Cinelog - True logspace conversion for DNG and CinemaDNG footage

[DeafEyeJedi]

Definitely interesting facts regarding your graph -- Thanks for sharing @QuickHitRecord!

Looking forward to your new LUTS soon hopefully @Andy600 

[swinxx]

so andy600. you have still 2 hours to release the "we release it this week" promised new cinelog package..
hmm..

[DeafEyeJedi]

C,mon guys cut some slack for @Andy600 since he may be busy with life just like all of us, rightfully so.

Also it would be better for him to take the extra time to correct the minimal issues rather than give out the updates sooner and vice versa.

Just let him do his thing and we will all just be well...

Heck it ain't even Holidays yet!

[swinxx]

last week andy told me that the update will come within last week..
so as a cinelog supporter i just wanted to know if i can expect that update or not.
however. andy: good tip: dont make promises, just surprise your costumers. this would be a much better approach.

the same with fullres pic from a1ex for 5dmk3 123: simultaneously with the rawmagic discussion bout the violation of the rights, a1ex stopped updating the 5d mk3123 branch. in august he stated a 2 weeks latency for implementing the fullres pic in the 5dmk3 123 branch. i am waining til today, but he deciced to freeze the ml project. dont get me wrong, i wish him the best!, but now, the euphoria is waned.. perhaps he will return, perhaps not. time will show. but the problem is that people make some sort of promises, others expect them, nothing happens. that really frustrates.

[DeafEyeJedi]

@swinxx -- I understand your frustration as I am cinelog supporter as well. But I don't tend to throw it out there to others. I also do understand the fact that promises are difficult to hold on to. As long as it's not going to be a broken promise then I have no problem with it being 'late' as there may be a good reason for it perhaps to prevent all of us storming emails at @Andy600 just because one of the LUTS he provided didn't work or minimal issues that may arise which could also have been prevented. Does that make sense?

Regarding @a1ex's situation about the full res silent for 1.2.3 -- if I can recall this correctly but I was able to implement and use the Full Res silent on both 1.1.3 & 1.2.3 as far as I'm concerned.

[swinxx]

Yes but fullres is not working as expected with 5d ml3 123.. Have tried it and got a lot of errs.

[DeafEyeJedi]

@swinxx -- I'll see if I can give it a try again since I'm currently on 1.1.3 and will confirm to you once I can!

Plus let's try to stay on topic within this thread...

pM me if need to.

Thanks!

[DanHaag]

C,mon guys cut some slack for @Andy600 since he may be busy with life just like all of us, rightfully so.

The thing is... he promises a certain release window. I tell people that I wanna postpone color grading for a project because I wanna give his new LUTs a try and see if there's any improvement on the basic Cinelog conversion itself. The promised update just doesn't show up, no word from Andy,... so I've waited for nothing and just lost precious time, also disappointed all those who are involved with the project. Just one example of why it's a huge difference if he promises a release window or just says "when it's done" and admits that he doesn't know when all he has planed will be finished.

Again, in my opinion he should take all the time he needs to deliver us - his paying customers - the great product he set out to make. And I think his work so far is amazing, happy to be a supporter. But after failing to hit his own deadlines a couple of times before, he should've learned to just don't promise people any kind of release date.

In any event... I'm so looking forward to his new stuff. 

[marekk]

My new video shot with 5D3 and graded with Cinelog C
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=14189.0

[QuickHitRecord]

Any updates?

[Jbowdach]

 Still waiting..., but very much looking forward to the mentioned powergrades and such. Also, any other tips on using cinelog as a toolkit are useful. Will there be an update discussing suggested workflows for various cameras and purposes?

[Andy600]

@Jbowdach and everyone - Cinelog-C for Resolve and Adobe Camera Raw should be out today once we get the new look website online - We've literally just sent out a big update email with details of the new products (plus we want your input for our showcase). This will be followed by the actual final release download for current users. The members area (LUT bank) will have the first pack of Film Looks for Cinelog-C and a few other things to download. The LUT Bank content will be added incrementally over the next few weeks. It's gonna be a busy day for us

[kgv5]

That is a really great news Andy, thanks Cant wait to play with it I would like to ask if it would be possible to sort if implement cinelog-c to mlrawviewer app as its became such a time saver lately and very usable when there is no time for resolve. Ability to have instant real cinelog-c prores 444 would be awesome.

[Andy600]

@kgv5 - If @Baldand can implement a little change to the backend in MLRavViewer and impliment an alternative 3x3 matrix and lin to log formula just for Cinelog-C we should be able to debayer straight to Cinelog-C colorspace without using LUTs. At the moment it uses DCRaw's REC709 primaries. I will happily provide the matrix and log formula if he wants to do it. LUT handling in MLRawViewer is ok but the colorspace limits what we can do using LUTs - I've tested it with some custom Cinelog-C transform luts and there are issues with out of gamut colors and overbrights, plus a 3D transform is needed for the colorspace transform which means you cant then use the 3D lut slot for a viewing LUT - which is needed for assessing exposure compensation and white balance.

[Andy600]

All current customers should now have the update(s) - or at least the email telling you how to get it. The new look site is up and the LUT Bank (members area) is partially online - but still being built.

We're also having a 48 hour launch sale with 15% off all Cinelog-C products. www.cinelogdcp.com

[DeafEyeJedi]

Happy New Year @Andy600 and will definitely test them!

Thanks for your hard work on this!

[bennyray1]

Thank you so much,I have already tested the AE workflow with the OpenColorIO and everything is playing very very nice with each other. The over all involvement you have invested and made for Cinelog is amazing.Thank you again sir and I can not wait to get even deeper into the testing the numerous open methods of transformations we can now make with Cinelog's newest updates. Thanks again @Andy600..

