Customer Reviews

The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I originally wrote this review for my blog and decided to post it here since I think it'll help potential buyers decide if this book is for them. Enjoy...

First question: Is The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction worth reading?

Answer: Yes! Absolutely.

Second question: Is it targeted at newbies or advanced users?

Yes. To both.

The first two thirds of the book "Primary Color Correction" and "Secondary Color Correction" deals with the fundamentals of our toolsets: monitoring, understanding waveform monitors and vectorscopes, balancing shots, vignettes, HSL isolations, and more. While this part of the book can be safely skipped over by more advanced users to whom all that info is second nature, Steve Hullfish does a nice job of surveying how different software apps approach the same concepts. And when a particular software package has a unique tool for achieving a particular task, he breaks it down for the reader.

The upshot: Even if you're experienced colorist on a Symphony you'll walk away with a strong understanding how other software apps work and what you might be missing (or what advantages you may have that you didn't realize). My advice, advanced users should at least skim through these parts paying particular attention when Steve takes a moment to pull a quote from the working professionals he features in the last third of the book. There are some great tips in these sections - especially on how different colorists set up multi-display scopes to help them nail black balance or tweak color values. I ended up changing some of my displays and found a few new setups that I really like.

Overall, the first two parts are not a dumbed down discussion. While Steve starts by laying down the ground-work emphasizing monitoring and external scopes (the latter being a deep discussion that permeates the entire book - which I very much appreciate), he seems to anticipate some of his readers finding material redundant and thankfully breaks out basic terminology to sidebars. Appropriately, those early chapters work through the subject matter in the same order a colorist will typically approach their problem-solving.

The final third of the book "Pro Colorists" is likely where the advanced users will want to begin. Why? That answer leads us to our third question...

Third Question: What makes this book different than other color correction books (or DVDs)?

The soul of this book is contained in the last few chapters and on its supplemental DVD. Steve sits with over a dozen accomplished, professional colorists and puts them in front of a common software color grading platform, Apple's Color (at the time called Final Touch HD), with a Tangent control surface. He gives them all the same set of footage (also provided on a DVD), presses 'record' on a DV camera and grills the colorists about the approach they are each taking to color correcting those images. The result is the author presenting up to three colorists approaching the same shot using different techniques. Or the same technique being used on different shots. Usually in the words of those colorists. It's a great education.

Even better are the transcripts Steve provides on the DVD that didn't make it into the book but he thought were informative. I've just started to read those and already I've gotten some new ideas about different approaches to common challenges.

Another thing that differentiates this book is its largely software-agnostic approach. Color, Avid Symphony, After Effects, Color Finesse, even Photoshop are all featured in the first 2 Chapters alone. Where interfaces are similar, Steve picks a software package and follows it through - pointing out where users of other apps might find things different. I suspect that if iMovie had a color correction module Steve would have a found a place to feature it.

Fourth Question: Any final thoughts?

This is clearly a book about concepts, not tools. As much as it necessarily covers the How To of working with color correction software, it's the Why Do that is emphasized.

In fact, Why Do is the whole point of the book.

Read it. Live it. Learn it.

Overall a well written book, that covers most of the important aspect of color correction. However, I gave it only 2 stars as the book does have some deficiencies.

1) The viewing environment used when color correcting is of utmost importance - yet this book gives only a very cursory coverage of monitor set up and viewing environment. Instead, the author points to a pervious book of his for this vital information.

2) This book has nearly no discussion of gamuts, color spaces, color profiles, LUTs and other related topics, all of which are critical. In fact, the reason I purchased the book was anticipating an adequate coverage of these topics. I would have returned it, but missed Amazon's return window.

3) The book only mentions Luster once in passing. Other than that there is absolutely no discussion of digital color timing for film. As such, this book should be titled "The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction for Video".

In short, while the book does a good job of covering certain tools and a very nice in depth discussion of secondary color correction, it misses to many important topics that I believe should be included in such a book.

I disagree with the reviewer who said that the book claims that it's impossible to color correct with Adobe products. The MAIN readers of the first color correction book by the author were After Effects users, many of whom followed the advice of noted After Effects gurus, Trish and Chris Meyer.

American Cinematographer magazine's reviewer said this about the book: "likely to become the definitive text on the subject. Sensibly organized, lavishly illustrated and varied in perspective, it's a dense but highly readable summary of the current state of the art."

The cool thing about the book is that it is NOT platform or product specific. The author sat in on sessions with more than a dozen colorists around the country as they all graded the same images. The book walks the reader through those corrections from the viewpoint of these master colorists, instead of from the solitary viewpoint of the author. That's the value of the book. You are literally sitting in with people who have graded TV shows like "24" and "Desperate Housewives" and "LA Law" and "48 Hours" and movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Spiderman" or those beautiful NFL Films.

