ACES in After Effects or/and davinci

Started by ibrahim, March 15, 2019, 02:04:33 PM

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ibrahim

Hi,

I wonder what the exact workflow setting I should follow to color grade 14-bit RAW cinemaDNGs in ACES and linear in After Effects primarily, if not in davinci.

This was my previous workflow in non-ACES environment:
1- Set AE to 32 bpc and working space to rec 709.
2- Import cinemaDNG in AE via adobe camera raw. Select cinelog-C and fix WB, camera profile, remove nosie and sharpen and select correct lens profile. Nothing else.
3- In AE on top of footage apply colorIO plugin and set input to cinelog-C and output to arri logC film matrix.
4- adjust exposure, saturation, vibrance, IR pllution etc.
5- apply filmconvert or via opencolorIO plugin a 3d LUT such as kodak 2383

If I want to work with ACES what should be changed in each step of my workflow?
Canon 5D Mark IIIs | Ronin-M | Zeiss 50mm 1.4 planar | Zeiss 35mm 1.4 distagon  | Zeiss 24mm f2 distagon | Zeiss 85mm f1.4 planar
Dual sound system: Tascam DR-60d MKII | Audio Technica AT899 | Sennheiser MKE 600

Deadcode

In Resolve:
Aces:
No Input Device Transform
Rec709 Output device transform

Little exposure adjustements aaaaaand done, perfectly filmic

While using ACES you are unable to use filmconvert or any other stylistic LUTs, becase they are behaving completly differently due to the linear conversion.
However it is possible to use them with the following steps:
1st node: color space mapping: linear input rec709 output.
2nd node: LUT/Filmconvert
3rd node: color space mapping rec709 to linear

ibrahim

Thanks man.


Are you referring to the Color Space Transform?
But why do I need to return to linear in node 3?
Shouldn't the final output be in rec709 before rendering?
Canon 5D Mark IIIs | Ronin-M | Zeiss 50mm 1.4 planar | Zeiss 35mm 1.4 distagon  | Zeiss 24mm f2 distagon | Zeiss 85mm f1.4 planar
Dual sound system: Tascam DR-60d MKII | Audio Technica AT899 | Sennheiser MKE 600

Deadcode

Yes, Color Space transform.
The timeline is in Linear, if you dont convert the REC709 back to linear you will see the following problem:





As a final step Resolve will convert the linear image to REC709 as you set it on the ACES page with the output device transform

allemyr

Your question is more "how to work in a ACES enviroment with raw files, specifically from ML RAW?"

Since your workflow is a non ACES one you have to discard it all I'am sorry to say and start from scratch.

allemyr

The only thing that will differ from any other ACES raw workflow is that you don't have a premade ACES input Transform to choose since it doesn't exist one for ML RAW and 5D3.  And theres where everything about the ACES workflow falls apart I'am sorry to say.

Would be very cool if someone made a 5D3 ML RAW ACES input Transform to use.

This is where you choose input:




Deadcode

DNG RAW files are in linear format. It does not matter what IDT you choose, you will always get the same results.

If you transcode your footage with MLV App to ProRes, that's a different story... but i would use Canon 5D IDT....




allemyr

Yes ok thanks! Yes it doesn't matter what IDT you choose there, but a input device transform is always used ofcourse.

The Camera RAW panel controls how the IDT works for this example with RAW footage. Yes this is how good as i gets, but a specific ML RAW 5D3 IDT doesn't exist I wish my video sequence looked exactly the same as a CR2 photo in any program.

Fair enough its a great looking image anyway!

Camera RAW setting, apply Pre Tone Curve does a pretty big difference




ibrahim

Quote from: allemyr on March 17, 2019, 09:19:38 PM
Your question is more "how to work in a ACES enviroment with raw files, specifically from ML RAW?"

Since your workflow is a non ACES one you have to discard it all I'am sorry to say and start from scratch.

So you mean for instance that I cannot have arri log C as a starting point while working in an ACES envireonment?
Canon 5D Mark IIIs | Ronin-M | Zeiss 50mm 1.4 planar | Zeiss 35mm 1.4 distagon  | Zeiss 24mm f2 distagon | Zeiss 85mm f1.4 planar
Dual sound system: Tascam DR-60d MKII | Audio Technica AT899 | Sennheiser MKE 600

Deadcode

Why do you want to work in arri log-c if you are using ACES?
If your colorgrade is all about using your favourite LUT-s, ACES will not give you any advantage over the "regular" workflow.

allemyr: thx for the Pre Tone Curve advice, i have never used it before, and it makes the image look like it was shoot incamera standard profile. But as i can see it's not compatible with ACES

allemyr

Quote from: Deadcode on March 18, 2019, 07:34:10 AM
allemyr: thx for the Pre Tone Curve advice, i have never used it before, and it makes the image look like it was shoot incamera standard profile. But as i can see it's not compatible with ACES

The hole point with ACES is to match different cameras to look similar when working with footage from different sources in the same project. Shure its compatible with ACES the Apply Pre Tone Curve since it doesn't exist a specific MLRAW 5D3 color settings IDT, where do you read that Apply Pre Tone Curve isn't supported with ACES and MLRAW 5D3? This Camera RAW panel is the IDT settings for CinemaDNG footage and we are working with footage from a unknown source, not from a Black Magic Pocket Camera. You can get a good looking image anyway, but any official way or made IDT isn't existing.

Here's about it from the Davinci Resolve 15 manual page 134, I highligthed som parts in yellow that I think is important.