How To Get Alexa Grade

[Snowbro]

I know there is a "Production Camera" LUT by Canon if you have CLOG3? Also one for the Magic Lantern on the old 5D cameras. Is there any emulation LUT for Cinestyle/Neutral etc? I primarily shoot on the 1DX II in 4k & Cinestyle. I was messing around with curves in Premiere on some EOS R 4K IPB footage from NY, trying to quickly get closer to their (Arri Alexa) color science for fun. Don't know much about it, but it looks like no magenta in skin tones and more yellows in highlights? I put a little red in shadows too with no color in deep blacks/whites, no WB adjustments. 

First img is right out of camera with just Faithful profile with contrast, sharpness, saturation turned down. Didn't adjust basics, just color 

 

[webrunner5]

First one to me looks like a Red camera, second like a Canon for what it is worth. Steel Blue versus Orangish.

[Snowbro]

Canon always has a strong magenta in skintones. 

I read that Arri desaturates highlights like a watercolor picture in a sense.

[kye]

Some time ago I compared the skintones from the ARRI LF and C200 demo videos and the ARRI skintones were on the line or to the yellow side and the Canon ones were spread between the line and magenta reference point.

[kaylee]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Some time ago I compared the skintones from the ARRI LF and C200 demo videos and the ARRI skintones were on the line or to the yellow side and the Canon ones were spread between the line and magenta reference point.

kye, what do you mean by "the line"?

[mercer]

30 minutes ago, kaylee said:

kye, what do you mean by "the line"?

I think he means the skin line on the Vectorscope. 

[Snowbro]

I used some software to convert basic canon 709 to Arri 709, the LUT is "watercoloring" the highlights like what I see in an Alexa. It obviously isn't going to be perfect, but I think i'll use that as a layer in a color grade. I did this with that converted LUT + a color match from an Alexa color chart as a second layer. WB still not adjusted, a bit magenta/blue to begin with. 

Here is 709 converted to Alexa Log-C + Linny LUT

709 > Log C > Amira709

[kye]

8 hours ago, kaylee said:

kye, what do you mean by "the line"?

 

8 hours ago, mercer said:

I think he means the skin line on the Vectorscope. 

Yep.. that's right, sorry I should have said.  Specifically the line in Resolve.  Theres a bit of a debate about if it's the skin colour line or just an indicator, but the point is that skin tones actually vary wildly in hue depending on lighting conditions.  The idea that skin tones should be on the line are shot down pretty quickly on the grading forums.

The top row are from the ARRI video, and the bottom row are from other videos that got good reception.

Here are a bunch of vector scopes from the ARRI video - notice the highly, highly, highly controlled skin tones!

These are a couple from the C200 demo video (IIRC) and note the more spread out line, and also that the line is between the indicator line and the Red reference box, and even slightly beyond the red in certain areas. 

[kaylee]

wow, @kye, awesome~! thank you for the visual aides!!! i get it now ?

edit: ykno, ive been looking at arri footage for awhile now, but this is eye opening

> their skin tones are super homogeneous... almost too flat...? there must be a lot of magic going on to put those hues all right on that line, and i get why they do it, but...

the people in the arri shots look somewhat... mannequinesque. like, can you imagine them blushing? they are kinda wax like ?

[kaylee]

heres a duane hanson sculpture for comparison, but ironically these statues look more lifelike than those arri shots 

[Sage]

1 hour ago, kye said:

 

skin tones actually vary wildly in hue depending on lighting conditions

That's right - it depends on the light. Imagine a magenta neon light - its got a limited spectrum. That the LF promo video is on the line is a sign that they are using a rich, full spectrum light in the studio - no doubt the Arri Skypanel. Sunlight and Halogen are relatively smooth spectrum, and an accurately balanced Alexa will place on the line; off-the-self leds and flourescents are a different story.

[Deadcode]

6 hours ago, kye said:

 

Yep.. that's right, sorry I should have said.  Specifically the line in Resolve.  Theres a bit of a debate about if it's the skin colour line or just an indicator, but the point is that skin tones actually vary wildly in hue depending on lighting conditions.  The idea that skin tones should be on the line are shot down pretty quickly on the grading forums.