This is a book for anyone using any software product. It is a book that is more about "why" to do the things you need to do than about "how" to do them with a specific piece of software.

I 'searched inside this book' and after reading the table of contents and the first few pages I decided to buy it. I had my reservations - not because of what I had read in the intro, but by the last few DV books I had purchased on Amazon. I am, I suppose, something in between a novice and an intermediate editor, and I edit on Sony Vegas Pro. This I have found puts me in a rather awkward category. In the past, all of the 'how to' books I've read have been far too basic or software specific.

What I really appreciated was the tone and pitch of the book. Most of the time, I find introductory books condescending - they seem to assume your inexperience equals a lack of intelligence (and corny jokes are unbelievable).

Before I read the Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction, I new more or less nothing about colour correction - my former corrections, dare I say it, were largely made using the contrast/brightness control - but this book made perfect sense to me. Steve Hullfish writes enthusiastically and encouragingly, and the book I believe would suit novices and pro's alike. The clear definitions in the margins are an excellent idea and are perhaps the key to the book's ability to transcend the novice/pro divide. If you understand the terminology move on, if you don't the explanations are right there.

Although the book does not give examples from Vegas. It explains colorist parlance in useful analogies, and offers suggestions about where to look for color correction tools in NLE's other than Avid and Apple Color. By in large, I found Vegas had most of the tools, scopes etc, and although I love Vegas, after seeing what Apple Color can provide, I do have a little 'application' envy.

One last thing... here's a small anicdote: I recently made a short film on HDV and showed a couple of people who liked it and before I new it, I was being mentored by a large post production studio. I asked them for some advice on corrections. I ended up sitting down with their senior colourists, watching the film on the big screen and talking shop with them for a couple of hours. We were talking about masks, vignettes, secondaries, colour casts, gamma and all sorts of things that, to be honest, I new nothing about until I read this book. It seems there's no substitute for experience, but because this book is full of advice from colourists with many years of experience, why not learn from your mistakes before you make them!

Awesome!

Someone once told me, "The best way to learn how to color is to watch someone doing it." Gaining access to someone at that level can be difficult (and expensive). At that time, I wished I had this book. The author puts you in the room with some of the best colorists working today. It's interesting to see how each colorist approaches a scene differently and how the elements of the picture can motivate the color. For instance, one colorist may see football as the subject, another might be moved by the gritty dirt smeared over the side of it.

Whenever I need inspiration, I turn to the last chapter in the book, "Creating Looks." This book gave me new direction that I hadn't considered in the past and has helped me build my own "PowerGrade" library. It is by far the best book that I have found on the subject both technically and artistically.

The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction

If you've ever tried to color correct in your NLE and have no idea of what all the adjustments mean (such as "input Black") and have been trying to teach yourself the software by just moving the knobs and looking at the results, then this book is for you. I am amazed after reading the first third of the book how much I have learned and how to use the built in scopes that come with most software. I may never become a colorist, but it sure makes my in-house projects far better. And when the day comes that I need to hire a colorist, I feel like I will be better prepared to speak the language. This will be another reference book that will be worn out from daily use.

You will find your self reading and re-reading sections. Excellent for understanding the technical aspects. As well as excellent interviews with top colorists Bob Festa, and Randy Starnes. I highly recommend this to add to your library.

Whoa. You need to buy this book now.

Before I read this book I knew ZERO about color grading. Now I know a HECK of a lot more and this book is ALSO for very advanced color graders as well because he has tips from a very wide range of color graders in the big leagues.

I needed to learn a lot in a hurry and this book is a bible for me. I return to it again and again.

Making a great film is one thing but without the best color grading you diminish your chances of winning awards for your very hard work. At the absolute minimum this book will teach you how to prepare your film for digital color correction by at least getting your luma in order. This will greatly decrease your cost in post and, more importantly, having done this essential preliminary work with your blacks, gammas and highlights will provide the digital color grader with product that will have much of the heavy lifting already completed.

Additionally, this book will help you specify to your digital color corrector exactly what you want, which will save time and expense in post also.

AND this book also contains enough incredibly well presented information so that you can do a pretty damn good job grading it yourself if you have the desire and force of will to pull it off, which I do.

This book is an absolutely indispensable resource and you need to buy it if you are serious about what people think of your hard work in film and video.

I have ZERO financial interest in this book and have never had the pleasure of meeting the author. I'm just speaking from both the head and heart. Questions? Email me at mdubuque@yahoo.com

The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction

This is an excellent resource for understanding and practicing the art of grading. Great in-depth knowledge and a good array of footage for exercises. Highly recommended for anyone exploring color correction whether beginner or seasoned professional

I have just finished the first chapter, so I may add to this review. However at this point, I'm disappointed by the presentation. Photos of waveforms are too small to see the details the author is pointing out. I want to see what I'm told is important and I can't. At the end of chapter one, the author refers to an image to use for practice and it is not on the DVD.