April 2, 2026

Look Dev Is Not Color Grading with the HAL Pictures Team

Look Dev Is Not Color Grading with the HAL Pictures Team
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Season 3

Look development and color grading share tools, but they are not the same job. We sit down with the Hal Pictures team — Martin Roux, Olivier Patron, Paul Morin, and Antoine Mayette — to dig into how a group of French DOPs, a DIT, and a director built the tools they couldn't find anywhere else: Diachromie and Diaphanie.

The conversation starts where the frustration did. Post houses in France lacked proper look development infrastructure, and what existed elsewhere was either inaccessible or wrong for their workflow. So they built their own, rooted in a principle that any image can be decomposed into three parts: contrast, color tone curves, and color volume. Understand those, and you can describe a look. If you can describe it, you can build it.

We break down Diachromie's approach to shaping the color volume parametrically inside a color-managed pipeline, and Diaphanie's frequency separation engine for texture — MTF, halation, bloom, and grain as independent, composable layers. The team explains why they separated color from texture, why that opens up aesthetics beyond film emulation, and why algorithm-based tools and sample-based tools are different propositions — not better or worse, just different.

There's also a practical conversation about the limits of OpenFX, running multiple plugin instances to work around fixed order-of-operations, and how the preset system carries look development knowledge from project to project.

These are practitioners who built for their own needs, then released it. That lineage shows in every design decision.

Subscribe, share with a fellow color nerd, and leave a review. Find Hal Pictures and the demo version of both tools at hal-picture.com.

Guest Links:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/hal_picture/
Website - https://hal-picture.com/


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Flanders Scientific Inc. (FSI)
High-Quality Reference Displays for Editors, Colorists and DITS

DeMystify Color
Color Training and Color Grading Tools

PixelTools
Modern Color Grading Tools and Presets for DaVinci Resolve

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PixelTools
Modern Color Grading Tools and Presets for DaVinci Resolve

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Produced by Bowdacious Media LLC



00:00 - Split Texture From Color

00:56 - Show Welcome And Guests

02:04 - From Set Work To Toolmaking

04:36 - The Post Pipeline Problem

08:39 - Look Development Versus Grading

13:15 - Diachromy Breaks Looks Into Three

21:01 - Presets That Keep Looks Flexible

26:40 - Diaphany For Halation Bloom Grain

33:25 - A Better Frequency Separation Model

39:06 - Why Two Plugins Work Better

43:04 - Film Feel Without Scanning

49:41 - When Sliders Go Beyond Reality

53:58 - Future Plans And Gamut Compression

55:21 - Try The Demo And Learn Online

57:50 - Outro Reviews And Where To Follow

WEBVTT

00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:20.800
Most of modern production want a certain part of film behaviors, but also like some digital behavior, and to be able to split the texture from the color and to build also like a node graph with a bit of texture and then the color, and that it's a better way to uh explore new aesthetic.

00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:27.920
Because if you just want to make a good film look, I mean there's a typical order which is uh which is fine, and and that's it.

00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:29.120
And that's film look.

00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:48.799
But the main idea is to be able to make pretty good film looks, but also and more important to be able to move away from film looks to new aesthetic and to some stuff that are newer, and you can rely on a lot of behavior from film, but but but having also new stuff in your image.

00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:56.000
And so that's that's why it's important to split uh the way you think between color behavior and textual behavior.

00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:02.799
Welcome to Color and Coffee, a podcast that's focused on the craft of color and the artists behind it.

00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:13.040
I'm your host, Jason Bowdach, and each episode we'll sit down with some of the most talented artists in the industry and have a casual chat from one artist to another.

00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:19.359
We'll share their stories, their insights, their tips, and maybe even a little gear talk.

00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:25.680
Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, join us for some great color discussion.

00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:30.879
Sit back, relax, you're listening to Color and Coffee.

00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:35.040
Hello and welcome to another episode of Color and Coffee.

00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:38.000
I'm so happy to have you here as a guest.

00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:41.040
I have such a fun episode for you guys today.

00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:48.640
I have the Hal Pictures team, and we have Paul Morin, Martin Roux, Oliver Patron, and Antoine Mayette.

00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.000
Thank you guys for joining us today on the podcast, you guys.

00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:53.040
Hi, Jason.

00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:54.000
Thanks for having us.

00:01:54.239 --> 00:01:57.040
Now, first off, I have to thank all of you guys for joining us today.

00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:04.319
I think this is the largest group that we've had on the podcast, and I'm so excited to ask you guys about your tools, diacrymy and diaphamy.

