Color Management in Adobe After Effects

hello everyone this is evan abrams and today we're going to talk about managing your colors i get a fair number of questions about color management in after effects so i thought it would take some time to talk about what color management is why it's important and how we might apply it in some of our workflows we're going to talk about some fairly nerdy high-level stuff here but i hope i'm able to simplify it and help make sense of what is admittedly a very confusing topic and hopefully i managed to run the gamut on this colorful topic and since that's a very bad series of puns let's get started so in short color management is the process that helps images look the way you expect if i make something on my screen then that gets shown on broadcast tv or a client screen or someone's phone it's important that everything look the same or at least it looks as i expect it to look but why wouldn't it images on a screen are data describing how much a whole lot of lights need to be on or off how on or off lights should be will be different depending on the technology a projector is different from a crt monitor and is different again from an lcd panel and within those an hd display and a uhd display are different again for what colors they can reproduce and then of course the way images are captured is vastly different as well sensors take in light and encode that data using many methods and functions depending on the technology and the kind of processing that's done to it and some images are created entirely digitally without any need to capture or convert light into data at all combining data from all these different sources that have different frames of reference is the challenge and purpose of color management devices understand color in the context of color spaces a color space is like a set of instructions these spaces are defined by which primary colors will get mixed together to make every other color and how these things get mixed as well as a set of instructions for how to encode luminance values a very confusing topic called a transfer function sometimes called gamma and then which color is considered white so the primaries the transfer function and the white point are what define a color space we call the range of colors that a color space can understand it's gamut wide gamut narrow gamut you'll most often see a gamut displayed on a 2d graph like this one so this big space represents all the colors that our human eyes are capable of perceiving or you might see the same information displayed in 3d mapping the red green and blue along the x y and z axis this is commonly how we visualize and compare color spaces by the shape size and orientation of the area they take up in these representations if a color cannot be reproduced in a certain color space we'll say it's out of gamut it falls outside of the range so what happens when you make something in one color space then you try to display it in another going from large to small or small to large or just a plain different color space to another without transforming the colors causes all manner of strangeness clipping banding tone jumping hue shifting over saturated under saturated this is why we want to carefully control the transformation from one space to another all through our workflow even in a very basic video project i want to show you where these transformations happen so first visible light is transformed into data to capture footage in a certain color space then to work with it maybe it gets converted by our editing app but for us to even see it that data has to be transformed by our operating system and then transformed back into light by our display and then our brain transforms that light into an image but even in the simple single source flow chart you can see we still have many transformations of color to manage so then what happens when you have multiple sources of footage we got archival hdr standard def all of that coming together so that's a bunch of transformations that would have to happen and then how about some collaborators maybe there's another editor involved maybe there's a compositor involved even if we're just opening up other apps those need to manipulate the footage and we have to manage what color spaces they're working in it's important to ensure that everyone is seeing the same results so that we can compare and collaborate and then how about needing to actually render off a project that would be played somewhere else not all encoding formats store color profile information and many assume the color profile of where it's going to get played back and then at the end of all this is the highly subjective human eyes and brains with their own limits and differences even the environment we view something in is going to impact how it looks or how we perceive it so i hope this kind of makes the case for why we need to manage color why we need to manage these transformations of colored data since there are so many variables in flux in this process it is really important to have an accurate and reliable display that's why i really have to thank this video's sponsor vue sonic for sending over this powerfully accurate panel here this is the vp3881 from their professional line of monitors capable of an incredible 4.39 trillion colors using 14-bit 3d lookup tables these are capable of some of the most accurate image reproduction available i'm usually a two monitor person i've been very skeptical of the curved panel design but this has really sold me on it every viewing angle is consistent the anti-glare design works great in my residential home office here i cannot speak highly enough about how this improves your experience when doing detail work and since this is all about color management they've done an amazing job of calibrating this bad boy at the factory and loading the most common color profiles right out of the box and like everything in their professional line these are set up for hardware calibration so you can always ensure you're getting the most accurate reproduction of colors if you're looking to upgrade your monitor to a professional display definitely check out the latest color pro lineup from viewsonic we should talk about a few common spaces you're going to encounter the first is the srgb space and we start here because this is the standard and assumed color space of most digital images you're going to encounter on the chart here you can see that its gamut takes up only a fraction of the colors we can perceive and while you're looking at some of them right now on your screen you probably don't feel like there's some missing most consumer electronics cameras displays scanners all claim to operate in the srgb color space i say claim because many of them are not calibrated to the actual standard but if you work and conform things to an srgb color space you can be reasonably assured that what you're looking at is the same thing someone else is going to be looking at when they play back your work on the internet very similar to the srgb in fact almost visually identical is the rec 709 color space this is the standard space used by hdtvs notice that the triangle in the chart is literally an overlap of the srgb one that's because they use the same primaries but where they differ is in something called the transfer function or gamma when we go to use the footage knowing that curve on which things have been encoded will let us decode it correctly so when we say rgb and rec709 standards have different transfer functions we're talking about this curve of remapping luminance values and it's critical to understand that different standards have different curves depending on their intended use display and function but now we're going to make a jump into something that was not developed during the 90s and we're going to talk about aces and while this is a more comprehensive system a lot of the excitement around it comes from the size of its color space aces aims to capture and reproduce all of the color