The reduced saturation requires heavy saturation boosting to look normal again but the damage caused by discarding a lot of the color DIFFERENCE information cannot be undone the face has color banding issues that make it look more “plastic.” The flatter you shoot, the nastier this color banding gets. There are JPEG artifacts visible in both images, but those artifacts help us get a better picture of why “shooting flat” on cameras without 10-bit color is a bad idea: notice how the JPEG artifacts in the corrected image are WAY more obvious and the quality loss after my simple color correction drastically lowers the apparent “production value” of the image? That’s a big part of the problem, but the other part is the colors.

Keep in mind that this is a small JPEG image from their website, not a lossless shot of the original frame. Original CineStyle, vs Corrected, double size to show detail more clearly Let’s take a closer look at the face side-by-side, before and after. Note the blocky artifacts and unnatural colors. Here’s their original image which was shot with Technicolor CineStyle, a “flat” picture profile that supposedly helps you get more dynamic range and therefore better looking video: Technicolor CineStyle example image from The Association BlogĪnd here’s what it looks like after I pull it into an image editor, boosting contrast, saturation, brightness (a little) and gamma (a little) to make it look “normal” again: Color-corrected image. (Hint: if you don’t already know whether your camera produces 8-bit color or 10-bit color, it produces 8-bit color.) I’ll point you to this article “Should I Shoot Flat and Underexposed?” with a Technicolor CineStyle example image so you can read their advice and then I’ll show you with THEIR OWN IMAGE why shooting flat on your DSLR is a really bad idea, then I’ll explain what’s really going on. If your camera does not output files that have 10-bit (or higher) color channels, you should NEVER SHOOT FLAT, LOG, or CINEMA COLOR PROFILES, EVER. I plan to do a much deeper video on this subject later, but for now I’ve found a perfect example of the sort of “you should shoot flat ” bad advice I see online all the time.

If you have the time and want to grow your knowledge about digital video, it’s definitely worth investing the time to read the 3000+ word post there instead of this one. This post is a good short example, but I show better examples and explain the problem in great depth at GCP. Update: I’ve written a much more comprehensive article on the subject of shooting with flat/log color profiles at the Gazing Cat Productions blog. Tagged advice, android, c-log, cinelike, cinestyle, color correction, color grading, contrast, damage, davinci resolve, dslr, film look, filmic, filmic pro, final cut pro, flat, free, iOS, iPhone, log, log v2, low light, LUT, LUTs, noise, panasonic, premiere, s-log3, saturation, sharpness, snake oil, sony, spectre luts, tutorial, vegas, vx870, washed out 5 Comments UPDATE: There’s a new video I put out that covers a lot of the same ground, but gets more technical and has more examples and information. I usually explain this in mathematical terms, but that can be hard to grasp, so this video serves as a short overview of the things that you should avoid in the realm of picture profiles and saturation/contrast settings.įor a lot more information about this subject, this article will satisfy most of your curiosities: YouTube video experts don’t understand why flat/log footage on 8-bit cameras is a bad idea GC_Victory_Arrows - High Contrast Bleachy Look.Shooting log, shooting flat, using LUTs, turning down the contrast…stop doing these things! Unless you have a 10-bit capable camera, shooting with log profiles like Cine-D, V-Log, C-Log, S-log, or Technicolor CineStyle will only damage your footage and limit what you can do with it in post-production. High quality cinematic looks at a price anyone can afford. Any model of camera that shoots in the Technicolor Cinestyle Picture style will work beautifully with these LUTs!Įach LUT has a LOG version for use with Cinestyle Gamma as well as a Rec.709 version that can be used with footage shot with other styles, added to existing color correction, or even combined with other LUTs for even greater customization! Victory LUTs for Cinestyle (Win/Mac)Here's a killer LUT pack specially designed for Cinestyle footage.

Technicolor cinestyle lut premiere pro