Does lighting in room effects post production

Hello,

I can call my self a pro Photographer and have good years experience in shooting weddings and in post production and some of my work can be seen at www.RobinSaini.com

off late getting in video post production and on checking with some of local industry experts, they say that you need mostly a low lit room while you color correct your footage in FCPX or Premier , hence this question.

With pics, I have been using top of the line monitor with color monkey to give be best colors and been happy with results.

Have seen crazy video on youtube on desktop setups with people doing , dark room and LED strips running down...does that affect post production as uuall we spend 8 hrs in front of PC, and if my monitor background has blue or green, pink LED all the time..I am sure it will affect my editing

can someone help on this ?

A professional colorist who does this all day long, every day, will have a professional setup. First, they're going to use a calibrated broadcast monitor. Love my FSI. Second, many colorists to lower the lights a bit. And your peripheral vision shouldn't have any other colors in it. Most colorists have Munsen Gray (N1 or something) on the wall behind the monitor. This is as neutral a color as you can get. Here's the reason.

Just like sound, your vision will filter things out, or "normalize" specific things that are there for a long time, but don't need attention. Like the sound of the air-conditioning in an office, after a couple minutes, your brain filters that out, you don't notice it. But if it runs all day long, those frequencies your brain won't pay attention too. If you're mixing audio, that can cause you to miss something important in that range.

With vision, same thing. If you have something on the wall behind your monitor that's a specific shade of red, eventually your brain starts to filter that color out of your awareness, over a long period of time. So if that specific color needs attention in your grading on the monitor, theoretically you may miss it, since your brain is not paying attention to that specific color now.

But that's if you're doing this full time. If you're spending short period color grading, it isn't as much of a problem. And you should be getting up and moving around every hour, on the hour, when at a computer screen. Otherwise you're inviting health problems. Not to mention dampening your creativity.

As for a professional, calibrated broadcast monitor, that isn't as vital these days as it once was. I color grade for broadcast on an Apple Thunderbolt Monitor just fine. I'd not do that for a feature film, though. And if you're publishing to the Internet your computer monitor is more than sufficient.

Some folks use an actual TV to monitor with, but I don't trust them, as most professional colorists won't. Every TV set made has filters and compressors built into it to make the image look its best on that particular screen. You're not seeing the true image. Go to a big store that sells TVS, look at the dozens along the wall (Like Best Buy, Walmart, etc). Notice how every one of them has a slightly different tent, hue, sharpness. BUT, I know folks who do it anyway. They do make great preview monitors for clients. I'm sure there are those who'd argue this. But I learned from Alexis Hurkman an other professionals, I'll stick with what I've experienced.

Modern computer monitors with a Mac, that utilize the Color Sync technology (basically Apple's own monitors) are accurate enough for broadcast and web just fine. Just learn to read your scopes, then play an exported file on 3-4 different monitors and/or TV screens until you learn the specific quirks of your own system.

I'd not sweat it too much if you're doing wedding video. Your computer monitor is fine. Have output to a good HD TV screen. Play the DVD back on a variety of players/TVs. Shouldn't be rocket science.

LED light strips have no place in a color grading suit, IMHO. That's going a little overboard. It is detrimental if they're colored and not a true white.

I'm sure others have input as well. The fact that you're asking means you care enough to learn, and you'll do just fine.

[quote="F
I'd not sweat it too much if you're doing wedding video. Your computer monitor is fine. Have output to a good HD TV screen. Play the DVD back on a variety of players/TVs. Shouldn't be rocket science.

LED light strips have no place in a color grading suit, IMHO. That's going a little overboard. It is detrimental if they're colored and not a true white.

I'm sure others have input as well. The fact that you're asking means you care enough to learn, and you'll do just fine.[/quote]


Yes, i only do wedding videos, hence wanted to learn more, thanks for the indepth info.Also , I dont do sound mixing , usually use music from movies/songs in my edits.

Yes, do have all color calibrated monitors LG34 ultawide to IMac 27 inch for video editing only. was only concern on room lighting , but guess got the annwer, learn software well (scopes), and try seeing footage on various devices and it shoud be good.

Guess those fancy desk just add more attitude to desk and one tend to sit for a longer time on edit table.

I would advise against using a custom monitor calibration. ColorSync works with the default monitor setting.

robinsaini wrote: …Have seen crazy video on youtube on desktop setups with people doing , dark room and LED strips running down...…

hmm, partly crazy:
over here, in Europe, we have 'standards' for everything, so, the EBU defines in some paper the environment for colour grading suites, which includes 18%-grey painted room, soandso Lumen brightness, reflection free lighting, yaddayadda .....

plus, advices changed, for sure, over time: the 'antique' DVD has a much 'narrow' colour-space than actually-in-the-change rec2020 … most actual displays don't match the needs for hundreds/thousands of nits, future-proof HDR demands…

so, back from pixelpeeping to reality:
sure, the surrounding affects (colour)perception, we all remember the stunt at school/physics "what color has a banana in red light?" …

BUT: let common sense reign.
Don't out-smart user-friendly technologies like Color-Synch, make your working place - for your eyes - comfortable, keep in mind, 95% of your customers use wrong-adjusted TVs anyhow …

As a solo-fighter there's little need of consistency in workflow (clip looks same on workstation A vs. workstation B?) - …

… hey… you don't want to sell the bride's dress ("what tone of mauve is it?"), you paste tons of Looks&Luts over it to give it the best 'effect' .... 'true colour', hu?

Just a final comment: don't debase yourself as 'just' a wedding photog. When I see, what's done in the 'Daddies Rich Daughter' league … once stumbled upon a website specialised in 'Bollywood Weddings' (one word: elephants!!) … guess, less than 1% of fcp.co members ever had productions like that. Just weddings. Ha.

When I transitioned from audio recording studios to doing video full time, I used wedding videography as a starting point. Wedding videographers work their butts off! That is a very difficult business. I was SO GLAD to get out of it. But I started much older than most in that field are. I presented seminars at the old WEVA conventions, wrote for WEVA magazine doing FCP tutorials. Yeah, that's not only a huge industry, but a tough job to do. Mothers of brides can be flat out pure evil sometimes. Brides can be spoiled little brats beyond compare sometimes. On your feel all day, moving constantly, not to mention the all day prep the day before, and then post. I admire those who do it full time as a business. But not my cup of tea, I'm too old for that stuff now.

Good quality, reliable equipment will go a long way to help.

But since most folks are showing this on, as Karsten rightly stated, "wrong-adjusted TVs", you'd good to go with a good computer monitor using built-in Color Sync, and an HD TV via HDMI for previewing. Hell, I never even did that when I did wedding videos. I just used the scopes and my Mac Cinema Display (state of the art monitor back then).