Changing colour of a chair
by Phil Beastall
on
Jun 30, 2009 at 12:54:49 pm
A client is providing a chair with which two people will sit on and be interviewed, then in post, they want me to change the colour of it to be Pantone Ref 109 (yellow). How doable is this in Color? I am trying to isolate the colour of the chair and have managed to get it quite close.
They are supplying me with image examples to change before we buy it> Beige becomes the yellow colour quite well, but it'll be difficult because beige is also in people's skin colour so changes as well. They supplied an image of a red chair, which is impossible to get to the yellow colour I want.
How would you recommend I do this? Or in video is it not just not doable?
Re: Changing colour of a chair by walter biscardi on Jun 30, 2009 at 1:03:11 pm
Why didn't they just purchase a yellow chair? What an asinine way to go about this if they knew they wanted a different color. But I digress.....
If it's a locked down shot, your best hope is to put a very close cut custom shape around it and then use your curves. Since it's in the Red color space, you're going to be grabbing skin tone if anyone's arm is on it and if their arm moves, well you're going to have a lot of keyframes or you'll have to take it into a compositing software to rotoscope.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Changing colour of a chair by Phil Beastall on Jun 30, 2009 at 1:18:39 pm
Thats what I thought. In the timescale we have, rotoscoping two people sat on a sofa, with them moving during a 3-4 minute interview is just not feasible. They are looking at a site that doesn't sell the colour they are after because its a specific pantone colour, however, I may have to suggest we get a chair that is as close to the colour as poss and settle on that.
Re: Changing colour of a chair by walter biscardi on Jun 30, 2009 at 2:16:54 pm
[Phil Beastall]"however, I may have to suggest we get a chair that is as close to the colour as poss and settle on that."
If you do that, then you can do an HSL key or even use the Hue Curves to make minor tweaks to that chair. If you're close to begin with, it should not be difficult at all to dial in the actual hue of yellow they're looking for.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Changing colour of a chair by Joseph Owens on Jun 30, 2009 at 4:55:06 pm
Couple of observations.
Vocabulary first. "RED space" is actually a technical term now, describing the gamut occupied by the media produced by the RED_One digital cinema camera. I'd be careful splashing that terminology around when what's probably meant is: the segment/vector of any particular colourspace influenced by the red color component.
But within any definition of values, which is why I'm hoping I won't be taken as a pedantic snob in this discussion, there are values that simply cannot be replicated. Pantone values are one of them, in that they do not translate to video. They are a dye/pigment print/paint system. There is a component of reflectivity associated that does not exist in video at all, which is an emissive medium. On this point it is case closed. You are trying to teach a fish how to pedal a bicycle... thank you Gloria Steinem.
And speaking of fish and bicycles, Curves are not compatible with user shapes or vignettes. You are stuck with an HSL isolation, probably helped out by a tight user shape, if the range of values can be pulled together without giving itself away -- and this will be dependent on how robust the originating media is. I'm betting its not Uncompressed 10-bit RGB Dual-Link HDCamSR.
This reminds me of a project from about 9 or 10 years ago (?) involving a RED Toyota Prius that would have been cheaper to paint green, than it was to roto the whole spot so that it appeared to be that way. Yes, driving through clouds of dust, too... and across an overhead trussed bridge that was casting shadows as it drove through. and so on and so forth.
And even though the car is available in that color, there was only a red example available, and yes, we did have to try to match the Toyota (pantone) approved shade. The real trick was the brake lights. You know what color they usually are....
Re: Changing colour of a chair by Jason Porthouse on Jul 6, 2009 at 8:07:15 am
I had this one too. Working on a spot for a big comms company abuot 10 years ago, they insisted on matching their pantone reference. I patiently explained that this was impossible, and an eye-match would be closest to their needs - but no, their Brand Nazis insisted.
They threatened to pull the job and go to a 'proper soho finishing house' (we had an online Avid at the time). I managed to 'find' a 'filter' that enabled me to do it. This involved me making a show of typing the pantone reference in to a meaningless dialogue box, whilst a colleague poked his head round the door just at the right time to ask how the new filter was working, thus distracting them. By the time they turned round, 'rendering' had finished and voila! a perfect match. They were happy. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Jason
_________________________________
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