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Old October 30th, 2007, 11:53 AM   #1
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Color Correction in PP vs AE

Hello,

I have Cineform's ProspectHD. I love it. I'm working with DV footage(DVX100B). I've converted it to Cineform 1920x1080 High. I have PP CS3 and AE CS3. I can get some amazing looks with Synthetic Aperture in AE, but after achieving a look I liked, I was able to get a similar look in PP using Cineform's 3-way Color Balance PHD.

In AE it seems I can work in 16 or 32 bit, although 32 bit requires a gamma boost of 2.2 to get a usable image.

Here are some questions I have:

How do I determine what bit depth I'm working in if I color correct in PP?

What exactly does it mean if I check PP's "Maximum Bit Depth"?

I want the most latitude when cc'ing, hence the reason I'm using Cineform. Can I get the same 16 or 32 bit latitude in PP that I can get in AE?

While working with Cineform footage in a 32bit AE project, I applied the gamma boost of 2.2 to get the image back to normal exposure, but the blacks are very pixelated. I can achieve better blacks in 16bit mode. Is there a way to get my blacks back to normal in 32bit mode?

If I can achieve the look I want in PP, is there a reason I should consider using AE over PP to cc Cineform footage? Just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Thanks.
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Old October 30th, 2007, 12:02 PM   #2
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Using 32bit mode in AE correctly is a bit more complicated, see this article for a more complete explanation than I could give:
http://prolost.blogspot.com/2006/02/...e7-part-1.html

Premiere is supposed to compute internally at 32bits per color channel, but I am not sure what part the "Maximize Bit Depth" plays in that process, but i would like to know, if anyone can fill us in on that.
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Old October 30th, 2007, 12:30 PM   #3
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Phillip,

The 32-bit mode is AE is linear light, you should use use an adjustment layer to create you viewing gamma (like 2.2.) Linear light has a bunch on benefits. You shadow issues maybe because you are double LUT-ing some how, as the 16-bit and 32-bit decodes are the same, only the curve is different.

Premiere's "Maximum Bit Depth" is also 32-bit. In Prospect HD is it a 32-bit YUV (not that is matters as 32-bit precision is plenty in either color space), but the 32-bit PPro mode maintain the display curve (it is not linear.) The downside to Premiere for color correction, is you don't know which filters support 32-bit, as most are still 8-bit. Fortunately all the CineForm color and Premiere Color Corrector filter are now support 32-bit. For more advanced operations that mix blurs or other image filters with CC, use AE to preserve your precision.
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Old October 30th, 2007, 12:34 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike McCarthy View Post
Using 32bit mode in AE correctly is a bit more complicated, see this article for a more complete explanation than I could give:
http://prolost.blogspot.com/2006/02/...e7-part-1.html

Premiere is supposed to compute internally at 32bits per color channel, but I am not sure what part the "Maximize Bit Depth" plays in that process, but i would like to know, if anyone can fill us in on that.
Thanks, Mike. That was a great article for working in 32bit linear in AE. I made an interesting discovery after reading it. Seems that when assigning a linear profile (none ship with AE, but you can download one here http://home.earthlink.net/~stumaschw...arProfiles.zip ) to both the project file and the Interpret Footage for each clip, I was able to achieve proper exposure WITHOUT applying the 2.2 gamma adjustment that was supposedly needed for Cineform footage. Best part of using this linear profile is that my blacks no longer suffer that pixelating problem that I mentioned above.

David, thanks for the response. Are you aware of this alternative to restoring Cineform to normal exposure in AE 32bit? Are there any downsides to it?
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Old October 30th, 2007, 01:01 PM   #5
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That works fine as it effectly the same process. Please don't get confused by using term like "normal exposure in AE 32bit", linear is normal in that it behaves like light, you're just correcting for you output display which is not linear.
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Last edited by David Newman; October 30th, 2007 at 01:56 PM.
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Old October 30th, 2007, 01:06 PM   #6
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That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification, David.
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