Share with us Your Workflow - A topic for making a major Post-Processing techniques List - by EOSHD Members

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Workflow is a broader term than PC usage, it actually contains all the work pipeline you go through,

starting from camera choice, picture profiles, media type, backup on set, backups on home, ingesting methods, organizing the Video files, then post processing, editing & grading the footage then rendering, then uploading.

Workflow is describing each technique and equipment you use in all the mentioned steps.

For this topic, a list is preferred to be made on the techniques starting just from ingesting to rendering, meaning just what you do on the computer, 

just add the camera picture profile and model, and if you have different workflows for different cameras make it clear and make another list/point..

"talk'' in the post not just points. Say why I chose this over that alongside the list (will give example)

But if anyone want to make his list a complete workflow that's a plus. It'd be very generous. 

I'll start the list by one of my own Workflow lists 

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Shooting on a Nikon D5300/D5500 workflow:

 

1 -Standard Picture Profile 

# Zero (0/OFF) Sharpness (videoish)

# Middle Contrast (lowering doesn't increase DR just turns gray)

# -2 Saturation (I can add massive saturation in post but can substract it when colours get clipped due to high saturation)

# -2 Hue (take off the green cast & give reder faces like Canon)

Why?

*after extensive testing Standard PP on Nikon DSLRs gives the most pleasing and cleanest images, and shooting neutral or dialing down contrast does not increase DR on Nikon cameras just makes the image more gray and skin turns to grey (PS: on contraire if you use Canons contrast increases DR and -4 is essential). Standard at default contrast gives the special Nikon Colour science while shooting Neutral takes it away. Standard has the same shadow & highlight range just with a nicer starting point. This for all Nikon DSLRs On the D5500 and newest Nikon cameras that have the new Nikon FLAT gamma, I use it. It's the best LOG gamma I've used after Canon Log.

 

2 - Transcode all video files to Avid DNxHD 10bit 4:2:2 (ProRes HQ equiv. for windows), using the never-let-down free app: MPEG STREAMCLIP. 

why?

I just feel more comfortable expanding the h.264 footage to a larger container, and it's so much less intensive for PCs if I need to make feature-film length edits and/or extreme effects & grading. But no it doesn't really visually change the image quality. Just a workflow step for standardizing and smoothness. 

 

3 - Import to Sony Vegas Pro 13: do edit and grade and audio. 

Why not one of the popular NLEs? 

I adore Sony Vegas, and challenge anyone to try it and go back to any other NLE.

The timeline editing is unparalleled by any other, sooo simple to cut and move and fade all with starking visual representation. Performing the same editing function other NLE's do but in a way a 10 year-old can use.

Then the Audio. If anyone doesn't know Sony Vegas started as an Audio software, so it's the most advanced & full-fledged audio software not available in any other NLE where you have to go somewhere else when working on serious audio as in music videos. Vegas has it all built in.

Third is the grading capability of it. Just like the way it does complex editing functions in an easy way, it does pro-grade colour manipulation only surpassed by Resolve (for having the ability to selectively colour grade with automated tracking).

While Vegas contains fully loaded professional scopes similar to BM Ultra scopes, and a very powerful manual tooling like colour curves, dead precise three colour wheels, film grain, and I only  need to add neat video otherwise it's fully loaded.

You select a time line clip & add these as ''plug-ins" similar to resolve nodes with sequential order. So I use Vegas because I find it the software that gives all three post-production stages internally, editing, grading, and audio processing -> render to any format. And it takes Raw files from Red (R3d) smoothly just like an h.264 clip, and Canon RAW. BM RAW I don't know. 

 

By the way: arguments and questions shouldn't be posted in this topic, for example if you use premiere just say why in your list. Just workflow list comments please.

 

4- EDITTING.

why? first instead of grading/denoising all the footage just work on the used bits. 

 

5 -Sync external recorder audio (Zoom H1//H4N/NTG/RODE)

Why? DSLRs audio is dog schidt. Just missing this one step destroys the entire project.

 

6 - Watch the ungraded video to re-asses the edit.

Why? enormously important to watch your edit fully, to make sure it's up to the standard. Use your eyes.