00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:10.639
So, first off, I want to ask you guys how you guys got into the tool creation business.

00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:18.080
Because if I'm not mistaken, you guys actually started out as practitioners, DOPs, DITs, and a director, correct?

00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:19.439
Yeah, that's right.

00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:42.560
So uh Paul and I we are uh are uh DOP, Oliver is a DIT, Antoine is also uh directing films, all of us are practitioners, and um a few years ago we feel the need to develop our our own tools because we've we we were a little bit disappointed by the how our images were processed uh in French post house.

00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:46.000
It was like um five or six years ago.

00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:47.280
Yeah, a bit frustrating.

00:02:47.280 --> 00:03:05.599
Um and there were like no look development tools uh in any post house in France, and and there were also very few DCTLs uh on the market, very few film look plugins, and so it we feel um the need to start our own journey through uh color science and stuff like that.

00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:22.080
At the very beginning for our own our own uh needs, but year after years uh the the tools at the very beginning it was just like a small DCTL or a bunch of DCTLs, and then an OFX plugin, and it it became more and more uh complex.

00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:30.400
And friends are first like asked us to to try it, to use it on their own uh feature film or TV show.

00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:41.280
And so we um we had to finish the development to have something which uh which is uh uh stable and which is uh uh robust enough.

00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:54.719
And because it's it takes a lot of time, I mean it the easiest way was to release something, to sell it, to be able to continue to work on it because it was a lot of time to maintain that more and more complex tool.

00:03:54.719 --> 00:04:02.319
And so we've released the first uh I mean uh open version in uh at the end of 2025, and we are very happy about that.

00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:11.840
I know, I mean, myself as a developer, I know creating your own internal tools and releasing a public tool that you're gonna sell to others are two entirely different ball games.

00:04:11.840 --> 00:04:14.960
So I want to jump into the beginning.

00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:19.920
What were you guys not getting out of some of these post houses?

00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.839
What were your needs and what were you not getting?

00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:32.800
Because I mean, color correction has been around for, I mean, at least in its current form, digital color correction has been around for almost 25, 26 years at this point.

00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:35.920
And what were you guys feeling limited by?

00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:38.800
I would say there are two sides to this answer, I think.

00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:46.240
Tools were missing, but also maybe a global understanding of what is a digital image and how it's supposed to be processed.

00:04:46.240 --> 00:05:09.360
Not saying that there's one way to process a digital image, but it felt sometimes, even in, you know, I mean, we were doing TV shows and feature films back then already, and even then, you could feel that there was some kind of an uncertainty about how to process the images, and and so you weren't sure exactly of what would be the outcome of your image after being processed and why it would uh be like that.

00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:15.199
And I know it sounds a bit like huge as a I mean, it's a huge statement, but it actually was true most of the time.

00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:26.240
And uh the expert houses that really had this control were not available for many uh productions because well, they had a savoir-fair, and so it was kind of uh expensive, you know, hard to hard to get.

00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:36.399
So the mainstream understanding of how to process an image and what to do to have a proper, correct result on screen and when broadcasting was not very well diffused.

00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:54.399
And if you don't have the understanding, well, even if the tools exist, that doesn't work, but also the tools felt a bit limited or again too expensive to be um accessible for like a medium French production, which you know we're not talking about the same number scales in terms of production uh economy than in the US.

00:05:54.399 --> 00:06:02.639
So it was kind of a mix of of both these issues, and um as it happens, we all come from the same film school and different promotion with different years.

00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:03.920
It's differently exactly.

00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:07.199
There's a 10-year span, I think, covering covered here.

00:06:07.199 --> 00:06:21.279
So, and that's not for nothing, it's because this is a film school that really gets technical background, has a huge technical and scientific background, and where art meets that you you know your craft is really funded by a lot of technical and scientific um uh skills.

00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:35.199
So, with this skill and also with the time we we got during like uh COVID, the first COVID lockdown, each in our uh uh on spot, like uh alone at first, we felt that something had to be done with color science, whatever that meant at that time.

00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:39.360
You know, uh Steve Yedlin had released his first uh video, I think, the display prep demo.

00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:46.319
I think that's a starting point for a lot of people, or if not starting point, at least like something that really uh fed the bear inside.

00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:53.439
And so, speaking for myself, I was like I spent a lot of time during the lockdown trying to figure out what was this field color science.

00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:59.040
I could understand that there was something to be done with that in terms of image processing, but it felt so vast and so complex.

