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The Tao Colorist

Curated links of news, reviews, thoughts, career advice, and humor
for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sunday.

Issue XCIX Brought to you by: Tao of Color.com

From The Editor

In July and August the Tao Colorist publishes every other week. This week is an 'off week'. In an effort to not completely leave my terrific readers disappointed, here's a little something to dig your teeth into:

Below are links to the second half of the month-long blog series I've been doing for Eric Wise over at the editing and post-production blog, SplicVine.com. We've moved into the topic of 'doing' of color correction.

Don't miss the Sunday Fun(nies) at the end of today's email. Enjoy!

Week 3: Color Grading 101 - The Fundamentals

MON: Building A Solid Foundation (for your image) - You load up a shot, you step into color grading mode and... then what? What's the first thing you should do next?

TUES: Color Constancy and Why Colorists Control White Balance - How viewers will fix the color issues that we don't - and why that's a bad idea.

WED: The 'Key Color' for Matching Shots in a Scene - Why matching shots and has very little to do with matching colors.

THURS: The Main Classes of Primary Color Correction Filters - A roadmap of color grading tools found in almost all NLEs and color grading apps.

FRI: Secondaries Part 1 - Color Grading for Content (and Emotion) - Moving beyond balancing a shot (or a sequence of shots) and into color grading for story-telling purposes. We start with Hue, Saturation and Luminance (HSL) isolations.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

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Week 4: Taking Control of the Viewer (and your Session)

MON: Secondaries Part 2 - Focusing the Viewer's Eye - Using shapes as another form of isolation and combining them with HSLs.

TUE: Keep Your 'Looks' Looking Real with the Singularity Rule - The three elements we control to create a Look... and the one rule that binds them all.

WED: How to Pick the Perfect Control Surface (for YOU) - Simplify your control surface purchase decision with this quick guide. Depending on how often you're grading, I target a control surface for you.

THURS: Running a Productive Color Grading Session - The importance of client communication and establishing ground rules.

FRI: Q&A with Patrick, Part 1 - Wrapping up this blog series, readers sent in some questions and I answered them in this transcription of an interview I did with Eric Wise of SpliceVine.com. Topics covered: Why I did this blog series (for another website); controlling skin tones; the ACES color space; budgeting time for color grading; color grading in After Effects.

**Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers**
JL Cooper Eclipse	Avid Artist Color	Tangent
Software: v2.8	Mac: v2.6.2	Software: v3.8 HUB v1.0
Color Plug-in: v 1.0.5	PC: v2.6.2	Firmware: v1.9
Updated: June 5	Updated: October 20	Updated: Feb. 7(ish)

Sunday Fun(nies)

[Game] How Well Do You See Color? - Long-time readers are familiar with this online color test from X-Rite. But it was re-Tweeted to me recently - a good reminder that new readers probably haven't seen it. This is a good Sunday Morning activity, have fun with it. How did I do on this test? Let's just say... I'm glad I don't sort color swatches for a living. (Xrite.com via @Jasen_Marks)

The Very First Photo Uploaded to the Web - Almost everything that has come after can be explained by that photo. In literary circles they call it 'foreshadowing'. (FilmmakerIQ.com)

[Video] Batman Chooses His Voice - More fun than funny. (FilmmakerIQ.com)

New Study Finds Americans Need 6 Hours of Sleep at Work - I knew it! (theOnion.com)

[Video] The Bark Side - I don't remember seeing this Volkswagon Super Bowl Spot earlier this year. Or even hearing about it. Funny. (YouTube.com)

Beyond the Interface. Learn Technique. Includes: Resolve 9*

Color Grading MasterClass: DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve, DaVinci Resolve Lite : Mac & Windows!

Also available: Colorista II | Apple Color | FCP 7

*Resolve 9 Training available after the software's been officially released

Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! See you next week. Happy Grading!

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Curated + Edited by: Patrick Inhofer, photon-wrangler & founder, TaoOfColor.com

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[TaoColorist] Sunday Morning Reading (The Color Grading for Editors Edition)