[Mike Imam]

Wow, thanks so much for the test through Speedgrade! Funny, I’m having the very same issues using manual color controls: the purple and the blue just don’t come out right without greatly affecting the rest of the image.

This might be worth a Rotobrush run – hadn’t considered that but it might be my only option at this stage.

[Mike Imam]

Thank you both for the advice. I agree that adjustment layers out of Photoshop would have probably been the best method, but I’m now stuck having to do manual adjustments, for better or for worse. Finesse has helped some, as has Colorista. The tutorial has also been useful, but my results are still not perfect.

Anyone have any luck with the new color/scene match feature in Speedgrade CC? Could that possibly help me here? I’m considering upgrading my whole AE suite to CC, but it requires at least Mac OS 10.7. I’ve been very reliably running on a very stable Mac OS 10.6.8 for several years now, so I’m not sure it’s worth updating my whole system for it.

[Mike Imam]

Thanks – the problem is that if I mask within the precomp, Twixtor starts bleeding past the edge of my mask, even when applied to the precomp on my main timeline. Any other ideas?

[Mike Imam]

Thanks – the problem is that if I mask within the precomp, Twixtor starts bleeding past the edge of my mask, even when applied to the precomp on my main timeline. Any other ideas?

[Mike Imam]

Thanks for all the advice! A few points:

– Using lights are impossible due to restrictions on use in the subway, so that is not an option. I also cannot use reflectors or a tripod, but that’s only semi-related to my issue.

– I don’t think I’ll have much choice except to punch my ISO up to 6400. I was not planning on making this vid black and white but I suppose a high ISO could be offset with an artistic look if I convert to black and white, where high grain isn’t that unusual. Would I better off shooting in color and converting in After Effects, or shooting in black and white using my camera’s built-in filter?

– As for lenses, as you guys saying that the lower the mm, the higher the bokeh? Maybe I should get a very high mm prime lens (like 100mm and higher) and shoot from further away?

– Sareesh mentioned a tilt-shift lens. I can look into it but wouldn’t it worsen my problem by creating a ton of bokeh?

– Unfortunately the subway station is underground an indoors, so natural light will not be available.

I would love for the video to look super crisp like all the visuals in 99 Problems:
https://www.blastro.com/player/jayz99problems.html?detect_bitrate=_2000

Any further advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Mike Imam]

Thanks for confirming. I made the feature request. I should probably ask Jeff Almasol to add it to the KeyedUp script as well.

[Mike Imam]

That could work too – is there a shortcut for that on a non-numeric keypad laptop keyboard?

[Mike Imam]

Indeed I am. No serious problem, but I work on the road a lot, so I’m stuck with my maxed out 8GB of ram in my MacBook Pro. I do frequent RAM previews which eat up a ton of memory, so I purge after every few previews. Make sense?

[Mike Imam]

Hey Massimo – assuming resolution is the issue, in theory the 5D should help, but I can’t confirm, unfortunately. I would try checking out 5D Mark III footage on Vimeo and judge for yourself…

To Dave’s point, even when I shoot at 1920×1080 with my T2i I still get the lines, so I’m guessing that having a full-frame sensor (as opposed to mine, which is a crop sensor), should help capture that additional visual info and soften the lines.

More importantly, I want that ultra-crisp look and wide dynamic range the 5D provides.

[Mike Imam]

Got it. More reason to splurge for a full-frame 5D sooner than later.

Thanks!