Color Correcting On A SYMPHONY vs A DAVINCI

(From The Yahoo Avid User's Group)

QUESTION
The first time I saw color correction on an AVID SYMPHONY
I was blown away. But once I stepped into a DAVINCI color correction session, another lightbulb lit up. It went way beyond what I saw on a Symphony. Don't get me wrong, it could be the DaVinci operator was better than the Symphony operator.
How would you compare the two in your professional opinion?

ANSWER
Likely it was the DaVinci operator WAS more skilled AND they had access to the full contrast range of the film coming from the TELECINE, not to mention 10-bit COLOR SPACE.

In telecine, you can actually increase or decrease the actual amount of light being pushed through the negative in addition to the electronic enhancements. That is a HUGE advantage.

As far as the tools for color correction, Symphony actually has MORE tools than a DaVinci. But many DaVinci colorists will tell you that those extra tools are not needed to make a good grade.

Also, the manual interface of a DaVinci is obviously superior to the limited mouse-based control on a Symphony.

Color correcting DV footage is a problem. You can make much of it look better, but because the DV format doesn't contain as much color information to begin with, there's less room to play when you do need to fix it. It's similar to the jump between 8-bit video corrections and 10-bit log (or higher) corrections.

All media on non-DS type AVIDs are captured in 8-bit YCrCb space (which I prefer to type incorrectly as YUV, but bare with me). Then, when you do color correction with ANY of the tabs/tools, that media is translated to 10-bit RGB space then rounded off and translated back to 8-bit YUV.

So it doesn't really matter which tools you use -- you're really working in RGB and ending up in YUV.

GAMMA is that part of the curve between white and black.
There is also a GAMMA SLIDER in THE HSL HUE OFFSETS interface.

So how does one quantify the differences in processing between THE HSL INTERFACE and THE CURVES?

So far, I just qualify them as one's subtler and the other is a little more bold in it's effect.

The difference between using the Curves and using the sliders in the HSL area are that in the Curves you are able to set up multiple tonal ranges and move them very subtly in relationship to each other, isolating VERY particular regions of the picture. With the sliders in HSL you only have three tonal ranges that are predefined. Basically, the lows, mids and highs.

This is the reason the Curves are the best place to isolate the deep shadows, keeping them nice and black, and still have an affect on the dark skin tones.

It's all a matter of control.

Symphony allows you to actually control NINE different tonal ranges with sliders as opposed to the three in the rest of the product line. You can do MORE in Symphony without resorting to the Curves.

The Curves are a great place to rescue detail when there are tonal ranges that need to be isolated and affected without affecting areas that are very similar tonal ranges.

What you have to watch out for when you work in curves is banding and posterizing. Make sure your skin tones stay looking smooth and natural.

Class dismissed.