ESSENTIAL: Technicolor Profile for Canon DSLRs is now available for download. Incredible latitude now on the Canons

DSLRs

I saw this at NAB and this looked great. The legendary Technicolor have created a custom picture profile for the Canons to get the best and flattest image out of the cameras. Well Vincent LaForet has done a couple of little tests and it clearly shows more details in shadows giving the camera more latitude. You can read Vincent’s detailed blog here and see many comparisons. It really makes a hell of a difference as you can see below between the neutral profile settings I recommend and the Technicolor one.

Also please check out Zech’s blog for even more excellent comparisons!!

You need the Canon EOS Utility Software to upload this to you camera available here.

The techincolor profile is available here.

© Vincent LaForet / All Rights Reserved

80 comments

  2. Any idea how this captures skintones ?
    Any weird artefacts ?

    The available tests and footage contain NO people at all, so while it might be great dynamic range-wise, if it makes skin look purple or plastic, it’s the same as most other picture profiles.

  3. I ran some tests, applying different picture styles over a RAW photo

    http://www.similaar.com/foto/picturestyles/picturestyles.html

    my conclusion: the Technicolor CineStyle profile is really powerful: it can bring up shadows that even the aggressive curves on “extra flat” Portrait and Neutral profiles are crushing to black. So, if you need extended dynamic range, Technicolor CineStyle is an amazing tool. Still, whenever I don’t need that extra dynamic range, I’ll use my flattened Portrait picture styles: I feel Neutral and Technicolor deliver clay-like grey people, and make recovering nice skin tones much more difficult (sure, lots of people manage to get their nice colors back in post, but my abilities seem to be really limited in this respect).

    1. and just a few hours later, with a lot more knowledge in my head, I’ve changed my mind completely: this Technicolor thing is AMAZING

      not because it gets more DR than every other picture style out there, which may be close but probably is not the case, but because it comes with a LUT file that MAKES WONDERS

      see my post above, where I say “I feel Neutral and Technicolor deliver clay-like grey people, and make recovering nice skin tones much more difficult (sure, lots of people manage to get their nice colors back in post, but my abilities seem to be really limited in this respect)”
      not the case anymore: I downloaded the free Red Giant Magic Bullet LUT Buddy, used it to apply the Technicolor LUT to the image, and voila, beautiful skin tones recovered!

      so now I can get a lot of DR on my original footage (that I can use by applying my color grading effects below the LUT layer), and can easily get nice skin tones in my final images (even with my very limited skills): IT’S NEARLY PERFECT (the only drawback being that the codec’s 8 bits of color now have to be spread over a larger dynamic range, so there will be more noise in the final images, and codec and sharpening artifacts will be more visible)

      see the additional row in my table of results:
      http://www.similaar.com/foto/picturestyles/picturestyles.html

      1. and you don’t even need the LUT: it’s just a triplet of S curves for RGB, and they’re all the same! so load your footage, add an S curve to get back some contrast, and you already have your nice skin tones ready to go

        so even I can use this, and that’s without the LUT shortcut; I know for a fact that this wasn’t the case with previous ultra flat picture styles

        amazing

        http://www.similaar.com/foto/picturestyles/picturestyles.html

      2. Sam, I downloaded the Magic Bullet LUT Buddy as well but discovered it’s only available for Macs. Does anyone know if it’s also available for Windows machines? Or have I missed something obvious?

  4. Philip,
    Not sure what I did wrong but my EOS utility would only let me upload the picture style in my creative photo modes. I can select it when taking pictures but it doesn’t show up in movie mode.

    Also, if I try to upload it in when in movie mode, the option is greyed out…hmmm.

    Does anyone else have this problem?

    1. PS: This is with a 60D, running firmware 1.09 and EOS Utility 2.9. I’ll try updating EOS Utility to see if that makes a difference, although the documentation states that 2.6 upwards should work…

        1. Guido, I too had the same problem installing this on my 60d. It worked perfectly fine with my 7d but the 60d I can’t quite figure out. I uploaded the firmware on the camera, and also updated the EOS utility and still I can’t get Technicolor to show up in “movie” mode. In stills, I can see the preset which is really weird.

    2. Hey, just registered and wanted to agree about how amazing the shadow detail is. I installed then turned on the 7D with my 50mm @ 1.8. Camera meter says I’m underexposed by over 3 stops but I can see all the detail in a black leather chair and stuff in the shadows under a desk.

      Amazing.