The top row are from the ARRI video, and the bottom row are from other videos that got good reception.

Here are a bunch of vector scopes from the ARRI video - notice the highly, highly, highly controlled skin tones!

These are a couple from the C200 demo video (IIRC) and note the more spread out line, and also that the line is between the indicator line and the Red reference box, and even slightly beyond the red in certain areas. 

Actually it's easy to even out the skintones. Just use hue vs hue curve with 4-5 adjustment points between red and yellow.

Dave Dugdale created an awesome tutorial about color matching between cameras and it's worth every penny. He also talks about the thickness of the skin tone "blob" what you can see above, and how to match it

[kye]

5 hours ago, kaylee said:

wow, @kye, awesome~! thank you for the visual aides!!! i get it now ?

edit: ykno, ive been looking at arri footage for awhile now, but this is eye opening

> their skin tones are super homogeneous... almost too flat...? there must be a lot of magic going on to put those hues all right on that line, and i get why they do it, but...

the people in the arri shots look somewhat... mannequinesque. like, can you imagine them blushing? they are kinda wax like ?

It's definitely a 'look' but as @Deadcode says it's quite achievable with the hue vs hue curve to push the skintones together a bit and lessen the hue spread. Also worth paying attention to is the saturation as that's quite controlled too. It's worth pulling a still into Resolve and with a tiny window having a look around the face to see which bits make up the overall vectorscopes above.

Personally, when I first saw them I was quite surprised at how yellow and processed they looked and while I've gotten used to the look since then it's still quite a strong look for my eyes.

4 hours ago, Sage said:

That's right - it depends on the light. Imagine a magenta neon light - its got a limited spectrum. That the LF promo video is on the line is a sign that they are using a rich, full spectrum light in the studio - no doubt the Arri Skypanel. Sunlight and Halogen are relatively smooth spectrum, and an accurately balanced Alexa will place on the line; off-the-self leds and flourescents are a different story.

Apart from lighting I think that the hue can vary depending on the person too  Sick or not there's lots of variation.

[androidlad]

1 hour ago, kye said:

It's definitely a 'look' but as @Deadcode says it's quite achievable with the hue vs hue curve to push the skintones together a bit and lessen the hue spread. Also worth paying attention to is the saturation as that's quite controlled too. It's worth pulling a still into Resolve and with a tiny window having a look around the face to see which bits make up the overall vectorscopes above.

Personally, when I first saw them I was quite surprised at how yellow and processed they looked and while I've gotten used to the look since then it's still quite a strong look for my eyes.

Apart from lighting I think that the hue can vary depending on the person too  Sick or not there's lots of variation.

Screen grab from online video will never show anywhere near an accurate representation of colour, I wouldn't put them in vectorscope and use as critical reference.

[kye]

28 minutes ago, androidlad said:

Screen grab from online video will never show anywhere near an accurate representation of colour, I wouldn't put them in vectorscope and use as critical reference.

Who said screen grab?

You seem very quick to point fingers at other people here, so before doing it maybe you should learn to pay more attention.

You might learn something.

[androidlad]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Who said screen grab?

You seem very quick to point fingers at other people here, so before doing it maybe you should learn to pay more attention.

You might learn something.

It was totally screen grab, based on empirical evidence from comparing with the original master, I don't care/need what you say. Of course your colours are way off.

[kye]

1 hour ago, androidlad said:

It was totally screen grab, based on empirical evidence from comparing with the original master, I don't care/need what you say. Of course your colours are way off.

Have a nice life dickhead.

Blocked.

[kye]

So anyway, if you were to download those videos and pull them into Resolve then they're the vectorscopes you'd get.  It's worth looking at the GHAlexa LUTs from @Sage to see what they do to footage too.  My top impressions are the knee in the highlights, the overall saturation, and the skin tones.  I suspect that if you watch a bunch of test videos shot on Alexa (eg, maybe lens tests or something that's not too heavily graded) then you'll start to see similarities between them and train your eye