Hope this can help some folks...

Great tutorial

Nice.  this is good stuff

Nice intro to doing it by hand.

I always struggle to keep things within the saturation guides, it always looks washed out unless I go well beyond the guides.

And does changing the Contrast slider simply apply an S curve like you showed?

Matt-and-Riley Posted at 2016-12-9 16:55
Nice intro to doing it by hand.

I always struggle to keep things within the saturation guides, it always looks washed out unless I go well beyond the guides.

This is a great question. Contrast adjustment sliders are global therefore it brightens and darkens everything. Notice in the video how the highlight point on the very top right and the shadow point on the very bottom left stay anchored in place as I push the line into an S curve. Since the brights and darks stay locked in place, this keeps you from blowing out the highlights or crushing the blacks when raising the tonal contrast of your image. So it's important to use an "S" curve on many initial adjustments for tonality vs the more simple contrast slider. This helps you maintain the dynamic range of the shot.

The saturation guidlines took me a while to "trust". But after seeing many of my videos, on YouTube, Facebook, whatever, I started noticing how oversaturated and unrealistic my videos were. It was then I started to trust the scopes. The problem is: My computer monitors (while calibrated fairly neurtral) have a different color vibrance, brightness and contrast than my phone, my ipad, my TV, My friends TV, My neighbor's lap top, etc. etc. The scopes tell you exactly what's going on (regardless of what my eyes are seeing on screen) and therefore give you more true data as to how your videos will look across all platforms and devices. Like I said in the video, when I do the first adjustment with the YC waveform, I honestly don't even look at the image... just the scope.

Sorry to ramble...Hope this helps.

Frederick Hagan Posted at 2016-12-9 23:45
This is a great question. Contrast adjustment sliders are global therefore it brightens and darkens everything. Notice in the video how the highlight point on the very top right and the shadow point on the very bottom left stay anchored in place as I push the line into an S curve. Since the brights and darks stay locked in place, this keeps you from blowing out the highlights or crushing the blacks when raising the tonal contrast of your image. So it's important to use an "S" curve on many initial adjustments for tonality vs the more simple contrast slider. This helps you maintain the dynamic range of the shot.

The saturation guidlines took me a while to "trust". But after seeing many of my videos, on YouTube, Facebook, whatever, I started noticing how oversaturated and unrealistic my videos where. It was then I started to trust the scopes. The problem is: My computer monitors (while calibrated fairly neurtral) have a different color vibrance, brightness and contrast than my phone, my ipad, my TV, My friends TV, My neighbor's lap top, etc. etc. The scopes tell you exactly what's going on (regardless of what my eyes are seeing on screen) and therefore give you more true data as to how your videos will look across all platforms and devices. Like I said in the video, when I do the first adjustment with the YC waveform, I honestly don't even look at the image... just the scope.

It's a good ramble

I'll start to play with the curves a bit more and leave the sliders, what you say makes sense.

Trust the scopes, seems sensible. My TV always looks over exposed and a bit weird, old work laptop is dull and under exposed, Mac looks good most of the time.

I'm wondering as well that most of my recent vids have been in quite bad light, dull grey days, low sun, so there's not much colour in anything and I'm trying to force it out by over saturating it.

Got me thinking

More Good stuff Frederick.

Keep at it... ;-)


RedHotPoker

Matt-and-Riley Posted at 2016-12-9 21:10
It's a good ramble

I'll start to play with the curves a bit more and leave the sliders, what you say makes sense.

Hey check out my channel in an hour or so. https://www.youtube.com/c/FrederickHagan (Or tomorrow depending on your timezone.)

I'm going to do a Subscriber Submitted Footage Tutorial. I've done this before and folks seem to enjoy it.
I take your footage, grade it and do a tutorial on how I got it to look that way. Perhaps submit your "dull grey" footage?! If properly exposed you'd be surprised at what hides in those pixels waiting to come out!

Thanks, looks like a good idea, if I can't get any footage today I'll send you some old stuff.

Great lesson, thanks for contributing.

Well presented excellent viewing

Good tutorial and a great presentation of it.

Buen tutorial, muchas gracias por su explicación.