Three Lessons in Color Science

If you want to get into some of the more technical aspects of color grading and develop an understanding of ‘some’ of what color science is and means then these three resources should help a little bit.  For a technical as well as creative understanding of color grading I would highly recommend Alexis Van Hurkman’s Color Correction Handbook.

Working with ACES in Resolve 9.1

In this ten minute video tutorial, colorist Jesse Borkowski explains what ACES color space is, how to work in it and how to set up a DaVinci Resolve project to correctly work in that color space with CinemaDNG footage.

Understanding Colour Gamuts

Phil Rhodes has written up a very detailed introduction to understanding color gamuts over on RedSharkNews. If you’re planning on shooting with the Sony F65 in the near future its worth a read.

A colour gamut is usually depicted as a region on a chromaticity diagram according to CIE 1931, which sounds complicated but is in fact nothing more than a diagram showing all of the colours that a human eye can see, with a shaded area representing the colours your system is capable of displaying.

Arri Alexa – Legal Vs Extended

Ben Cain, whose blog Negative Spaces is well worth a rummage, has written up a very lengthy, detailed and insightful post on working with the Arri Alexa and its digital color workflow and…

…in a broader sense much of the information here can be readily applied to the difference between YCbCr 422 digital video, RGB Data, and all the things that go wrong when we monitor in video but post process RGB Data.

It is probably a bit more technical than most editors are willing to get but it is actually very well written to be approachable and has a very clear explanation of Look Up Tables (LUTS). The bulk of the article is focused on the intricacies of a LogC to video workflow when live grading on set. If you’re thinking of becoming a DIT its a must read.