 

7 -Grading 

five steps in sequential order is my grading

1 - Apply Luma curve to each clip to get my desired contrast & exposure & make it constant. Now with correctly exposed & contrast images,

2- I start the creative grading process using RGB curves & Three wheels & Secondaries. Copy to all similar clips. 

3- -Take a nap,

or tickle your child, or if you're a video shooter, tell your mom to bring a sandwich down to the basement. Important thing is to keep your eye off the video for a while, 30 mins say. then go back and re-watch your finalized edited & graded video.

Why? Get a fresh look. You'll be amazed how much different it looks and you WILL make positive tweaks. Eyes adapt to the screen and brain, cut that off to watch as a regular audience.

4 -Apply Neat-video/De-noiser selectively to the parts on the time line with noise. And use Neat-video Sharpening as the D5300/5500 need it when set to zero sharpening in PP.

Why now at no.4 ? Some people take the DNxHD files and run it through de noising before editing/grading. Which I find extremely stupid.

1- You waste enormous time applying the slow neat video to all the footage while you'll end up using 20-50% of it.

2- The contrast manipulation and colour grading process induces some serious artefacts including noise and colour blotching, that will be added on top of the de-noised footage.

3- Each scene/clip needs a different de-noising profile and manipulation, some clips need 30%, others 80%, some need only chroma de-noise, etc. 

So De-noising in the absolute last step insures you get rid of everything grading induced and makes you able to choose how the final output will look in terms of noise.

I tested both extensively and denoising at last step gives vastly superior denoising performance. 

5 -Add Film Grain

why? it takes the edge off today's clean images and specially does wonders with plasticy de-noised footage. 

Now you're done grading.

 

6 -I Watch again all of it and give final approval.

 

7 -Render to Avid DNxHD.

Why? looks much better uploaded on YT vs H.264 files. Give YT/VIMEO a kess compressed file = better output.

8- Upload to Vimeo with password to client.

or

-Hand it off on a flash drive (include the price of the flash drive in your fees), when I do that I don't usually give a DNxHD file unless asked for,

instead I render to H.264 at a bit-rate of 35mbps in an .MP4 wrapper. Works on anything.

I actually also include a 720p version and a 480p version for Standard Definition along with the 1080p file tagged (original best quality). This way they'll watch it whatever their PC/LCD are.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I do all my grading manually in Vegas & resolve (when I need tracking) as you see and I still haven't trusted LUTs and the whole idea of adding a preset to my footage. So do you use LUTs? Do you think I should? Contribute with answering in your workflow list. No small comments: You don't get to answer or ask a question about someone's list unless you put the question in a comment containing your workflow list :P 

It can be just small grading steps & camera model & PP or a 2-page list.

Give us your workflow steps & contribute to the list.

 

[agolex]

Great thread idea!

[richg101]

Sony A7Rii / Sony A7S

Neutral creative style, sharpening dialled down to -3, contrast dialled down to -3, saturation boosted +1  

Auto White Balance with 2 points downwards (towards magenta) on the wb adjustment.  (important to allow awb enough time to adjust before hitting record)

0.0EV on the camera ev meter (multi mode exposure meter).  No matter what the scene is the highlights are always recoverable.

 

 

Premiere cc - use only 32bit effects.

 

import footage into 4k timeline (even if footage is lower than 4k) - scale up if required

apply ProcAmp - brightness -8, contrast +16, saturation +25 - allows easier visibility for curves adjustment below:-

RGB Curves - start on red.  lower or raise midtones until happy with overall hue.  adjust highlights and shadows to compensate for over warm darks/highlights.  move to green and adjust, move to blue and adjust.

Apply unsharp mask (1.4px) while viewing at 100%.  adjust until it starts looking graggy.  back off to half the amount it took to get graggy.

apply and overlay of film grain or monochromatic  noise (higher res than the footage).  adjust so it matches the prominence of the footage noise in the shadows, but finer due to the higher resolution than the actual footage. - tweek contrast/brightness of noise with procamp until it sits on the footage without affecting perceived contrast or shadow levels.