00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:16.959
And then Martin published a small paper on the AFC website, which is the French um association of uh cinematographers, and that was talking about the idea that there was something beyond color in digital, and that he was talking about the fact that there needed to be an effort of research in terms of uh look development and color science.

00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:20.959
He had these hints that I could feel were were common to mind.

00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:34.160
I think Olivier got got in contact with Martin in in the same fashion, and so it started with the three of us, and Antoine joined a bit later, but it started with the idea that there was this field, it was unexplored, and there was something that could be done with it.

00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:42.959
And we had the three of us put together, we had enough skills combined that maybe we could crack the enough bit of the case and enough motion because we had to go somewhere.

00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:58.160
Because each of us alone, we started something looking for some answers, but myself alone, I was uh often asked by DOPs how to get to look creation and all that, and I was trying to craft some stuff there here and there, crafting lookup tables from MATLAB.

00:07:58.160 --> 00:07:59.439
I remember I was doing that.

00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:02.879
But you cannot do you cannot go anywhere with that.

00:08:02.879 --> 00:08:06.000
So at some time point you know you lose some courage.

00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:11.040
Um but when we we found ourselves also really getting somewhere, like it helped.

00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:19.120
Yeah, there is strength in numbers, and also we do we did all that and we still do all that as our secondary work because we still have.

00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:23.439
I mean, my primary work is still DOP on you know TV shows and feature films.

00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:26.639
Same for Martin, you're still doing a lot of DIT job, that's your main work.

00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:35.200
So being a multiplicity allowed us to work during our free time and our spare time, and to combine this spare time to have actually enough time combined to get somewhere.

00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:39.200
If we'd been alone, it would have been just too big a mountain, too high a mountain to climb.

00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:43.360
To to be a little bit more specific about your question, what was missing?

00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:51.200
The fact of being able to develop look in color managed workflow and to develop look only, which is different from color grading.

00:08:51.200 --> 00:09:13.600
Look only is it it's like a color behavior which is not uh on a shot by shot base, but which is more something global that you can apply to a full feature film or a full um TV series, and uh which is robust enough to be applied on different cameras, and which are just the color, uh the rules of how the color behaves.

00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:26.559
And to be able to shape this behavior in color managed workflow, there were very few tools, and there is still very few tools because there are tools dedicated to color grading, and there are a lot of them, and they are very good for that.

00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:33.120
There are a lot of pre-made looks and catalogs of floods and stuff like that, which are great uh also.

00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:48.080
But if you are looking for parametric tools to shape the color volume into a color managed workflow specifically, and that behaves coherently into a color managed workflow, which which means like in relation with the with the DRT, there is very very few tools.

00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:49.840
There is some DCTLs.

00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:58.480
Uh there is uh, of course, chromogen from base light, but chromosom chromogen while was not available where we it was in a better state, I think.

00:09:58.480 --> 00:09:59.840
When we started, yeah.

00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:17.279
And even if it had been available when we started it, in France base light is really not major, a majority of uh post houses do not have base light, it's it's not accessible easily, so it would still have been a blocking criteria because we wouldn't have been able, sorry, to uh to access it on any production.

00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:25.279
And the idea was to have something that was not have a tool that was not camera dependent and that was not post-production software dependent.

00:10:25.279 --> 00:10:35.279
So we wanted because we I mean that's true for any kind of production, but we as a filmmakers we didn't have always a choice or where we would where our project will be uh post-produced.

00:10:35.279 --> 00:10:46.399
And so we wanted to be able to say, okay, whichever tool you use, as long as they're you know production ready, well, we want to embed our solution and it won't break your workflow, it will actually like improve your workflow.

00:10:46.399 --> 00:11:00.159
But at first it was about making you know making sure people trusted the the tool, and it was like that works, that plays along very nice with the workflow, and and it works whichever camera we had access to, whichever grading suite we had access to.

00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:02.879
That was uh an important criteria at that moment.

00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:05.519
I love the approach that you guys took to get there.

00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:24.480
For me, it falls perfectly in line with this evolving area of directors of photography and DITs basically taking more ownership of the image and saying I didn't have the tool set that I need to have proper authorship over my image, and I need additional tools to do that.

00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:29.360
And I don't want to use color grading to do that and make them fit in a box where they don't fit properly.

00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:36.240
So I love that you guys sort of put the rubber to the road and said, if no one else is gonna do this, we're gonna do this.

00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:41.679
And even if they're doing this somewhere else, I want to make this as accessible as possible, specifically for our production.