[Lars Steenhoff]

can you accept paypal?

[DanHaag]

Thank you, Andy! Can't wait to check it all out! 

[Jbowdach]

Many thanks Andy600! Quick question: These aren't matching the previous folder layout of CinelogDCP v3, so is this intended to replace the previous version? If not, can you please advise which folders these should be combined with from the previous version of CinelogDCP? Its getting confusing between v2, v3 and the newest version which is the correct workflow, which to retire, etc? Many thanks for advising.

[Andy600]

@Jbowdach - Sorry I forgot to mention what to do about older versions. You can retain them in the camera profiles folder if you wish but use V3.0 as it is easier to work with and has the correct delogging curve in the OCIO config. I'll add an OCIO transform soon for legacy profiles (i.e. for any older footage that you have previously rendered or archived with the original or v2 profiles). The folder hierarchy isn't important so long as the v3 profiles folder is in the main camera profiles folder.

@bennyray1 - Great to hear! This is something we have worked on for a long time so it's great to finally put it out. There is still a lot more to come

@DeafEyeJedi @DanHaag - You're most welcome! a Very happy New Year to you and everyone else too!

@kgv5 - I saw @Baldand's reply about MLRawViewer. A totally understandable pov. We will try and do something with MLRawViewer once we have finished the first stage of our website updates but I need to set up a compiler and have a better look at the code - I'm a novice when it comes to that part so I can't promise anything.

[DanHaag]

Hey  Andy, since there are different ways one could approach using FilmConvert or LUTs like Koji, ImpulZ, (...) with Cinelog - which order of operation do you personally prefer for ML raw (MLV) footage in Resolve?
The way I understand, it's best to go BMD 4k -> Cinelog -> AlexaLogC -> FilmConvert / LUT with AlexaLogCFilm settings. I got promising results with this workflow so far, still would like to know how you're doing it and see if that works even better. 

Apart from that: I'm still looking for a way to give my ML raw footage just a clean, natural look. No "film look" or whatever all those LUTs and filters supply, just colors that are as close as possible to what my eyes would see in real life. Even with just transferring the footage i.e. into Rec.709 color space and doing a proper white balance, colors always seem to be a bit off. Not expecting any magic here, there's a lot of correction and grading one might have to perform and I understand that there are a lot of factors concerning the ways the image is filmed in the first place. Just interested in the basic workflow you would use to just get a natural looking picture from raw filmed images. UPDATE: Alright, figured out that I shouldn't be too shy of using the tint control in the camera raw tab. That solved it for me.

Thanks again for working so hard on Cinelog and answering all the questions on this board. The way I see it, you just revolutionized raw post production for Magic Lantern in a way no other third party developer has done so far.

[Andy600]

@DanHaag - I don't think there is a magic workflow in Resolve or any other color app TBH. It's more about understanding the raw footage metadata, the display device (i.e. your monitor or TV) and the colorspace that they use.

With ML raw footage in Resolve you have to make important decisions about the white balance to be sure you have a neutral starting point but with ML Raw it can be a little difficult if the metadata is not complete. We recently provided a list of the dual illuminant color matrices for each camera - MLVFS and raw2cdng both now embed these into the exported/extracted DNG files but most other raw convertors do not.

When the DNG is read by resolve it uses these matrices to map RGB channels to the colorspace selected (i.e. BMD Film). If the matrices are incorrect the white point will shift (sometimes massively) and you will see a noticeable tint to the image. With the new matrices Resolve has enough data to be able to give you neutral 'AS SHOT' white - BUT the shot MUST always be white balanced correctly when shooting!

If you look at the Camera Raw panel in Resolve you will see a number next to the tint offset. This offset is the amount of magenta/green bias shift needed for neutral white. So, for instance, I have a DNG which needs a 44.04 tint offset (this is a different number for most shots) but I also want to warm-up the image so I select a color temp preset (i.e. daylight). Now resolve will reset the offset to it's internal defaults for daylight - so you need to make sure to move the tint offset back to 44.04 - i.e. you will have daylight color temp with a tint offset of 44.04. Then you can use the color temp slider to get the balance to your linking. The best way to white balance is using the vectorscope and a qualifier to isolate a neutral patch (i.e. using a gray or white balance card when shooting).

As for reproducing the most neutral color with Cinelog-C, I would suggest BMD Film to Cinelog-C (or BMD Film 4K to Cinelog-C) then Cinelog-C to REC709 Full or REC709 Legal. These luts simply map Cinelog-C colorspace to REC709 primaries with the REC709 transfer curve. I would suggest this setup when setting your color temps / offsets and for exposure compensation. You can then grade under the REC709 lut or remove it and use one of our film luts for instance. If you want to use a 3rd party LUT (i.e. a VisionColor lut for the Alexa) just add the Cinelog-C to Alexa Wide gamut RGB lut before it so the sequence would be:

BMD Film to Cinelog-C > Cinelog-C to Alexa Wide Gamut RGB > Vision Alexa LUT    (I would also suggest trying the Alexa Wide gamut RGB with Film Matrix transform which has more filmic saturation).

We'll put the basic online Resolve guide on the website asap but will expand the content over time to show you different methods of working.

[DanHaag]

That explains a lot, thanks again for your help! Looking forward to the Resolve guides. Already having a blast with the new Cinelog, it really was worth the wait. 

[Andy600]

BTW - Things are a bit different in Adobe Camera Raw. The color matrices contained in a DNG are always overridden by matrices embedded in a digital camera profile so it doesn't matter if the raw convertor added the wrong ones. The new matrices that MLVFS and raw2CDNG use are the same as Adobe Standard.