Nest everything.  then apply unsharp mask at 1px as before - this glues the grain and the footage together and creates the perception that the actual footage was aqcuired at a higher res than it is.  it also provides fine detail for vimeo and youtube to bite into and retain during their compression

 

export at 2560x1440 or 4k at a very high bitrate, 2pass, h264.  100mbs target, 200mbs max - as high as I can before reaching maximum upload limit.

 

upload to vimeo.  

 

delete big file knowing I can retrieve the original from vimeo at a later date if required.

 

drag project files into external drive for future, freeing up SSD system drive..

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AaronChicago]

For me, other than importing to Premiere, it changes on every project. My default LUTs though are Cineon to Film Contrast 1 for VLog-L, and Inazuma's neutral LUT as a starting point for GH4's Natural profile.  I love Neumann's SLog 2 LUTs for FS700. Hook_Basic for BM Film Log. C100 - VisionSpace LUTs.

[M Carter]

Keep in mind - I'm still using a 2009 Mac Pro and cutting with FCP7!!! And my focus is interview quality and effectiveness, marketing effectiveness. I (think) I'm a pretty good interviewer and marketer.

For AVCHD or H264 cameras - do trims in MPEG Streamclip - batch process as prores to a useful folder structure (IE, establishing, interview, details, manufacturing, whatever - often A and B folders. Flag really killer shots. Usually I use the clip file name but may add "good" or tags for post work "NR" {needs noise reduction}, "track", "reverse", "stabilizie", etc.) So "clip#12345.mov" may be "Clip#12345-NR-retime.mov".

For 4K H265 - convert a full rez folder with Editready, conform any slowmo while converting. 

Batch the 4k down to a copy-set at 1080 (yeah, I buy a lot of drives). Will be the main edit but I'll have the 4K for tracking or reframing, etc.

I do a lot of interviews, one 30 minute clip that may get cut to 5 minutes and often scattered amongst the edit. I work through the interviews and find the most powerful/useable stuff and spread edited chunks across an interview timeline (won't be the main edit timeline, just interview storage). I usually fix a lot of "umms" and re-arrange sentences at this point and figure out the "story" and sequence. I may send the entire interview clip with timecode burn as a 480 file to the client if I'm not an expert on the product/service and ask for notes. Usually I don't want the client to see all the interview footage - they want to hold on to too much stuff that's not needed marketing-wise. A business video will not sell your product or service - it's to get them to return your damn calls or get you a new lead.

I cut interviews with a 1080 clip on the timeline, and a 4k clip above with viewing turned off. I delete one of the camera audio tracks and add the recorder track and synch it. Check for drift every 5 minutes or so, usually get a frame or two after 20 mins. So when I cut, I'm moving 2 tracks of video and 2 stereo audio tracks around.

First edit; add titles in the NLE and export as prores for timing placeholders for AE (when does the title and sub fade in and out, how long overall - this is a great trick if you're doing titles in AE and want to be sure you're seeing real-time); usually add music that's close or even choose music I feel will work. First pass at titles and lower 3rds (or tell the client the NLE titles are placeholders). For interviews, hide edits with b-roll or (for 4K on a 1080 timeline) do my punch-ins and reframing.

Some of my cameras have very good internal audio (even the 7100 and NX1 sound good using the recorder's camera out and often gets used in the final). But I usually go ahead and synch up front.

Fix any egregious image stuff, generally noise reduction but I usually light and don't need much NR passes. Do motion graphics, tracked graphics, and (I do a lot of master planned communities) get the (often supplied) drone footage and track in better skies, sunsets, lens flares, etc. (I have a gigantic sky library).

First edit to client with note that it's not graded or mixed. How complete is their first look? Depends on the client. 

Make client changes, if they're simple, do timeline grading, full-on AE work, special grading in AE, finalize titles and graphics, finalize music.

Interview audio gets a basic timeline mix for any quiet spots or spikes, and goes through protools, my usual chain is Noise Reduction or gating (usually not needed) 7-band EQ or one of my vintage EQs (I really like the t-racks vintage); often add a 1-band EQ if I run out of bands; Massey CT-5 comp or Renaissance Voice; on the master channel I may use Ozone or Analog Channel if I want that tiny push of analog in the high end. Long ago used exciters on voices, but my current mic and technique have all the sparkle I need. (But for wireless an exciter may be the thing). usually bring in the music track to see how the EQ works with it. I usually master the whole interview and replace the track in the NLE.