information that the eye can perceive as you can see the gamut for all these aces color spaces are quite large so if you work in an asus color space there are all these different colors out here in the much wider gamut you can enjoy working in this also means that you keep more of the information that the audience will see even if you're going to ultimately export for narrower gamut displays and playback areas there's an effort and a trend to adopt aces across digital video production so this is certainly something you want to keep an eye on but there are many more how about rec 2020 the color space of ultra high definition television with a higher dynamic range and a wider gamut for color or maybe a dci p3 which is used for digital movie projection in america maybe adobe rgb the wide gamut space used most commonly in print application and there are many many more i would encourage you to know the standard of whatever footage you are working with when you capture and the standard of where things are going to be displayed because those are key components to managing your colors that's a lot of theory but it's important to know as we apply that knowledge into after effects if we want to use color management in after effects meaning we're going to override the default assumptions of the app we first need to turn that on at the project level you can access the color settings here on the color tab pay close attention to what after effects is telling you in this window as well right now with this set to none it's going to tell us that linear light footage is going to be converted to gamma 2.2 assuming a working gamma of 2.2 which is close to the transfer function of srgb transfer functions back but in here we can pick a specific working space this is the space we're going to play in it is the middle space between our inputs and outputs should this space be the same as most of your inputs should the space be the same as your outputs should this be a space that can encompass both inputs and outputs well it's your working space so you're gonna have to make that decision yourself but when we choose a color space even if we're choosing the srgb mode that default mode we're gonna have access to more color management features in the app there's a couple check boxes here also to pay attention to linearize workspace we'll change that transfer function we've been talking about and will affect blending modes motion blur anytime pixels are going to be blended and values are going to be combined this can give you more pleasing gradients and blending if you only want this to apply to blending modes you can do that by clicking on this other box right here many cg apps can render out linear assets and a linear working space is going to give you better image resampling more lifelike motion blur but colors are going to look different though so proceed with caution and if you want to set up a project to work in linear light the recommendation is to do it at the beginning because if you change this in the middle of a project things start to look weird however with color management on we can now enjoy previewing different outputs up here in the view panel you can view simulated outputs this is really critical for understanding how your work is going to look in different color spaces the most common color space you're going to preview in here are srgb and rec 709 so you can toggle between a bunch of those and some more legacy formats if the conversion is not helping or slowing your system down you can always disable your display color management up here as well but management as we said is about the inputs and the outputs any asset you pull into the project you can inspect up here in the project panel so we can see what color profile assets are coming in with if they're different from the project's working space we're going to need to convert them if you want to disable the conversions you can click this preserve button but this is where you can assign a color profile if the footage has not been correctly profiled for example i know that this clip here was captured for ultra high definition and we know the color space of uhd footage is rec 2020 not rec 709 what an oopsy so we can manually override the inputs if they are incorrect but you want to be certain look what happens to the footage when i change the profile the conversion is altering the values of those pixels so if you pick the wrong profile to start everything's going to look strange maybe you want to do this for some artistic effect it's similar to cross-processing kodak film using fuji chemicals but usually we want to be certain and profile things correctly so they behave as expected we can also convert our inputs in different ways using lookup tables or luts a lut is like a spreadsheet that explains how to remap color values from one space to another they're also used for creative purposes converting images to certain looks but as a utility a lut can convert from one space to another very efficiently to apply a lut you'll want to use the apply color lut effect to your footage and select the appropriate lut file most utility luts can be downloaded from your camera's manufacturer so you'll want to look up those if that's part of your color management workflow and we need to talk about outputs we've brought stuff in we're working with it in the color space we're converting things we're previewing that's all great but when we render we want to manage the colors as well in the output modules of your render queue you have a color management tab where you're going to see similar options and warnings to your project settings this will most likely mirror your project settings but you can change it because we might need to be sending this to many different places maybe you need to render one for broadcast you need to render one for web well we can do that here in this interface i do want to call your attention though to this part here where it says embedding color profiles not all formats can embed a color profile for example a png sequence can but an mov out of the render queue cannot so that's color profile information attached to the file itself so that other systems can then read what profile to expect the data to be in now as for what is best or what is most appropriate to your project that's going to be really subjective and likely require more specific research but i hope this has given you an introduction to the basic kind of ins and outs all the buttons and levers you can pull to get you managing your colors well thank you so much for watching if you enjoy learning about this kind of thing post design after effects high level big time nerding out about color standards you'll want to subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications so you don't miss any upcoming tutorials if you have any questions about color spaces if you have questions about color standards all this kind of color management stuff i've put a bunch of links in the description so hopefully that can help you out with some further reading it is a constantly evolving changing space so uh there's a lot to know if you like this kind of thing but longer and live and with a lot less structure find me on twitch and behats for live sessions and get at me on twitter and instagram if you have any questions or requests for topics to cover on here i'm at ec abrams everywhere you look on the internet thanks again for watching until next time stay creative be kind to each other and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: ECAbrams

Views: 41,774

Keywords: adobe after effects, after effects, adobe, after, effects, fx, mograph, motion graphics, motion, graphics, vfx, visual effects, instruction, tutorial, tut, how to, how, to, help, tips, tricks, after effects tutorial, motion graphics tutorial, vfx tutorial, color, colour, management, mgmt, colour managemen, colour management, workflow, transform, lut, Look up table, calibration

Id: Tf3x4dhxydk

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021