Take Control of Your On Set Color
The biggest issues in successfully creating materials from on set previews have to do with a lack of understanding or precision in delivering properly formatted LUTs. In order to successfully preview color and export accurate LUTs for use in post color correction, it is necessary to properly setup LinkColor so that the use of any exported corrections will reflect the previewed settings.
To achieve this goal, it is the user's responsibility to ascertain the post workflow so that corrections made in the field will faithfully reflect the post workflow. If post will be applying your LUTs in a Full Range to Full Range workflow, then the delivered LUTs should reflect adjustments also made in a Full Range to Full Range environment. LinkColor essentially operates internally on signals as if they were Full range. So, for example, if a “Legal” range signal is input, then the Legal to Full range check box should be checked so that LinkColor receives a Full range signal upon which to operate. When a LUT of that setup is exported, the user has the option of including the Legal to Full (among other options) correction in the LUT. If that is included, and post also independently decodes the source footage to Full range, then there would be a second application of the Legal to Full conversion when the LUT is applied, creating an incorrect look.
As for monitoring, it is equally important to be vigilant about the range you wish to monitor on the output. That is generally up to the users preference and general workflow and setup. Again, if an output range correction is used on set, it is very important to make the correct choice about whether or not to include that in the LUT which is delivered to post.
In other words, it is absolutely necessary to be very precise in your setup of range conversions, as well as the options that are chosen for exported LUTs.
Additionally, it needs to be made clear that the order in which corrections are applied need to replicate the order in which they are applied in post. If the User applies a LUT before the CDL adjustments, and post-production applies the CDL adjustments before the LUT (when these are supplied independently), the results will be different, oftentimes wildly different. Again, it behooves the user to be quite clear about the order in which the corrections are applied, and exactly which corrections are incorporated in the exports.
Using LinkColor
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