How to use E2 Plugin to do Color correction
In an internal training preparation we found that we have to get the color correction needs some detailed explanation and then people can do better color recovery and it saves time. Working on a log curve and single node isn’t recommend.
I recommend that we split the workflow into color correction and color grading parts. Color correction will remove cast from the image and color grading adds color looks to the image.
My workflow will add a few nodes and each node has dedicate purpose. Let me take Davinci as example:
Step one: get a zlog footage into Davinci:
In this footage you will find it shot in mix light which is evening with natural light and 5700K lights. It’s a bit yellowish.
Step two: Apply the plugin
Then you will find it over exposed and very yellowish. No worry. Let’s make some basic adjustment:
a. Apply display curve in output color space option, here I choose X2:
You can see that highlight is compressed well.
b. Adjust white balance(tint is also done in this step):
c. adjust lift:
d.Adjust gain.
This step is very important as it’s adjusting the image in linear space befor color correction! This Affects color accuracy a lot! If this is not done correctly the whole image accuracy will be affected. Since skintone is most important, we need to sure the color correction for skintone is under correct brightness or it will be wrong. Because LUT is generated under the dedicate exposure environment and it will have color bias when exposure is wrong.Please compare the tomato’s color before/after gain adjustment.
Something more about the “wrong exposure” : it’s NOT just about the shooting exposure. In ideal exposure enviroment we have middle grey as reference to do color correction so the color chart is evenly exposed. But in real enviroment objects are not evenly exposed and there’s no ideal middle grey for all objects in most of the scenes. But we have focus on priorities. We need to get the skintone exposure to ideal as close as possible in color corretion phase.
I choose to try to find middle grey with the same exposure of skin and adjust it to reference value.
e. Some people think the image is a little too dark so we add another node to adjust the gain again.
When we finished color correction, using gain in rec709 won’t affect the accuracy that much now.
I think right now you can do Color Grading with nodes after them and applying looks with be easier with color corrected footage. That’s more efficient than doing them one by one.