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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Correct / recommended workflow required

  • Correct / recommended workflow required

    Posted by Mark Jackson on January 21, 2015 at 3:06 pm

    Hi everybody,

    I have a question regarding workflow, i have both Adobe Premiere & After Effects CS6 and in my personal experience experimenting with encoding sample files AE appears to be quicker so i decided to work primarily in it with my video footage for grading. I have done lots of reading on colour grading and tips and tweaks on fixing video files with regard to exposure, colour etc. What i would like to know is whether using Premiere or AE which is the correct way to go about working on original footage from a workflow point of view.

    In which order do you apply the following

    Brightness / Contrast
    Exposure
    Colour / Saturation
    Special filters (such as soft skin etc)

    Obviously i intend to edit the footage in Premiere, but it is just a bit confusing when you watch tutorials where people use different methods by some applying filters first then woking on the footage exposure etc…

    What would be the best / recommended logical approach to work with your footage after importing from camera?

    Kind Regards,

    Mark Jackson replied 11 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Derek Boettcher

    January 21, 2015 at 3:28 pm

    Instead of using the brightness/contrast, I instead like to use RGB Curves.

    This allows you to make a custom contrast setting but also to take away or add more RGB to your footage per color channel. I would order my effects the following:
    Exposure (if needed)
    Sharpen (not a lot just like 15 points or less)
    RGB Curves
    Color/Saturation (or tint depending on if you want a nice desaturation)

    If you want deep shadows but not to affect the color channels, I also use this method I came up with:

    Duplicate the footage, on top layer, add tint then curves. Leave the tint B&W, crush the blacks a bit, then set blending mode to darken or multiply and change opacity to your liking. You can then add the previous mentioned workflow to your original footage for stronger colors etc.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Best,
    Derek Boettcher
    Creative Management
    BTH Media Group
    https://bthmedia.com

  • Mark Jackson

    January 26, 2015 at 5:08 pm

    @ Derek, Thanks for your reply i am using all the advice i get to try to put together a logical way to address working with my footage and will definitely take note of your advice.

  • Mark Jackson

    January 26, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    @ Dave, I have the full CS6 Master Suite and have AE + Color Finesse as you pointed out and have Premiere + Speedgrade as well. I think i just wanted to mainly clarify “even in a plugin like Colour Finesse” which aspects of a video file do you correct first (as step one)

    1) Exposure
    2) Brightness / Contrast
    3) Colour (RGB)
    4) Sharpening
    5) Skin softening (filters etc.)

    Would you say the at the above order of correcting my footage is a “logical” approach or should some of the steps be performed in a different order ?

    Kind Regards,

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