XMLs from v4 projects.

"If you're starting from scratch for coming from After Effects this post is packed with useful resources, free downloads and expert paid training."

If you're new to Resolve then you're likely to discover something new in this short roundup of tools for saving (and sharing) color grades.

(video) "In episode 12, [Frame.io] turns the cameras on themselves to show how the team took on their own technology and favorite tools to create their first ever series all while fully remote."

(webinar) This episode will feature the team from Mystery Box, whose content has given people a chance to see places and things literally in a whole new light: using UHD, 8K, HDR and high frame rate. Wed., June 24. Registration required.

Because related crafts can teach us something new: "What's most interesting is that he seldom, if ever, uses the actual global saturation slider. He has three or four different methods to get more subtle results than if he went crash, bang, wallop on the saturation slider."

Pushing Photons
These stories are from MixingLight.com's membership Library of color grading articles, tutorials, and podcasts (Tao Of Color is co-Owner). Do you want to read a story listed here but not a member? Sign up for a free 7-Day Test Drive.​​​ There's also color correction Practice Projects for purchase.

Learn what an online editor and colorist thinks after spending a year working with the Blackmagic editor keyboard, full-time. Plus, his tips. Free, in front of the Membership wall.

(video) Learn how to use a custom ACES workflow to easily manage deliverables in different color spaces, and easily take your grade from SDR to HDR. Part 3 in this series.

(video) In this installment of The 10-Minute Grade, Cullen Kelly walks you through a few different techniques to quickly get shots balanced when time is of the essence.

Sponsor
OWC (Other World Computing) is excited to sponsor the Tao of Color
We built OWC  to empower editors,  colorists, and VFX artists all over the world.  Founded in 1988, OWC is dedicated to helping video professionals do more, faster. 

No matter your workflow, OWC creates and delivers the best storage, connectivity, software, and expansion solutions to enhance, accelerate, and extend your capabilities

From the home office to the enterprise rack, from the studio to the editing bay and beyond, there should be no compromise, and that is why OWC is here for you.
Learn more at MacSales.com
Gear Heads
Stay updated on the latest hardware that's shipping - because the craft of color grading isn't just about software. Plus, keep an eye on future equipment trends and hardware odds-and-ends.

"it’s now possible to perform the APFS to HFS+ conversion without all of the [complicated] steps, and that’s what this article will show you how to do."

"Fluorescent blue limits the peak brightness if you want a full colour display with balanced colour. It also means that device designers typically have to drive the blue channel as hard as possible to get the brightness, and that has a significant effect on lifetimes." This is a good read if you need a primer on the problem with the blue channel and OLEDs. It's not such a good read if you're hoping for the 'trilemma' breakthrough.

For my Windows users: "System Memory is usually the most stable component in a computer build but sometimes failing sticks can cause errors, crashes or issues with applications. You can run the Windows Memory Diagnostic (bottom) which occasionally will identify a memory error, but the PassMark MemTest86 software is far more effective and robust. This guide will walk you through each tool's purpose, how to initiate them, and then what to learn from the outputs."

The AMC Radeon Pro 5600M GPU option was recently added. How fast is it?

"We are going to look at a range of modern consumer GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD in order to see how they perform in the latest version of Premiere Pro. In addition, there have been some recent update notes that mention improved multi-GPU performance so we will also be including a dual NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti configuration to see if there is any reason to invest in dual video cards for Premiere Pro."

Sunday Fun(nies)
Random thoughts, tidbits, and fun stuff that caught my attention this week. Maybe it's color grading related. Maybe not. Ya got'ta read to the end of the Newsletter to find out.
For those who grew up in the analog days, a fun read that begins with the sale of an Ursa... for spare parts: "Things are drastically different now for anyone beginning their career as a colorist. I’m not sure if it’s easier or harder. It’s just different. I know that my upbringings in the color suite greatly influenced me for the rest of my career."  (via Twain Richardson)
Definitely fun, especially if you live in Taiwan.
 
Th- th- th- that's all folks! See you next Sunday.