Colour Grading

Colour correction is generally broken down into two different processes, primary and secondary colour correction.

Primary colour correction is the process of setting an overall tone, conrast and colour balance of an image. Secondary colour correction is the next step, further enhancing specific parts of an image to achieve a particular look or feel.

A good example of this is the milky, low contrast RED image on the right. RED cameras shoot in RAW format resulting in a low contrast picture. This image needs to be colour corrected. Roll over the image to see the colour corrected version.

Our entire facility is designed to work fluently with films shot on RED, although it's not limited to that. Our high bandwidth raid drives and handle any high resolution digital images.

Colour grading is like a good sound design. The colour palette chosen, the contrast and brightness levels, all impact on the film the same way tense music can make a still shot of a door knob become a nerve racking scene, sensing a phsycotic killer is on the other side, or light hearted jingles could make you feel the children are about to come home from school.

Another important thing to note when colour correcting your film is to make sure you're working on calibrated colour critical monitors.

At DCP Australia our colour critical monitors are calibrated and checked regularly so we can guarantee that what we see in the studio is exactly what you see in a commercial cinema. We leave nothing to chance to make sure you get what you want the first time around.

At DCP Australia we use two different systems for colour corrections although there are many sytems available. Apple's colour is a powerful colour grading package that has all the same features that some of the more expensive packages have. It's also the package of choice when the project has been edited in Final Cut Pro as the workflow is smooth and reliable.

We also use Davinci Resolve, this has the added features particularly handy for projects not edited in Final Cut or for stereoscopic (3D) projects.

Feel free to drop an email or call to discuss your project.