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I bar please in Ultrascope. Or Resolve. BMD, come on, how hard it this?
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Ok, so I’ve figured out how to modify the vectorscope display (or any other scope display I suppose) in Ultrascope. I’m not saying YOU should do it but it IS a relatively simple matter. BMD could literally make this addition in about 5 minutes. If you’re interested I can describe the process off list.
chris_at_outpostpictures.tv
Chris Tomberlin
Editor/Compositor/Owner
OutPost Pictures -
Was it a PNG in the app package?
Online Editor | Colorist | Post Super | VFX Artist | BD Author
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Yup. A little more involved on the PC version…
Chris Tomberlin
Editor/Compositor/Owner
OutPost Pictures -
i bet there may be legal thing why the line is not there ?
as in tech sense it seems simple to do.God knows who has patented it like some other every day stuff that you can not use without
paying licenses.—
Margus
DaVinci 8.2.1 OSX 10.7.3
MacPro 5.1 2×2,93 24GB
GTX 470 / Quadro 4000
Multibridge 2 Pro -
It’s not there because its only real purpose is to define where the subcarrier should be on a standard definition, NTSC video signal, along with another axis that is 90 degrees opposed to it (the Q axis). It has no relevance in an HD world, regardless of what people here seem to think it is. The notion that it’s some kind of “flesh tone indicator,” or that its actually called an “I-Bar” is something that people who have no idea what its real purpose was simply made up. The fact that people here are seriously discussing it in those terms is, frankly, a bit distressing.
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It doesn’t really matter to me what you call it – if it is a tool that helps us make better decisions then why not use it as such? I understand that it is a throwback, but it is still a useful one in the HD world even if it is used for something other than its intended purpose, IMHO.
Chris Tomberlin
Editor/Compositor/Owner
OutPost Pictures -
If you believe that flesh tones should always look the same, or that they are not dependent on other aspects of the image, or that they’re not relative to the environment, or that they should always be in the exact same place on scopes, then what you’re describing ends up being a technical crutch that will often make your images look less natural, not more natural.
Everything in terms of color is relative to what’s around it. A flesh tone in perfect white light is quite different than the same flesh tone in a warmly lit room or in cool moonlight. It is different in a lit part of a room than it is in shadow in the same room. You don’t need a specific marked point on a vectorscope if you understand all of that, and you don’t need a specific marked axis if you understand what the vector display is telling you. Calibration – the purpose for which the I and Q axes were placed on a standard def vector display in the first place – is one thing. A confirmation of what’s in a real world image is another, and for that, you basically want the vectorscope to tell you relative values, and black and white balance. Flesh tones are going to land wherever they land depending on the scene lighting and the scene content. You don’t grade based on a vectorscope (except as an aid for balance, as I mentioned), you grade based on an accurate calibrated display, which is the only way to judge relative color. The best pure colorist I know (and I know most of the best in the industry) almost never looks at scopes. In fact, he often doesn’t even have them turned on. But his monitoring is checked and calibrated every day, sometimes multiple times during the day, to ensure that what he is seeing is accurate.
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Well, this is the last reply I have on this so if you respond you’ll get the last word.
I agree with what you’re saying. I realize that skin tones and everything else in an image is relative. I’m not suggesting that you should put green in the green box, red in the red box, flesh tones on a particular line, etc. It is helpful however to have a scientific measure of an image if you don’t have the luxury of owning a $40K monitor and minions to calibrate it every day.
If you’ll search this forum, you’ll see that this same request was made a year ago by other people who also think it could be a useful tool. My original post was a little chastisement to BMD for not responding to customers requests for a feature. If you (and they) feel that request is a silly one, then to each his own, and those of us who would like to have this feature can look to other solutions.
Peace.
Chris Tomberlin
Editor/Compositor/Owner
OutPost Pictures -
I might be distressing. What I said earlier is what I’ve learned from one or several paid video tutorials or even books, not something I’ve magically figured out by myself “EUREKA! This must be what it’s for!”. Maybe it’s rumors and BS – but hey – it helps me. Can’t say I’ve had much complains about bad skin tones, except producers and directors not noticing how different skin tones can be just as they are. Some are more red, some are pale..
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While its true that the i/q/x lines on vectorscope date back to the old analog days, I don’t think it’s a coincidence neutrally balanced skin tones falls along that line. I think it was done intentionally. If you just wanted a reference point for phase any old color would do. But what’s that most videotaped tone if not skin? We literally film some human skin in almost every single shoot. We love looking at ourselves, so why not use our own pigment as a frame of reference?
And if it’s a made up thing, it’s spread far and wide. Even made it into apples documentation for fcp7.
https://documentation.apple.com/en/color/usermanual/index.html#chapter=8%26section=3%26tasks=true
I’ll refer you the section entitled I-bar.
I’d add that I and I think many others, don’t use this as a guide. Skin tone is subjective and the over all balance of the scene would affect the way skin should read. But people doing so aren’t mistaken or misguided.
Online Editor | Colorist | Post Super | VFX Artist | BD Author
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