[Simon Ubsdell]

With respect to Philippe, this is indeed all valid but it is not actually illuminating of the phenomenon under consideration here.

I also notice that he seems to have dropped his “interesting” SMH theory of the color model being employed for the color wheels in 10.4.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

Thank you so much, Jeremy and Walter and Steve, for your kind words.

Tim would not forgive me if I failed to point out that I only started out on the journey of making tutorials because of all of you here and the fascinating discussions we have had on this very forum dating back quite a few years now.

There is nothing remotely as interesting as a good question and that is what this forum has so often thrown up.

So my thanks are owed to you. When this forum is good, it is very, very good.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Michael Gissing] “As long as you don’t divide by zero.”

Indeed. Suddenly the magic turns sour!

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Shawn Miller] “it’s still really interesting stuff.”

Thanks, Shawn and Michael.

But the credit really goes to Oliver who not only identified that there was something worth investigating in the first place, but then subsequently came up with the explanation as well.

All I have tried to do is join up the dots in between. And hopefully add some interesting background.

I just love the breathtaking power and simplicity of these basic pixel functions and I hope I have managed to communicate some of that.

Where would we be without the “magical” properties of One and Zero?

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Walter Soyka] “I’ll go one step beyond that. Our little studio has been doing a good bit of development work, and I have come to hate the word “bug” for anything. It’s the connotation. Bugs sound external. Who would actually put a bug into something? They just crawl in on their own. “

I couldn’t agree more.

(It’s great to have your input after all this time. How we have missed it!)

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Michael Gissing] “Too kind to Apple. The naming does matter and this is yet another example of Apple changing for changes sake.”

Is it not rather a case of Apple trying to make the naming as un-intimidating as possible to the average user?

That’s how I interpreted this decision.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Yes. I am referring to how Apple names it in the filter:”

Yes, so was I.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jeremy Garchow] “the wheel “brightness””

Could I jump in here and mention that Apple, in their inimitable style that we all love so well, are using the term “Brightness” in a non-technical sense right across the wheels, apart from the Master control which is indeed a Brightness or Offset control.

The Shadows “Brightness” is in fact what is conventionally known as Lift, the Midtones “Brightness” is Gamma, and the Highlights “Brightness” is Gain.

I’ve touched on this before but maybe not made that fully clear.

The naming convention doesn’t of course matter one iota – except insofar as it can confuse anyone who is expecting the accepted meaning.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

Apologies to all. Senility appears to be setting in.

I wrongly claimed in the above post that we implemented SMH in Hawaiki AutoGrade, when in fact we only implemented it for the RGB and not the Y.

It still makes for a very interesting and useful set of controls.

But SMH can only ever sensibly be thought of as an addition to Lift/Gamma/Gain, never a complete replacement for it.

Targeted corrections are great, but they are inherently problematic.

Lift/Gamma/Gain gives you the smoothest possible transition between adjacent pixel values and that is fundamentally a very good thing. But when you start to target more defined ranges then it becomes a lot easier to mangle your image quite badly.

For this reason, SMH needs to be handled with care – think of it as local surgery, not as a universal panacea.

And one of the reasons I bring this up in this context is to do with the new curves features in 10.4.

They’re absolutely great and it’s really nice to see this functionality in an NLE and not just in the big grading systems. But at the same time, inexperienced colorists risk their images falling apart in all sorts of ways that they might not be alert to.

It’s important to think of these tools as problem solvers, not primary grading functions. Otherwise problems potentially lie ahead.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I know you said not to use the word “bug” but doesn’t this feel like a mistyped or misread or misused calculation?”

That’s a very good question, I think.

The word “bug” can cover so many different things, from simple mistyping, as you say, up to much more fundamental design decisions.

I have a problem with calling the latter “bugs”, but that’s a personal thing.

This is where we need our good friend, Walter.

In this case, I would say there is not even the remotest chance that this is a mistyped line of code.

I simply cannot believe that the team were not aware of the results. My impression was that they thought this would be “good enough”.

But while I can troubleshoot the problem, I simply have no idea how they arrived at the decision to let this through. That’s a people thing …

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki