RED Color Correction in 1920 x 1080

Sridhar Kumar K · April 20, 2013

Hi:

I shot by footage in RED MX. I brought that to FCP in 1920 x 1080.

For color correcting, I am planning to send from FCP to Apple Color. I am hearing from people that it would be best if I use the raw file 4K instead of 1920 x 1080 footage.

If I go with the 1920 x 1080 FCP file and not the raw footage, will the color correction look good? Is it a noticeable difference between color correcting RAW file and 1920 x 1080 file.

Mine is a 25 minute short film. Main purpose of this film is to send it to film festivals. So I am assuming my projection is going to be a regular theatre and not 4K projection.

Thanks

Tony Muna · April 21, 2013

I'm no expert but the last time I colored in FCP on transcoded files, it came out with noticeable blocks in the shadows. Tried both transcoded redlogfilm and rg3/rc3.

Since I don't have cs5.5 and up, the way i avoid tjose artifacts, I cut in fcp and export the XML back to rcx or davinci lite.

Would also love to hear what expert recommend since my experience is purely amateur.

Mike Lary · April 22, 2013

By transcoding and dropping your resolution you're throwing away a ridiculous amount of data. You should always grade from the raw data. If that's not possible at least do a primary correction in REDcineX before you transcode.

Paul Salmons · April 23, 2013

If your shooting MX and editing off the proxies (not transcoded files) if I'm not mistaken the files will automatically link up to the raws as 2k files. I have never done this but I recently did some research on the whole online process and I'm pretty sure I read that.

Phil Rhodes · April 23, 2013

My approach would be to transcode the red files to some 10-bit, 4:4:4 high-bitrate intermediate codec with a nice flat technical grade at the target output resolution, and work from that. I should probably point out that I'd only do that because I take a pretty negative view of red and everything they've ever touched, and I'd want to get away from dependence on their workflow and their software absolutely as soon as possible.