Color Card Calibration

[animationlife]

Hello everyone.

I do not have any White Balance Issues, because I always use a WhiBal White Balance Studio Card for my White Balance, therefore my Video Colors look good. In the past, I used many different Gray-Cards, but using this brand gave me the best white balance for both Photography and Video.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/768396-REG/WhiBal_WB7_SC_G7_White_Balance_Studio.html

Also, I have the X-Rite Color Checker for photography and Video.

I was watching a video on Davinci Resolve, on how to use the Color Checker for editing. Is there any way we can do the same with the Premiere Pro?

I am attaching the Screenshot.

Thank you very much.

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Not automatically though as an experienced Resolve user, I don't see consistency in Resolve using their auto-systesm with the Xrite cards either. Sometimes pretty good, but not really consistent results.

So in both, I manually set tonal/hue responses, then batch that Lumetri (or color page 'still' in Resolve) on the other same-camera clips in the bin.

First, set the set the white, gray, and black patches to both zero neutral and to the value level that you will want across all cameras. This makes your WB and tonal values consistent, absolutely necessary. And no, "I did a custom WB in camera" is nice, but not enough to totally match multiple camera hues in post.

Next, make a small mask, using the general Opacity effect, as that is "above" Lumetri, then drag that from color chip to color chip to do the rest of the job.

Go to the Hue v Hue in Lumetri, and click on the color chip in the mask. With the Vectorscope up, align the chip with the vector for that chip ... for each of the primary and secondary hue chips. Check, perhaps even add a Skin one.

Lumetri will put three points for every click, and at first it's good to have them. By the time you've done three chips, I start deleting the 'side' points, only keeping the point from the 'center' of that hue. As you want a smooth curve through the hue palette.

After you've done this three or four times, it's pretty quick. And especially as the hue values for each camera stay pretty much the same for different scenes once you have matched ALL THREE of the neutrol white/gray/black chips! ... you can batch apply that Lumetri to all clips from that camera in the bin, and get a pretty good starting point for timeiline color work.

[animationlife]

Mr. Neil.

Thank you very much.

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

One thing to remember, is that no camera actually "sees" color. They only record amounts of light, period. Then due to a pattern of color filters over the light sensors (pixels) and a ton of math, they compute color for each "pixel" of the final image.

And due to the impossibility to have actually identical devices in manufacture, no two sensors are completely identical. Two off the same line will be pretty close, but not identical in eletrical response. Between different sensors made on different lines? Completely different responses.

So you take the native variability of the sensors, throw in the different calculation processes used to compute color somewhat analogous to what our eyes see ... and that's why they're all different.

But any one camera will tend to have a fairly similar hue response (even across scenes of varying white balance measurements) so getting a good hue 'fix' created, and saved, for any specific camera, can save you a TON of time down the line.

In the future, you mainly zero the neutral white/gray/black patches, and you will have a very similar starting point.

[animationlife]

Mr. Neil.

It Is Always a pleasure to hear your Professional answer. Everyone In this community knows that when It comes to Premiere, especially Color Corrections, and Color Management, you are the Legend.

Thanks Again.