The interview audio work only takes a couple minutes so often it's in the first rough edit.

Final to client for approval, then upload to whomever is using it.

 

 

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, M Carter said:

I'm still using a 2009 Mac Pro and cutting with FCP7!

Same.  But I really do small fry corporate stuff for the inter webs, so it's adequate.  This year I'd like to bump up to new hardware, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I shoot 8-bit, transcode to 422, find my sound bites, edit the story with a nice music bed and nat sound.  Create the "radio" edit, then lay in my b-roll as needed.  Dress it up with some basic graphics treatment if required, then go into the color grading via FCP.  Pull my colors together with 3-way color correct, and then start a little Magic Bullet "Looks" on shots that might need extra help.

That's about it.  Still don't get too fussy about tweaking IQ too much as the storytelling is more a priority.

As it is, I expect the technical craft needs to get better to compete now-a-days, but I do think I'm adept enough at delivering solid enough stories, at this level, to get by.

[DPStewart]

Blackmagic Design Cinema and Pocket Cameras.

1. Record in Film-log RAW at native ISO. (No other settings needed.)

2, Bring into DaVinci Resolve which automatically converts it to a normalized REC.709 output. (No other settings needed.)

3. Adjust color or exposure a little bit to suit each clip. (No other settings needed.)

4. Render to DNxHD or HR 10-bit as a master file to be uploaded anywhere or encoded to small compressed files for whatever.

OKAY - I'm sort of joking...a little bit. But not really.
All those other lengthy complicated steps others listed? Yeah, I have to do all that stuff with my cameras that shoot compressed codecs too, but not with BMD RAW.

Once you go RAW it is very....VERY hard to go back.

[Bioskop.Inc]

I use FCPX & my computer just can't handle Resolve.

H264 footage is imported & changed to the standard flavour of ProRes - its 8-bit so there's absolutely no need to use HQ (no point in pretending its more than 8-Bit or pretending your footage will benefit from being put into a wrapper that can handle more than 8-Bit), in fact ProRes Proxy/LT would do just as well to keep file sizes down.

For RAW (photos or video) i've been using RPP (Raw Photo Processor 64 - for Mac) to convert the images to TIFF. RPP really does an excellent job of converting RAW files (much better than anything Adobe produces) - it has the option to tweek a lot of things & some really v.good film emulation pre-sets. Its NOT a colouring tool, its just for converstion purposes only, but boy does it do an excellent job of getting your files into a state to CC (highlight retrieval is v.good).

[DPStewart]

1 hour ago, DPStewart said:

duplicate post.

 

[AaronChicago]

Updated LUT preference for S Log 2: Cineon to Kodak 2393 (FPE) at 75% opacity.

 

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

My workflow with the Canon 1DC,  

Canon 50mm F/1.8 STM at f/1.8

1- Portrait Picture Style, +7 Sharpness!, -4 contrast, +4 Saturation, 0 Hue

2- S35 mode, ALL-I, HD H.264,

3- Ingested via USB, exported to DNxHD 10bit via MPEG STREAMCLIP (a step I still doubt the benefit of)

4- Import to Sony Vegas 13,

5- added ''Broadcast Colour'' plug in to provide better smooth highlight roll-off (does magic to any camera),

6- added ''Film Grain'' 42%. 

Basically no colour grading just Canon Portrait PS SOOC. So far I am preferring shooting/editing Portrait than C-Log.

(wanted to try sharpness at +7 all the way up, Portrait PS)

 

Workflow shooting in 4K DCI APS-H mode:

Same but:

1- Do all the edit (not colouring or correcting) straight on the Motion JPEG video files, leave a black frame between each clip

2- Render it all to ProRes LT, I see about 50% drop in file size and zero in IQ

3- Delete all the humongous MJPEG files (yet still leave them on the card til next shoot)

4- Colour and add effects to each as smooth as butter on the very fast/fluid ProRes files, which would completely bug down my PC if done to the original MJPEG files.