      1. Tested the profile a bit today in sunny ny, I had seen it in NAB but checking it hands on, I can definitely say WOW! Grading becomes so much “easier”, the detail in the shadows is astonishing, what else could we ask for? 🙂

        I’m just wondering if it’s going to work as good on the aps-c cameras.

        I didn’t have any problems grading skin tones btw, although I didn’t have to grade a real xtreme close up, but still, the dynamic range is so much greater.

        Thanks Technicolor

        did I say WOW?

  14. Interesting, very excited for this. I noticed in Vincent LaForet’s blog that he advises against Highlight Tone Priority, which is something that I’ve always used for the extra latitude. The increase in noise is slightly annoying, which is why I suppose he advises against it. What’s your opinion of that setting in conjunction with the new technicolor profile, Mr. Bloom?

  16. is anyone else having a problem to get technicolor’s LUT working in Magic Bullet’s LUT buddy? The file is as a .txt file but LUT Buddy wants a specific file type. I’ve renamed it to a .AMP file and it will load but the image looks completely garbled. I tried .cube and that just crashed LUT buddy.

  17. OK so now we use cinestyle but do we still convert to pro res hq with mpeg streamclip, or can we use 5d to RGB which I am using, and if so do we use the 709 preset!!??? Or does the cinestyle system mean that we should not convert to anything other than pro res with mpeg streamclip? Conversion is something we need help with Philip! Also you never told us to turn off highlight tone priority! Your training video said keep it on! Keep us informed oh master!

  22. Hey Philip,

    I’ve been reading a lot of your articles & comments over the last year. Great stuff. Figured I should join the forum here 🙂

    Knowing that you’ve used the EX1 so much, do you have a color profile for it that you use that gets the most latitude?

    With all that we can do in post these days, I’d rather have a less vibrant looking image if I can gain some extra detail in the shadows and highlights.

  25. Anybody know where i can get the EOS Utility software from? I never had the original software disc with my T2i. The link Philip put up is just for the updates I think.

    Any help most appreciated, cheers.

      1. The Canon site only seems to offer downloads of the EOS Utility Updater though, not the EOS Utility. If you try to install the updater without a previous version of the EOS utility already installed, it asks for the original installation CD in the drive.
        Perhaps if you’re stuck you could find a .ISO disk image of the original CD somewhere, it’s about 160mb.

  26. Very interesting new tools between the cinestyle style and the LUT. I am anxious to see how others end up faring with it. I found the extra processing for color grading in FCP using LUT Buddy was about 5:1 time ratio for me, which sux – that would really, really slow me down. I think I’m just going to have to experiment with doing color correction without applying the LUT if possible.

    Philip, do you know if I would lose the latitude gained by the style if I don’t use the LUT provided?

  27. Silly question maybe: This doesn’t mean we should now be transcoding to ProRes4444 for footage shot in CineStyle, does it?

    Always been satisfied w/ standard ProRes422 for 5D/7D in the past, suspect there’s no add’l data that’ll be lost simply because of the new picture profile, right?

  29. I have loaded the CineStyle profile into my 60D apparently successfully, but when I look at the detail settings for the CineStyle profile, it displays the following: Sharpness 0, Contrast -4, Saturation 0, NOT the recommended -2 setting. Am I now suppose to override the original CineStyle settings and reset it to -2?

    I find it strange that Technicolor “recommends” manual camera settings at all when their CineStyle profile is used. Doesn’t a custom picture style profile automatically set all required parameters? (except for the ISO of course) The CineStyle profile apparently had no problem setting the proper sharpness and contrast, why is it then left to me to set the “recommended” saturation?

    Or did the profile not load in my camera correctly and I need to reload it again?

    Many thanks Philip for shining a light on this new profile. It looks like a winner once I can get it fully worked out!

  30. Not that I love talking to myself, but I have found out the answer to my question above, in case anyone else is interested. The answer is that the LUT has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the latitude gained by the picture style in-camera. The LUT is for viewing the footage. It can be applied to clips, but in essence you are just applying a color correction curve. It is normally applied to monitoring during shoots, allowing directors and others to see a more accurate representation of what the image will look like after color correction, only this way they can see it in the field.

    So, no Virginia – LUT is not “required” as part of the Cinestyle style – it just provides an example of how it could/should look in post.

    1. Thanks for posting this split screen test. It easily shows that adding an S curve in post, whether by using the supplied LUT file or by other methods, is absolutely an essential part of this process. The uncorrected picture straight out of the camera using CineStyle alone is dreadfully weak as a final look. Was your saturation set to -2? If it was, did you have to manually set the saturation to -2, or was it automatically set for you when you loaded the profile? Please see my post above. Many thanks!

