All language subtitles for Procolor_C03_L1a_Enviornment_Setup

Welcome to chapter three, where we're
talking about the setup for color grading.

Now, color
grading isn't just about what to wear.

It also has to do with your environment,
kind of what your room is like

when you're doing color grading,

how your eyes react to things, as well
as some of the hardware that you're using.

So we're going to go over

some of the best practices
for setting yourself up for success.

Now, can you make color grades that look
good without setting the stuff up?

Absolutely.

But you're going to have higher quality
and more consistent results.

The closer
you kind of fly to these guidelines.

So the first concept
is the color grading environment.

So if you were to Google color
grading suite, you would come up

with a lot of pictures
of kind of darker rooms with gray walls.

And there's a very specific reason
for that.

This is a great example here.

The way that our eyes react

to colors kind of changes
depending on what's around us.

You can see this for yourself
if you're, you know, in a really dark room

and somebody turns on the light and it
kind of hurts your eyes for a little bit.

And then eventually
your eyes get used to it.

That's
because your eyes are always adapting

for the colors and the brightnesses
and everything that are around us.

So the big idea behind setting up a room
designed for color grading is

you want to make it easy for your eyes
to see the image that you're working on

in the most neutral way possible.

For instance,
if you had a really, really bright room

and you're working on an image,

you might make the image
a little bit brighter

to kind of compete with the light
that's falling on the monitor.

Same thing is,
if you have a pitch dark room,

you might make your image really,

really dark because in comparison
to everything around you, it looks bright.

This happens with Brightnesses,
but it also happens with colors.

Our eyes are always adjusting
to different colors of light.

That's
why you can set the wrong white balance

in a camera,
and an outside shot might look blue.

Whereas your eyes,
everything always looks just about right.

Our eyes can adapt
almost instantly to different colors.

And a camera really can't.

So what we really want to do is set up
most of the things that we see in a room

to be the right brightness
and the right color cast so that it's not

negatively influencing kind of the way
that we correct images on our monitor.

Back to this setup here.

You'll notice that some of these pictures,

everything is kind of bright,
but a lot of these they're really dark.

Like, look at this
room. It's really, really dark.

And there's a couple of things
to notice about this one.

First of all, obviously, it's a darker
room, but it's not completely dark.

We actually have this kind of backlight
back here and we have a little light here.

So it's not pitch black,
but it is dark enough

to where you can concentrate on the screen
and you won't necessarily

make it brighter or darker
just because of the lights in the room.

And the idea here really is
just to make this on the darker side,

but still have that ambient light.

There are different like measurements

of brightness in everything
that people can get really nerdy about

when it comes to how bright or dark
your your surrounding lights should be.

But if you get it where the brightness on
your monitor isn't hurting your eyes

and you aren't really squinting
or struggling

to see your monitor,
you're probably in a pretty good place.

There's also a reason
all of these walls are gray,

because remember, if we had something
like a sort of off white kind of yellowish

white wall, our eyes are going to kind of
get used to that.

And anything that looks actual
white on the screen

is going to look a little bit blue.

And we don't want our surroundings

affecting the way
that we look at our image.

So all these walls are ideally a perfect
neutral gray,

specifically this gray, 18% gray.

This in the photography world
is what they call just about as neutral

as it gets.

This is the middle exposure and there's no
color casts or anything like that.

So this is really the best thing
to compare your images to.

And so the idea is to get paint
that is neutral gray.

And it's actually surprisingly hard
to get a neutral gray paint.

You can search for neutral gray,
but oftentimes it comes in

like little tiny tubes like this.

And you sure would think
that you could get white paint

and then mixed black into it
and have it come out neutral.

But that just doesn't work
because of how modern paint is mixed.

So you really have to get a formula
for neutral gray,

which there's actually a really great
formula here at Finder Scientific's

slash tech dash resources
all the way at the bottom.

They have a pretty darn good formula
that you can get at Home Depot for neutral

gray paint
and I've bought this and I've tested it

and I've compared it to gray cards
and it is pretty darn freaking close,

like as close
as you could possibly get without

just being a super nerd for affordable
gray paint.

This is pretty awesome.

So what I do is
I take a screenshot of this

and bring it into Home Depot
and ask them to mix this up for me.

It starts with ultra deep bass
and then makes these numbers.

I don't know what these numbers mean, but
I give it to the lady behind the counter

and she usually makes the paint
and that's great.

You can also buy insanely expensive,
really nerdy gray paint for $115.

I'm thinking
this is probably not that important

to spend $215 on, but if you want
the best of the best, this is what it is.

The other thing you'll see in these

grading suites is these kind of backlights
that go behind the monitors.

This is called a bias light.

And the idea here is that you want a light
that's not too bright, but will kind of

give you some ambiance surrounding light
and kind of light up that gray wall.

But you want this light
to be the same color temperature

as your monitor,
which is generally 6500 kelvin.

So you can search Amazon for a 6500 Kelvin

backlight and there's all kinds
of different solutions there.

Any of these will work just fine
as long as it's actually 6500 Kelvin.

Put that behind your monitor
with some great paint on the wall

and you'll have a room
that set up pretty well for color grading.

You also want to make sure that there
isn't any glare on your monitor.

So this light behind me,
I generally turn off

when I'm actually doing color grading
because there is a little bit of glare

on my monitor.
Plus it's kind of a warm tone.

I want to make sure that any light
that I do have is 6500 Kelvin

because it matches the color temperature
of a computer monitor.

Didn't think we'd get that nerdy
that quickly, did you?

Well, we're just getting started.