Click on any phrase to play the video from that point.
[CS6]
This is a video about Adobe SpeedGrade CS6 Looks.
This is actually what's front and center of the product
so let's have a closer look
at what you can do with the Looks in the application.
So I've got a project loaded here
and it's sort of flat right now.
So it's shot correctly and everything is great,
but nothing has been done yet
to make it look distinct.
So one of the things you can do, pretty much right away,
is actually turn to the presets that are shipped with the application
and then just, really simply, click on it.
And once you're in that mode,
you can just use the arrow keys
to go to the next one on the list and then
yet another one, where you just
go through and see if it's taking you a direction that you like.
It's not meant to do the grading for you.
It's really just giving you ideas as to what you can do
in terms of just the general creative input.
And we've got other ones here--for example,
if I want to see what I can do with just
looks that are desaturating the picture in different ways.
This one is actually depending on what I need to do with the materials--
certainly an interesting one, the desaturation mix I like a lot.
I've got stylized ones like "Take me back to the '60s".
That's pretty much the same thing, but a bit more washed out.
And I think it, pretty much, immediately reminds you
of some stuff that's been shot on film at that time.
Here's a technique called the 3-Strip,
which might look awkward to you
but depending on what you need to express with the picture--
if he's not feeling so well in a second from now--
that might be something you were going for.
And then, finally, there are a couple nice ones
that just quickly let you experience
what's happening if you change the overall temperature--
or just specific temperature to midtones
or just to the shadows, just giving you a general direction--
if this is making sense in terms of developing the picture.
It's really--think of it as developing the picture,
and then you've got to refine it and do the actual grade.
So if you like either one of them--
and I think I kind of like the idea of going with the '60s look here
--then you can take it to the next level.
So I'm just quickly going to hit Enter
to confirm that this is now applied to the shot in the timeline.
You can always use zero on the Numb Pad to go
back and forth, to see what it looked like before.
And then, if you turn over here to the left
where we have the Layer Stack of the application
you can also immediately work with the
Influence slider to change the opacity of each layer.
So this, most importantly, has just this
Effects filter put on top of the Layer Stack
and the preset is already toned down to 70 percent--
or .7 in opacity--
and I'll just quickly bring that further up.
I'll go further down and see if I like it better--
if that particular fact is going to see more impact.
I'm gong to actually go for a bit more
because I like it better.
And then you can look at the picture like
what else do I need to do to refine this?
So most importantly, I can turn to my primary layer
and just take care of getting the blacks to where I need it to be,
whatever production setting for me, as a standard
or what I need to have with this shot, creatively--I can do so.
I'm going to make it a bit more punchy--
just build some more contrast.
I'm going to add a bit more light to it.
And what I'd like, here, is to actually refocus the attention
and just really make sure that
we're just looking at it right away once this picture's coming up.
Right now, that's not necessarily the case
so let's use a classic technique for that.
I'm going to turn into the Mask section of the application.
It's just really right next to the Look tab.
and click on one of our presets--in this case,
I'm going to add a Vignette.
And we've got this nice tool here
that allows me to quickly just change
either the overall size or add a bit more feathering.
And you've got tools to fine tune that.
If you prefer a specific kind of preset
for doing the feathering, you can certainly go into this list.
I'm going to go for Smooth, as I tend to like that best
for just a classic vignette.
And I'm also not going to use a vignette like it comes with the preset.
I'm actually going to stretch it out so I really center it around him
and try to bring more attention to the guy in the picture.
So here it is.
I'm going to add another primary
and in this section that says Mask and Alpha--
the first 3 are about the Mask.
And if I do nothing, it's actually going to apply
the grade on that layer--just to the overall picture.
If I decide to go for Inside--
let's just quickly do this so you get the idea.
And this is not what I want to do, creatively,
but you're going to see that, actually,
the change in temperature is only happening inside the Mask.
If you look towards the left there, it's most prominent.
It's not affecting that.
So in this case--a vignette--
I'll just click on Outside
and turn to my Offset tool here,
and then you just tone that down--
a bit more--
and here's the cool thing: once I'm there, I can obviously
go back into the Mask and just--
once the grading is on, it's actually a lot easier to say,
hey, I want to put it a little bit over there
or make it denser,
really refocus a bit more, so the steel to the left is not that
much apparent anymore--whatever you need to do.
Also, obviously, I can add more feathering to make it go
softer towards the outside--and here we are.
Now, as with all the tools in the Layer Stack,
you can always turn on and off each individual part of it.
And you can see what this does to my picture--
let me quickly loop that and just play that.
So it's interesting, what it does.
This is the original picture, right?
And this is what happened just with adding a couple of layers
and just really giving it sort of a distinctive feeling that's
going to express this what I want to look creatively.
and refocus the attention toward the guy in the center.
Now a couple of other things are worth knowing about
what we do with Looks in Speedgrade CS6.
For one thing, SpeedGrade is totally a Workflow tool.
So if you need to communicate this to somebody else you're working with,
you can just easily click on Control + P and save that as a Look file.
So if someone else is working on that project
on another work station using SpeedGrade,
you don't need to send the project--you can actually
really just send that Look.
And also, what's really cool about it--and let me quickly do this for you--
I can actually delete this timeline.
It just opened something else from a familiar project
that's from, pretty much, within the same realm
in terms of cameras used, lighting, et cetera.
So different style, different kind of project--
but I now come back to my Look section
and resuse--repurpose--that very same Look on that material.
And obviously I can come back--
and that's the whole purpose of making it just Metadata--
I can come back and say okay--on this material,
as we had a bit more contrast in in the original picture,
let's actually not go up with the gain that much.
As I'm always presented, just with the
sliders in the very position I left it
when I originally designed the Look,it's super easy to refine then.
The same thing goes now for something like
oh, wait a second--that filter was great in the other picture.
It seems a little bit overdone on this one,
as there is more metallic surfaces in it
so I'll just bring that down.
And you can see how easy it is to make these things work
or, for example, if the vignette is a little bit too much--
or the shape needs to change--you just come back
and just make all these changes,
as eventually, it's all just Metadata.
So for this kind of shot, for example, I would much prefer
to have a lot more feathering, and the grading's a little bit too intense
so I'm going to come back and just really bring the offset up a little bit.
So I have a really good vignette on this one--so this is without it.
This is with the vignette, and this is how easily you can repurpose the Looks--
even on a completely different project.
Now finally, it's also super simple
to export just to a Lookup table.
And we've got 2 cool things going, actually,
within the Adobe realm of products--
so AfterEffects without conversion--
just take the Look file, and you can just apply that
from within the Lookup table section.
And Photoshop would do the same thing,
but you can also make this work for other products.
If you hover a Look--which I'm doing right here on this one,
and if you click on the "E" button, it will actually
open the Export menu.
And you can see this goes deep, so I can actually
export to pretty much all the tools out there
that would accept the 1/UR 3D Lookup table that are used for production.
And the use for that could be that
once you have sort of the signature look for your production,
you can put it even in a hardware device
and just use it for applying that on your
Preview monitor without ever baking it in with your actual recording.
So it's a nice way of connecting the Colourist
with the DP, with the DIT.
So you've got Workflow, instead of just saying
this is the thing that comes in at the end and until then
people don't actually see what they're doing.
So this was a quick introduction as to how to work with
Looks in Adobe SpeedGrade CS6.
[Adobe]
