Hey guys, so I have a question: What do you do to your footage in post? Do you shoot flat, or standard? Do you transcode before editing? What do you use to sharpen/color correct? I've messed with a few different methods of correction and editing in post, but I was wondering what the popular/best methods are. I'm editing in Premiere Pro CS5.5 I also have Magic Bullet Looks, but I haven't been super happy with it, but it could just be because I'm not using it right. All the presets just look overdone and cheesy to me.

Thanks,
Evan

Hi Evan,

The presets in Magic Bullet are designed only as starting points. You can easily dial back any of the parameters to get a less "cheesy" look, or you can add and remove filters to get any combination of looks that you desire.

Look for a tutorial about color correction with magic bullet.

I don't own anything from red giant, so I use the basic color correction tools in premiere for simple edits, and I use the tools in after effects for more in-depth color correction.

My basic approach to color correction is to start with the tonality. Pull up the waveform monitor scope and make sure chroma is not selected. Also turn off the Setup option, its for old analog standards. analyze the image, you want your shadows around 0 and highlights around 100. not below or above or else you lose detail, but you do have creative leeway here. adjust your shadows first if you need to, then highlights, and last the mid-tones. Adjust tonality first b/c it can effect the color.

I like using the fast color corrector for its simple level style controls to adjust tonality, but curves also works and splits the image into color channels.

next color correct the entire scene (primary), or do secondary color correction on just part of the scene using masks. use the vectorscope and rgb parade scopes to analyze the color. one good trick ive seen is to crop the image to just someones face and color correct.

also, if you can get a graycard with white black and gray you can use the three-way color corrector and use the selection tools for highlights/mids/shadows to select the colors on the card. i hope that helps out

Grading isn't one of my stronger suits so I rock the CineStyle color profile and use their S curve on it. Then I usually tweak the Gamma a bit if need be and that usually does it. I really need to spend a couple days burying myself in some grading tutorials. Right now my video usually tends to come out looking pretty true to life which is fine, but I'd love to learn to grade more dramatically.

This is what I do. I shoot in the flattest neutral settings. In post I use levels to add contrast and use curves or colorista for color grading. For the most basic film look, you can push shadows toward blue and midtone toward orange. That is what I do most of the time. Right now I am watching lightroom and photography tutorial to see how they stylize the photos and see if I can implement that in videos.

Thanks guys! Do any of you sharpen your footage or anything at all? I've seen phillip bloom talk about his sharpening in post but never say exactly what he does..

sharpening don't do much. The only DSLR footage you would sharpen is the canon 5d mark 3