  33. Just curious, what exact latitude does the CineStyle give you? How many more stops does it provide? Curious on some technical details. On some websites I found the standard PS gives you 8 stops. Any one know how many stops more you get using CineStyle?

  36. Ok, so an updated lut was posted by technicolor. In FCP the .mga should be used in the lut buddy plugin. For me this solves any issues of FCP crashing on render.

    The render is extremely slow. What would be a good workflow to make the rendering better ? Would it it be possible to first render each piece of footage with the lut applied, and then edit/color correct those pieces, or is the information then lost for ever?

    1. yes. It’s crashing for me too. The .mga file works but as you say, the render is ssslllooowww. I think the best work flow would be to use safe RT, then render at the end.

    1. I agree with you Kyle. The image with the supplied LUT does look too contrasty. (applied in CS5 with LUT buddy) It’s mainly in the shadows where I think it’s too closed up. I plan on creating my own LUT that will open the shadows a touch more. In the meantime, I add a secondary RGB curve that opens the shadows a needed touch. I’m hoping in the future that Technicolor will make available a number of different LUTs that each have a different look.

  38. Overall, I love this new picture style and the increased dynamic range it delivers. However, the BIG drawback I have discovered is that the image which is seen in the camera’s built in LCD screen is now way too flat and makes focusing MUCH harder. The first time I tried out shooting with CineStyle I thought something was wrong with my eyes as I had a terrible time finding the focus. I hope in the future, it would be possible to adjust the picture on the cameras LCD screen separately for best contrast (or even apply the LUT to the screen) while still recording the flat look of the CineStyle for the best dynamic range and color correction in post.

    1. Download the free Magic Bullet LUT Buddy software here:http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/free/
      Follow the instructions to load in the plugin into your editing software FCP, CS5 etc. Once the plugin in installed, open the editing program and import a clip that has been shot with the CineStyle picture settings that has been loaded into your camera. Look in the video effects window for the Magic Bullet Colorista folder.

      Open the folder and the LUT Buddy should be there. Drag the LUT “effect” on top of your clip. Go into the effect controls for the LUT Buddy and click on the “file select” button near the top of the LUT effect window. Select the CineStyle LUT that Technicolor provides as a download and hit OK. The LUT is now applied to your clip, however you may have to select another clip or other window then jump back to the clip to see the effect properly applied. (this might be a tiny glitch) I found that the supplied LUT closes up the shadows way too much, so I use the RGB curves to lift the shadows to where I feel they should be.

      A custom, tuned to your preferences LUT can be created using After Effects, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.

  40. I a music video shoot today so downloaded technicolor to the cams for the hell of it.

    The location was in the shell of a building, dark interior with bright sky behind. Bit of a nightmare on no budget. A lot of DIY reflectors helped.

    The results were mind-blowing. The technicolor holds an incredible amount of latitude, the result looks initially a little flat until you realise just how much you can see into the shadows and the blown out highlights are within reason quite acceptable.

    Right now I’ve fallen back in love with my dslr, it just blew my mind. Now for color correction…

  42. The rendering time on this thing is horrendous! Just finished editing a 50 minute piece. With Magic Bullet LUT Buddy applied to all clips, it takes about three days on my Quad Core 2.66GHz MacPro. The color is great but surely there is a way around this… how about a preset S curve you can apply from MB Looks?

  43. To people planning to use FCPX with this profile: I found two interesting solutions.

    Pomfort released a plugin for FCPX. It’s still a beta and it may not be free after the beta.

    Rarevision’s 5DtoRGB: from now on, this little guy can inject the LUT during conversion to Prores format. I think I’m gonna choose this one. The conversion is slow but very efficient.

  44. thanks for the profile advice Phillip have installed, just wanted to know what people recommend doing for white balance, AWB or custom and dialling in whatever, also best ISO (sweet spot) and shutter think I read it was 1/60 for 24fps, I’m a novice as you can tell, some great pointers would be great.

    1. You should always control WB manually. Daylight is 5600 and tungsten is about 3200. As for ISO’s multiples of 160 (or closest to) are the native ISO’s. Film cameras shoot at 1/48 of a second so anything close to that will somewhat replicate the look of film when shooting 24fps.

      1. The native ISO’s are not multiples of 160 but multiples of 100. Many people think that the native ISO’s are multiples of 160 because it creates a picture with less noise, but the dynamic range is 1/3 stop smaller. The cinematographer of Black Swan used a 7D, and he used ISO 1600 and a Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 stopped down to f/8.

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