Note ... I'm a lefty and therefore used to using both hands at once. With a control surface I'm using multiple controls simultaneously. With the Ripple I can be working all three dials at once ... or multiple balls. The way I've got the Basic tab mapped I can have up to six of the sliders moving at once ... I see the in-between states you don't one control at a time.
It's not only faster but vastly more supple and subtle. And took only a few minutes working a ramp, 10 step wedge, and a few clips to master.
I never used this tab prior to getting the Ripple but it's now my go-to place for image neutralization. The first step of grading.
The three major tonal controls of the Basic tab are mapped to the three dials, left to right: Blacks, Exposure, and Whites. I set black and white end points simultaneously and will frequently be moving the middle "Exposure" dial at the same time. That control is a variation of a standard colorist gamma control with some contrast modification added.
The above is typically a couple seconds of work. Watching the RGB Parade, Waveform (Luma), and Vectorscope mostly.
Next I go to the balls... left is my "contrast" control ball with Contrast (which adjusts Luma contrast) mapped horizontal, and Saturation (which is color contrast) mapped vertical.
Middle ball is Temp as horizontal and Tint as vertical.
Right ball is Shadows (horizontal) against Highlights (vertical).
So I'll start by backing Sat down a bit to focus on tonality and adjust Contrast while moving Shadow and Highlights also. As that gets dialed in I'll bring Sat up to taste.
Next is working the middle ball to neutralize mids/highlights neutral values in the clip, viewed in the Vectorscope and RGB Parade. Neutrals should sit over the center of the Vectorscope and RGB Parade showing an appropriate reading for the color and lighting of the scene.
I've got my neutral clip in a few seconds ... tonality very "standard" and neutrals ... neutral. Blacks, White's, shadow, highlights all "normal". In 10 to at most 30 seconds per clip. Not a perfect final image but a neutral one to later match with others.
For skin or other tones that are problems I'll move to either the Hue Saturation ring in the Creative tab or Curves, depending ... and just slightly minimize say Saturation of a hue that's too much in skin.
I'll need this in only a few standard shots though.
For most clips I go from Basic to Color Wheels and adjust mids color balancing sense and scene "feel", and using all other controls there for a better look/feel as suits taste. Typically tis takes a bit more than Basic tab.
Then for those problem children ... HSL. Following Patrick Inhofer's ideas, I mapped the -keying- controls to opt main settings, left set Hue, middle set Saturation, right set Lightness just like the controls in the UI.
For each of the three ... the dial is the center of key, horizontal ball movement controls width of key, and vertical ball movement the falloff. It's quite easy to use this way.
Then I set the modification controls for the color wheels of the HSL tab via the "alternate" mapping setting. Though ... I'm going to pay with other controls there ...
My frustrations with Lumetri:
1) The condescending decision to limit the signal range "touch" of the Basic tab to 1-99 on the left side 0-100 scale of Parade and Waveform scopes. Done as stated so we users can't "break" our media. As my GH3 (for crying out loud! ) normally gives non-clipped data to 103 or better and sometimes to -2 within Lumetri's "understanding" I often have to put an RGB Curves effect ahead of Lumetri in the ECP panel to pull the ends into usability. If I don't, Lumetri does bizarre things to the image.
2) Lack of decent shot-matching. No 2/3-up view in the Program monitor nor SpeedGrade's nifty auto-match button that often gets one 90% of the way matched. You can create a custom workspace combining Reference and Program monitors but it's slower and not nearly as good as a real 2/3-up.
3) Badly placed slots for LUTs and looks. In Lumetri those are applied at the beginning of the Basic and Creative tabs ... which is only useful in Creative if you're using a Look to -start- your "touch" grading.
ALL camera makers design their log/RAW corrections LUTs with a properly exposed and white balanced image ... and state they expect the to be fed a proper image: corrected exposure/WB -through- the LUT. This is how colorist teachers ALL teach ... and how the makers demo their own cameras in use at NAB ... and how all other grading apps are designed you work, such as Resolve, which applies any LUT -after- any other controls used in that node.
And if you want to have a 70's print film look, say the soft shadow and long soft highlights? There's LUTs for that ... but as you can't apply them later than at the beginning of the Creative tab ... you either lose the rest of the controls or apply it via a second Lumetri instance with the hassles and issues of that. Change anything after that LUT you no longer have that look.
4) Lack of multiple secondaries without going to multiple Lumetri.
5) Control panel hassles with multiple Lumetri.
Well ... I feel better now ... hope this helps.
Neil
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