Technicolor CineStyle with photos?

<p>I was wondering if its wrong to use the Technicolor CineStyle profile when taking photos. If not, then how would one used the s-curve setting like they say so for the LUT curve in say Photoshop? Am I wasting my time using this profile with photos?</p>

<p>theres must be a reason why people use it.. but i never heard of it until today, and with the amount of photographer im working with and the result whe get without it.. i can say that maybe it is not that essential, and that yes you can produce certainly the same effect when you develop your image with your raw processor. Im curious to ear about it from others if they use it, for what, why, how etc...</p>

<p>The intent of the "profile" is to make video made with certain Canon cameras exhibit more of a film-like response. IOW, to make video look more like it was shot on film stock.</p>

<p>This would, AFAIK, work just fine for stills. I would even say it's probably desirable in stills, at least in some instances. Part of what it does is give a knee and shoulder to the response curve which should make for less blocking in the shadows and less blown out highlights. Proper use may however not be very intuitive and may therefore require some experimentation.</p>

<p>It is great for stills as it gives such a nice platform to work from, it's just that I cannot import any type of LUT curve into Photoshop. I'm wondering if the curve file supplied from technicolor is a guideline or the best curve to add contrast to image. Images I took with strong DOF left the edges on objects remaining greyed out when I applied a s-curve in Photoshop. There is nothing online when it comes to using this profile for photos so I'm hoping we can shed some light here :)</p>

<p>For those not familiar with this profile including myself, I googled it and got this vimeo video showing what this profile does to a Canon 5D image...</p>

<p>http://vimeo.com/30425867</p>

<p>Doesn't look like the technicolor look I've seen in a lot of movies. Can't believe that's what Technicolor thinks Technicolor should look like. Did they even watch any Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott films?</p>

<p>They say this about the picture style: "Acquisition with Technicolor’s CineStyle™ will generate what appears to be a flat, de-saturated looking image. While this image may appear unappealing and undesirable, it is in fact an ideal starting point for post-production and color correction."</p>

<p>As far as I can tell, it only knocks down contrast (-4) and saturation (-2). I believe the intent, rather than emulate any particular film look, was to avoid crushing the low tones during capture. They say further, about DSLR video:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>... you are in effect shooting JPEGs (or motion-JPEGs) with your HDSLR.<br>

Therefore it’s imperative to record your video with as little contrast as possible (and no sharpening!) You can always add contrast to an image – taking contrast away from a digital image is significantly more difficult.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Indeed, finished films have (likely) been significantly post processed, and there is no particular film look that can be emulated by a <em>film</em> picture style. A "Speilberg'ish somber" picture style might be possible...</p>

 

<p>Gav, i always start my development in Lightroom with Camera Neutral (under camera calibration tab).. and that give me the exact same thing; <em>what appears to be a flat, de-saturated looking image. While this image may appear unappealing and undesirable, it is in fact an ideal starting point for post-production and color correction</em></p>

<p>this is why i think i dont see why anyone will need this setting, free or not for photo editing.<em>..<br /></em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>I believe the intent, rather than emulate any particular film look, was to avoid crushing the low tones during capture.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Then they shouldn't call it any type of film style or look at all. If it doesn't look like Technicolor and the edits have to be applied in post from a subjective POV, it's not Technicolor, nor is it a profile which technically characterizes a particular look.</p>

<p>It should be called a Preprocessing Dynamic Range Normalization/Optimization Profile™.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Then they shouldn't call it any type of film style or look at all.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Then it's a good thing they don't.</p>

<p>CineStyle is a capture environment, engineered by Technicolor in cooperation with Canon, to yield usable, easily-gradeable motion footage from Canon DSLRs. It never promises to give the look of mid-century motion film stock, and in fact that's the complete opposite of what it's designed to do.</p>

<p>The only place "style" of any kind comes into the mix is that Canon's facility for loading profiles has the marketing name of Picture Styles. </p>

<p>Oh well, what's in a name, right?</p>

<p>That's a huge edit for a frame of compressed jpeg video to have to go through for additional edits to be applied to basically put back the contrast and saturation in the original. Or is the profile "assigned" to the video feed where the pixels are never touched until the final finished edit?</p>

<p>Never shot video using a DSLR. Just curious.</p>