5- Render all to 4K H.264 for viewing on TVs/YT, using a high bitrate of +200mbps 

 

If the job isn't a fast turn-around I'd transcode all the card files to ProRes LT before doing anything & deleting the originals -> go from there. 

 

Notice in s35 mode I transcode to larger files to feel safe about colouring, and in 4K mode I transcode to smaller files to save space. Ironic. Wonder if the H.264 -> ProRes is just a waste of my workflow time and hard drive space!

 

[Andrew Reid]

Very nice Ebrahim. Silky smooth and so film like.

So you're not shooting Canon LOG?

[wolf33d]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Very nice Ebrahim. Silky smooth and so film like.

So you're not shooting Canon LOG?

Interesting. Sometimes if the colours are good right of the camera why bother with log except if you want a very specific look. 
Ebrahim, were you not complaining so much about lack of CLOG on 1DXm2 and saying you hate the fact that only CLOG would give it a non sharpened look? 
And now you shoot portrait sharpness +7?
Very nice looking image btw

[IronFilm]

My workflow process (works with any camera. Is universal!):

1) Hand over media cards to editor.

2) Go home.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Very nice Ebrahim. Silky smooth and so film like.

So you're not shooting Canon LOG?

There are three reasons I am not shooting C-LOG

1- Don't want to get attached, so I won't miss it later (1DXII). This is the biggest.

2- I LOVE the colour science of Canon picture Styles, they're so filmic and just, well, nice, we love them since 5DII days. LOVE portrait for beauty/glamour (shouldn't have used it here) it actually elevates skin gamma area on the curve (assumes that people want brighter skin, bit racist) and shifts red towards pink, dials down orange to avoid yellow skin) and Faithful, the standard most Canon-looking colour science (neutral with warm/red canon signature tint). 

If I'd used C-LOG I'd have caught the blown out information (higher DR) but wouldn't be able to get this identical Portrait/Faithful colour furmula in the grade.

Won't really miss C-LOG that much except on wide landscapes, of which I don't do much really. 

8 hours ago, wolf33d said:

Interesting. Sometimes if the colours are good right of the camera why bother with log except if you want a very specific look. 
Ebrahim, were you not complaining so much about lack of CLOG on 1DXm2 and saying you hate the fact that only CLOG would give it a non sharpened look? 
And now you shoot portrait sharpness +7?
Very nice looking image btw

I do know the irony, just trying to get out of my style. I am specifically shooting with PS and sharpness for the 1DXII. So far I am loving it,

The Sharpness, sadly even setting the PS to 0, there's still SOME left when compared to C-Log

(if you used ML there was a feature called absolute zero sharpness which does exactly what C-Log does vs 0),

not a huge difference but it is there. I hate I won't be able to get zero sharpness with 1DXII, hence the mad +7 experiments street shooting. Looks good actually, waay better than the 5D internal sharpening we know, perhaps due to the higher resolution information it's being applied on, not much halos/ugliness. 

 

***One thing I got from Canon source is that, the engineers frequently change how much digital sharpening is applied in zero setting (and subsequently the rest). The 1DX, 5D mark II and MK III and original 7D, 550D, 600D, 60D, 70D, all have zero sharpness at zero (or very close), while the newer models zero = +1 on the older ones, these are the 650D, 700D, 750/60D, 80D, 7DII, these are confirmed, but sadly, 1DXII seems to follow that change based on the Prolost footage I've seen, there's +1 look at 0. 

The increased sharpening made the rebels similar to d5300/d5500 sharpness people were complaining about, but it shouldn't have been brought up the line-up as we know what resolution vs sharpening is. 

Some more crazy +7 sharpness 4K -> 2K SOOC Faithful. 

Filmic? no, too sharp and halo-ing, but nice, without grading (just film grain & downsample), just nice colour under any condition, hard to say about any other camera than Canon except Nikon.

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

My workflow process (works with any camera. Is universal!):

1) Hand over media cards to editor.

2) Go home.

Where is the FUN in that?!

[AaronChicago]

I'm with you Ebrahim. I never got used to C Log. It's caught between Log and REC709. I've heard it gives a slight DR bump but couldn't ever tell by eyeballing. I'd be curious to check out the C Log 2 that's in the C300ii if they add it to future cameras.

