The Editblog » color grading

In the Editblog garage: Euphonix MC Color

S Simmons — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:12:41 +0000

A package arrived yesterday that contained a shiny, new MC Color control surface from Euphonix. We have the unit under our roof for a month of testing. This surface has been eagerly anticipated by Apple Color-using community for quite a while. First glance right out of the box feels like a very solid unit. We’ll see how it performs both from a hardware and software POV as we test it out in the coming month. Stay tuned to the Editblog on PVC for first impressions and a full review.

In the Editblog garage: Tangent Wave control surface

S Simmons — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:05:04 +0000

The good folks over at Tangent Devices recently sent us one of their control surfaces for testing with Color; the Tangent Wave. After hooking it up and checking it out for an hour or so this afternoon I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that color grading (and using Apple Color in particular) without a control surface dedicated to color grading is like doing most any task with one hand tied behind your back. And that’s mainly from just using the trackballs and dials and not really digging deeper into all the keys and functionality. Stay tuned to the Editblog on PVC for more thoughts, impressions and a full review of the Tangent Wave.

When color correction goes bad or how to be lazy when you color grade

S Simmons — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:39:56 +0000

I’m not one to force my political thoughts on to anyone else so I’d certainly never tell anyone who he/she should vote for so please don’t consider this an endorsement of this candidate (I actually think we should throw almost all of Congress out on their ass since they aren’t there representing their constituents anymore [okay, maybe that's forcing my political thoughts]) but I keep seeing this commercial for Lamar Alexander over and over and over (direct You Tube link where you can watch in the You Tube “high quality”) and I can’t help but think how lazy the color grading on the spot really is. It’s not as easy to see in the You Tube clip below as it is on broadcast tv but can get an idea. The majority of the spot looks as if had a preset applied to it with little to no shot specific color grading. In fact, my guess would be it had a preset from Magic Bullet Looks applied to the majority of the spot. It looks a lot like the Grad Sunset:

If you look closely you can see a redish-pink tint applied to the top third of most of the shots regardless of wide shot, 2 shot or close up. Color grading is supposed to be carefully applied shot by shot, scene by scene to achieve a look or a mood that enhances your story, not to make the subject look kind of strange. The color correction challenge over at Prep, Shoot, Post is a good example of this.Â Just look at this shot of Alexander’s face:

It’s red near the top and more of a flat skin tone at the bottom! He looks like he is sick. Of course this probably doesn’t matter to the average voter and he will win since he is the incumbent and is an entrenched career politician with so much more money to spend than his closest rival that he’d have to be revealed as a criminal to lose at this point so bad color grading really doesn’t matter. But I thought it was worth pointing out because if you are going to take the time to produce what looks like it could be a nice spot please take a little time to perform a proper color correction session or just don’t do one at all. Lamar should fire his media company. Here’s the entire spot:

And just to give equal time to his main opponent, here’s a link to Bob Tuke’s campaign. But let’s be honest, with Congressional approval near single digits the slate needs to be wiped clean. Elect more Independents!