Linear Color Workflow in AE7, Part 5

Holy crap, film! Try this:

1. Download Marcie.
2. Import her into a new After Effects 7.0 project.
3. Set the project to 32 bits per channel (float)
4. Set your Project Working Space to Linear Adobe RGB
5. Select Marcie and File > Interpret Footage > Main
6. Click on More Options
7. Under Conversion Method, select Kodak 5218 ICC Profile
8. Hit OK
9. Hit OK
10. Drag Marcie to the Create Comp button
11. With the new comp's View active, View > Proof Setup > Kodak 2383 Theater
12. Select View > Proof Colors (switch it from unchecked to checked)

You're now working with a Cineon file in linear, scene-referred float, and accurately previewing how your work will looked filmed out on Kodak Vision film stock.

When you want to output back to log:

1. Create an output comp that contains your linear Marcie comp
2. Set Proof Colors to Unmanaged for this comp's view (Proof Colors should be checked)
   
3. Apply the Color Profile Converter effect to the layer
4. Leave Input Profile set to Project Working Space
5. Set Output Profile to DPX Scene - Standard Camera Film
6. Very important: Set Intent to Absolute Colorimetric

Output this comp to a Cineon sequence and it should match the original Marcie source.

You've now fully round-tripped a color managed, linear floating point film compositing pipeline. I don't know of any other compositing application that ships with this capability, "high end" or not!

But wait, there's more! Want to bake this film-look LUT into some NTSC video dailies?

1. Add linear Marcie to a video output comp (NTSC res)
2. This comp should also have Proof Colors on and set to Unmanaged
   
3. Select Layer > New > Adjustment Layer
4. Apply the Color Profile Converter effect to the layer
5. Leave Input Profile set to Project Working Space
6. Set Output Profile to DPX Scene - Standard Camera Film
7. Very important: Set Intent to Absolute Colorimetric
8. Apply a second Color Profile Converter
9. Set Input Profile to DPX Theater Preview - Standard Print Film
10. Set Output Profile to SMPTE-C

Smoove. Don't believe me? Download the project file (316kB zip). This workflow is compatible with Part 1 and, of course, Part 2.

Linear Color Workflow in AE7, Part 4

What goes up must come down, and what was input must be output.

In Part 1 we discussed converting your sRGB footage to your AE7 project's linear working space via the Color Profile Converter effect. Thanks to the ICC display compensation, these linear images look correct on your calibrated monitor — but what happens when it's time to render?

Once again, it's Color Profile Converter to the rescue. What I like to do is create a comp called something like "Video Output," and in this comp I create an Adjustment Layer with the the Color Profile Converter effect set to Input: Project Working Space, Output: sRGB (or whatever the input was).

The first thing you'll notice when you do this is that your image looks too bright. The display compensation doesn't know that you've gammafied your image, so it's still correcting as if it was linear. You're double-gammaed! The solution is to go to the View menu and set Proof Setup to Unmanaged, and then turn Proof Colors on. This confusing two-step turns off ICC display compensation for this comp, and now your image should look correct once again (although without the benefit of any color management at all).

This Proof Colors setting is remembered per comp, but if it ever gets messed up, just remember that linear comps need Proof Colors off, and vid comps need it on.

Now you can apply any last color corrections that you may wish to do in vid space, such as the three-way color balancer, and then output to your usual formats. You've succesfully round-tripped video footage though a linear, floating-point color pipeline in After Effects!

AE7 on fxguide

Hear Steve Kilisky and Dave Simons discuss After Effects 7.0 on vfxguide's podcast. They discuss the new features and touch on HDR, but in a subsequent episode yours truly will be picking up where they left off and getting into some of the nitty griity of working in linear floating point in AE7. I'm a podcast addict and excited to finally be on one!

Fxguide's podcast is one of my favorites and an excellent knowledge resource. I highly recommend you subscribe (iTunes link) and check out the archives, especially the back-to-back episodes on the effects in Batman Begins.

HDR101

Brian Maffitt of Total Training has dedicated Episode 3 of his Guru Lounge Podcast to AE7's new 32bpc mode. For those new to float, this is a great overview.