Some good tutorials covering the math/physics part of color grading ?

[Glenn Sakatch]

I don’t know if he still sells it, but Tao Of Color’s “master class” series has an entire video devoted to scopes…reading them, how different settings will give different reactions. If memory serves he has about an hour video on just this type of thing.

Now I say I don’t know if he still sells it because he has kinda moved on to grade along videos, but if you check out his site, and contact him, I’m sure he will answer your questions.

Also FXPHD used to offer a color theory program. It might be in their vault section.

Glenn

[Patrick Inhofer]

Hi Glenn,

The hour-long video, which I alternatively switch between calling “The Fundamentals of Color Correction” and “Why Color Correction is so Hard (and what you can do about it)” is indeed still bundled with our current ‘Color Correction Home Study’ (which is what the original MasterClass has morphed into). In fact, it’s required watching.

And that’s just the setup video into the full 8+ hours Color Correction Home Study designed to replicate what it’s like sitting next to a colorist in a grading session.

Hope this helps.

– patrick

Patrick Inhofer
Colorist / Finisher, Fini, nyc
Founder, Tao Of Color.com
Co-Founder, MixingLight.com

[Max Kawczynski]

Thank you very much for your answers !

Patrick > your formation does look very interesting, unfortunately my friend is still a student and doesn’t have a lot of money. Would it be possible to buy just “The Fundamentals of Color Correction” video without the rest of the formation ? (that she’ll probably buy later)

[Patrick Inhofer]

Not at this time.

But my plan is to make it free – I’m just working out how to best make it so (and finishing up a few other projects first). I’m also re-recording it, integrating the latest versions of the apps that are currently in there – plus new research I’ve come across the last few years.

When it’s available I’ll be sure to post it here.

Patrick Inhofer
Colorist / Finisher, Fini, nyc
Founder, Tao Of Color.com
Co-Founder, MixingLight.com

[Max Kawczynski]

That’s some very good news !

If you need some help (“beta-testing” in a way), count me in !

[Marc Wielage]

[Max Kawczynski] “I’m posting on the behalf of a friend who’s starting to learn color grading with Davinci Resolve. I would like to know if you know some good online/downloadable tutorials that focuses on the math/physics part of color grading. “
Start with these:

Warren Eagles’ FXPHD Resolve Tutorials:
https://www.fxphd.com/store/fast-forward-resolve-v10-fundamentals/

Alexis Van Hurkman’s Resolve Tutorials:
https://www.rippletraining.com/categories/avid-adobe-davinci-courses/davinci-resolve-products.html

Alex’s Van Hurkman’s Color Correction Handbook:
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques/dp/0321929667/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1CHXH704NKTQ12DRM6BZ

The free Color Management SIGGRAPH white papers go into detail about how the science of color applies to the real world of digital images:

https://cinematiccolor.com

Patrick Inhofer’s “Tao of Color” newsletter and website are also informative resources:
https://www.taoofcolor.com

A lot about understanding color boils down to having a gut feeling on how to deal with problematic footage, and how to predict where it’s going to go when you make a certain adjustment. That can only come from experience. I’ve encountered enough situations where the math didn’t necessarily work under real-world situations, especially with color-space LUTs. All the math and physics in the world won’t necessarily solve a client’s problems when they’ve underexposed the footage by 2 stops or when you have one day to do three days’ worth of work.

If you’re specifically using Resolve, I think reading the manual a few times — not just skimming the basics, but really reading all 750 pages from start to finish — is also necessary to understand color in the context of how Resolve deals with it. In truth, I think color is only 1/3 of the job; a lot boils down to problem solving, understanding the DPs problems (and finding solutions), dealing with the psychology of clients, having a good grasp of editing and conforming, having a good working knowledge of VFX, and knowing how to deliver the projects and get them back out of the box. Out of all of these, the color may be the easiest part.

[Nat Jencks]

A a very basic level a good experiment is to load in a linear gradient and put it on your scopes, it should be a straight diagonal from 0 to 1.

Now when you move lift gamma, gain, offset, contrast, and the log grading tools you can see precicesly what they are doing to the gamma curve.

best
-Nat