[wolf33d]

The only thing I like about log is the fact that software makers can give us some profiles (Filmconvert...) so you get a good image then. Harder if you start from portrait style and so on. 

Your next images look indeed too sharp. 

I can't imagine the reason why those Canon sucker could not give us the option to remove 100% the added sharpening? I mean I am fine if they put the original sharpening to +100 to match D5500 or whatever, but at least they should give the option to set a proper 0. 
That's absolute non sense. 

Sometimes I really wonder what is in the head of those Sony / Canon / .. product managers and engineers.

[Asmundma]

I used Vegas on PC before I moved to Macs 5 years ago. Then used Premiere until FCPX came along. After a while I switch to FCPX. I love the fast editing with the magnetic time line. You can consult the professional SOHO Editors on Vimeo for a better understanding.

 

I shoot mainly Sony cameras now, however have had Canon – only 1dx for the moment for shooting stills (sport).

 

1.     Use different PPs on Sony, depending of the situation.

2.     Import footage directly into FCPX (Sony’s codecs). No need for extra intermediate steps.

3.     Use FCPX tagging features to clips if a bigger project to ease finding the footage when editing (not necessary)

4.     You can create optimized footage in FCPX (ProRes) and all is handled in the background (and proxies as well id you need). I don’t do it much as the computer handles the files without any issues, even with effects on the timeline (iMac 5k). Only use ProRes if the footage comes from ShoGun.

5.     Adjust the clips if necessary to have a neutral look, either with FCPX color panel, or the very nice Color Finale plugin (which kind of give Resolve editing features directly in FCPX) (of coerce Resolve is more advanced). May use a LUT if its sLog2 or 3.

6.     Stabilize the footage if needed, either with internal tool in FCPX or the Lock & Load from CoreMelt. With this you can even do tracking directly in FCPX.

7.     Put a grade layer on top of all footage – to give the final look. Then you only do this once for the sequence and not on each clip. Very handy.

8.     Alternatively do a roundtrip to Resolve via XML, but it more cumbersome and I mostly can do what I want directly into FCPX.

9.     Adjust and fix audio, use plugins – for example Waves, Fabfilter, Izotope or Logic plugins, etc. Alternatively do a roundtrip to Logic X via XML for more complicated mixes. I very used to DAWs as I play guitars.

10.  Render the movie, either via disk or you can go publish directly to Vimeo or YT. Rendering is very fast from FCPX – it beats Premiere ( at leaset the test on YT shows this). I have not seen a big difference making a ProRes and then upload that to Vimeo.

11.  I use a Raid5 disk and backup that up to the Cloud. 

[jase]

Shooting on a RX100 IV

1. Settings in camera:

Take any PP and set Gamma to Cine1 and Color Mode to Pro. Use a Kelvin-based Whitebalance since Sonys like to go off as often reported here. I found myself having two profiles on the RX100, one with 100p & 5600k Kelvin for daylight usage and one with 25p & 3300k Kelvin for lowlight / tungsten.

Configure the lensring so that you can focus with it, use the akward handle on top for zooming. Oh and btw, set the zoom speed to fast, it is the only way for not having akward movements. If you dont need 100/120p and you are willing to sacrifice a bit of FoV then set the stabilisation to Intelligent Active (not available in 4k nor in 100/120p) - amazing stabilisation, not GX80 level but very close.

I also love to use a Tiffen Ultra Contrast 3 filter on that lens, but then you have to be very careful in daylight.

2. Postprocessing:

I admit that I love FilmConvert and use it quite frequently. It has a dedicated RX100 IV profile that matches the above mentioned settings. Simply apply the profile, adjust shadows & highlights to your likings - with the profile the shadows are normally arround 20IRE, in my opinion one can pull them quite often a bit down without loosing detail there to get more contrast. I rarely touch the mids and sometimes adjust the highlights. When shooting with the profile, faces can be a bit reddish, but FilmConvert evens that out.

For the RX100 I like the KD P400 Ptra stock without any grain. Sometimes using the exposure switch gives also a nice touch to the image.

Example: