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Best color grading and color science book


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Hi, what are your favourite books/courses on colour theory, and colour's influence on psychology. How much colour theory is a digital colourist expected to know?

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I agree in @Tom Poole's statement in one of the other threads. 

"My advice to my assists and people coming up is always the same "Immerse yourself in all things visual - photography, film, art, whatever it is". These are the things that will make you a good colorist, and also allow you to hold conversations with other creatives.

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You don't need books to make an image look good. You only need the ability to manipulate the three color channels, density controls and inspiration. Recreate things you see around you and pay attention to light and color.

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You always got Alexis Van Hurkman's Colour Correction Handbook. Just make sure to buy the latest (2.nd I guess) edition. If you are looking for high end stuff, you got an enormous amount of creative techniques and knowledge behind the premium walls on this site.

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4 hours ago, Nicolas Hanson said:

You always got Alexis Van Hurkman's Colour Correction Handbook. Just make sure to buy the latest (2.nd I guess) edition. If you are looking for high end stuff, you got an enormous amount of creative techniques and knowledge behind the premium walls on this site.

Yeah, I am currently reading his Colour Correction Handbook as well as watching his Color Correction training series on Ripple Training. I am getting myself comfortable with DaVinci Resolve.

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  • 3 months later...

A list from Lowepost's FB page.

  • Glenn Kennel: "Color and mastering for Digital Cinema"
  • Alexis Van Hurkman's COLOR CORRECTION HANDBOOK
  • David Stump's DIGITAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
  • Scott Arundale's MODERN POST: WORKFLOWS & TECHNIQUES FOR DIGITAL FILMMAKERS
  • The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction, 2nd edition
  • Color Correction for Video, 2nd edition
  • Charles Poynton’s PDFs on gamma correction and perceptual uniformity
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  • 4 weeks later...

To continue the list...

  • Digital Video Algorithms and Interfaces by Charles Poynton
  • Circles of Confusion by Alan Roberts
  • Billmeyer and Saltzman's Principles of Color Technology
  • The Elements of Color by Johannes Itten
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There is a companion to Alexis' COLOR CORRECTION HANDBOOK, which is the LOOKBOOK.

I have seen Itten's treatise here and there, but although the principles don't change, its kind of dated, like Bauhaus philosophy... and then you might as well read Goethe.

"If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna to Die" by Patti Bellantoni is a fun read with lots of input from Deakins BSC among others. Its a no-button-pushing insight into color design. As much about Art Direction as anything.

There is a curious little book called "The Colour Eye" produced by BBC Books authored by Robert Cumming and Tom Porter as a print companion to a series produced by Suzanne Davies and Julian Stenhouse with BBC2 (1990).

I'd spend some time with https://colormax.org/color-blind-test/ Ishihara...  <winky>

There are always more publications in development... stay tuned.

Would anyone be interested...? I set up an outline about 6 years ago and never followed up on it to do a sort of thought approach -- a board-less mental chess game working through the process of grade, using a Sontag-like no-image essay that subtracted all the knobs, rings, styluses, mice... basically no software involved whatsoever...

 

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On 6/2/2017 at 5:41 PM, Joseph Owens said:

Would anyone be interested...? I set up an outline about 6 years ago and never followed up on it to do a sort of thought approach -- a board-less mental chess game working through the process of grade, using a Sontag-like no-image essay that subtracted all the knobs, rings, styluses, mice... basically no software involved whatsoever...

 

Thanks ^^ could you elaborate what you mean by this part? I don't fully understand.

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There were a number of book ideas in play... this was a direction I had that would separate the activity of creating a grade away from the standard approach of "how to work the software" to achieve it -- no knobs, balls, effects... how to think your way into the scene, establish the stage, then maintain it. Not "I am a Camera"... "I am a Colorist"  :-)

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/2/2017 at 6:41 PM, Joseph Owens said:

Would anyone be interested...? I set up an outline about 6 years ago and never followed up on it to do a sort of thought approach -- a board-less mental chess game working through the process of grade, using a Sontag-like no-image essay that subtracted all the knobs, rings, styluses, mice... basically no software involved whatsoever...

Joseph, it would be interesting to hear more about this project?

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