The Technicolor CineStyle Profile – Final Opinion
I’ve had a chance to test out the new Technicolor CineStyle in depth and wanted to share my final thoughts. Overall this THE best attempt to create a LOG-C curve (or “Flat” profile). The folks at Technicolor mentioned at NAB that this profile was created to best suit THEIR post color grading workflow…which is the best in the world. For the rest of us…there just isn’t getting past that dang highly compressed 8bit H264 codec. The compression just cannot handle any sort of grading that pushes the image too far from the recorded or “baked in” image. Like a Picasso hidden underneath a finger painting…the Technicolor CineStyle is a dream curve trapped within a codec that just doesn’t do it justice.Here is my initial test I did Friday Night:
Overall thoughts and recommendations:
Neutral, Contrast Added in Post
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It seems there is a gamma shift upwards with the Cinestyle. Brings up shadow detail but at slight expense of the highlights. I find I have to ignore scopes and light meters and drop down exposure a stop to get the best out of this profile (and to match it to the other stock profiles). You shouldn’t have to do this, because what you are gaining in gamma you are losing in exposure…which is a bad trade off.
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There is definately more shadow detail. For those who don’t crush blacks in post then that’s great. For me, I usually crush blacks in post and keep (or sometimes lower) highlights. The CineStyle is too far away from crushed blacks…so when it’s crushed in post, the noise and artifacts are enhanced. I would have liked to see more highlight detail in this picture style instead. This profile makes images more prone to clipping.
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If you find you are having to radically adjust grading in post to get your desired look, then the less the
- Cinestyle, Contrast Added in Post
compressed 8bit codec can handle it. That’s a great rule of thumb. This isn’t a RAW codec that can be pushed all over the place. The pictures on the right show obvious breakdowns in adding contrast to flattened images. It is best to use a picture style that is closest to your final look but with some headroom to play with. The areas you’ll see this breakdown is in smooth gradients like the sky or a wall, so extra caution is suggested in these circumstances. For the old film guys…treat this like reversal film stock and try to get it close in camera. -
To leave on a positive note…midtones and skintones look fantastic. Better than most other profiles out there, in my opinion.
I realize it doesn’t have the Technicolor name on it…but I still recommend using my Crooked Path Flat 3.0 because it doesn’t lend itself to a codec breakdown in post. But as always…your mileage may vary…so please go out and try the picture styles for yourself.
Categorised as: Workflow
“the Technicolor CineStyle is a dream curve trapped within a codec that just doesn’t do it justice.” – well said!
Rich do you use the LUT Buddy in Premiere Pro from MB? I tried to use it but couldn’t get it working. Then I read this entire thread http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?247598-New-Technicolor-Profile-Is-Amazing/page7 and people are saying that the LUT is just a simple Luma S curve. I tried a simple Luma S curve and it looks fine but I don’t have the LUT to compare to.
Dave
LearningDSLRVideo
@Dave: Yeah, I got it working in PPCS5. The purpose of a LUT, in my understanding, it to give people a method of monitoring a post-grade preview from a live feed off a camera on-set that would normally show a flat LOG profile. That way the DP or whomever can expose/light the scene to the preview instead of the misleading flat look. It is also useful for a colorist so he can drop it on the footage to see what the DP saw when recording it as a reference. I don’t think the LUT is designed to actually apply the color in post though.
Hey Rich. Good review. I shot a few test shots this weekend comparing CineStyle to Faithful. I haven’t had time to give them a serious look yet but I’ll be posting my thoughts on my site in a couple of days.
Regarding LUT Buddy, there was a demo of this at the AENY user group meeting last week. Generally a LUT is applied in monitoring, but can of course also be designed to apply a look in post for pre-online purposes. So the great thing about LUT Buddy is your ability to create a LUT in After Effects, apply it to your NLE during the edit so you get an image closer to your final, and then of course do a proper grade during your online. You do this in AE by sandwiching your grading effects (curves, levels or even something like Colorista) between two instances of LUT Buddy (on the same layer of course) and setting the bottom instance to output where there’s an option to output a file that you then import into your NLE.
So this would give you the opportunity to create your own LUT to accompany CineStyle or even Crooked Path Flat. Maybe create a Hi-Con LUT, a Med-Con, whatever you want really. It’s a pretty cool tool.
Anyway, good stuff sir. I’ve been checking out your blog ever since I switched to the dark side and bought the 7D. Bummer we’re not in the same city any more.
@Chris: Thanks for the info! And yes…too bad we’re not in the same city! My Crooked Path Flat 3.0 style is based off Faithful…i’ve always liked that over Nuetral. I also made a highlight helper version that drops the highlights down about a half-stop when it’s needed. Try it out if you get a chance and let me know what you think: http://crookedpathfilms.com/blog/2011/02/27/459/
Hey Rich, quick question. What are you using to transcode your h.264 files (or are you working with them “raw”)? I was playing with some tonight and I realized that I was accepting defaults on 5DtoRGB that were applying a gamma curve. I turned the gamma interpretation off and that of course made a big visual difference. I may be going down an incorrect path here but working with this flatter image seems to be giving me more to play with – gradations in particular seem to be “smoother” (smoother in terms of having more variation of chroma/luma and less appearance of banding; however when you zoom close those variations look somewhat noisy). I need to do some more investigation and there may also be more usefulness in the supplied LUT than I expected. As you said, this is built to accomodate Technicolor’s workflow and who knows what they’re doing with the footage as far as post-processing before the grade.