00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:54.080
So that is, I love that, and I love to say that you're part of this new generation of people that are saying if nobody else is gonna make these tools and give us what we need to have the authorship that we want over our image, then we're gonna do it ourselves.

00:11:54.080 --> 00:12:02.240
So let's jump in to each tool individual because I instead of making a single tool, you guys made two different tools, correct?

00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:03.120
Yeah.

00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:04.159
We have two different tools.

00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:06.559
We have diachrony and diaphany.

00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:13.919
One of them is more of a color volume tool, and one of them is more of a texture management MTF style tool, correct?

00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:15.039
Yeah, exactly.

00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:17.679
So I'm gonna ask you guys probably a loaded question.

00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:19.200
Which one's your favorite?

00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:21.759
It depends in terms of what.

00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:27.600
Do you mean I think the question the question as a user you can only have one, which one do you take?

00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:32.159
And I think that's which because if you ask me which which one I prefer, it's hard.

00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:38.879
But like if I have to take only one on the production, I think I'll take diaphany because I think the control over the texture is yeah, it's crazy.

00:12:38.879 --> 00:12:53.919
I mean, I wouldn't find a tenth of a satisfying solution, the uh tenth satisfying solution, whereas I can see how I can you know really make my colorists work hard and find other ways to get where I want to do color-wise, but I think diaphany uh would be a little bit more essential.

00:12:53.919 --> 00:12:56.639
But we're really talking about like biomalogy.

00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:17.279
Yeah, it's they're both really unique tools, and I actually want to dive into diacrymie first, but I had to ask that because to be honest, I think they're both very different tools, but I find that when you create something, you tend to have an affinity towards one or the other, even if you don't want to, and even if they do very different things, it's hard not to have a little bit of a favorite.

00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:18.960
And so I thought that was an interesting question.

00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:21.840
So, diachrome, we know what the purpose is.

00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:28.159
It's basically going to shape color volume, it's gonna adjust hue and density, and you guys actually have some built-in presets there.

00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:33.840
But what was the mentality that you guys went into when to differentiate it from some of the built-in tools?

00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:38.159
Like I'm sure color slice didn't exist in Resolve, and you guys were working on this.

00:13:38.159 --> 00:13:40.799
But what were you thinking when you guys were developing this?

00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:44.399
Because you guys have a very unique mentality in both of these plugins.

00:13:44.639 --> 00:14:07.200
I think the main idea is that any look of any analog or digital image or anything you can be broken down into three components, which are a contrast curve and any let's, of course, a contrast curve, color tone curves, in fact, that means three uh contrast curves, uh in fact, and a specific shape of the color volume.

00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:18.000
The the the contrast, the the color tone curves are in fact the the gray axis of the volume, and then how you you shape the volume um all around the natural axis.

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:35.120
And so if you can uh verbally express how you want your contrast curve, how you want your color cast or your dominant colors, and how you want each of the parts of your color volume, which are reds, blue, yellow, magenta, greens, etc., how you want those colors to behave.

00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:38.720
If you can express it, then you can create it.

00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:45.519
And then the main idea is to break down the color creation the look creation into these those uh three parts.

00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:54.720
Uh so you can create your own look, of course, but also edit an already made uh look very easily and just on one of those uh three parts.

00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:57.279
That separation in is the main idea, I think.

00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:05.200
Yeah, the the idea is that it can be a bit overwhelming to say what should that that look be, how should my image look like?

00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:07.759
Describe your look in now.

00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:50.799
Yeah where so our idea was, and even for us, I mean, and uh for us even primarily, and so the idea was let's break it down into um singular characteristics that cover specific aspects of the look, which makes the conversation about the look simpler between the colorist, DOP, the director, everybody involved in the in the creation um uh process that makes the creation of the look easier, and then its evolution easier as well, uh whether you're doing several versions of it during prep or even doing shoot if you realize that something is not working, instead of, and I'm not exaggerating, panicking and just trying to roll everything to move everything until you find a solution.

00:15:50.799 --> 00:16:07.120
You can either you yourself on the set or in the lab assess the situation and be like, okay, yeah, your location has actually um a red that's way stronger than we thought, and so we have to work in the reds, and specifically maybe it's the the way we compress to get some duration or you get too much.

00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:11.360
But you can you know narrow down to uh one or a series of parameters.

00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:17.519
Yeah, and that's why we got also the the presets thing built in very very early in the plugin development.

00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:29.360
I think that you can bring one preset you crafted that you like, but you need to bring it to another show and just tweak maybe like lighten the contrast curve or it's the main thing.

00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:36.399
I mean I think the idea that uh so there is there are several ideas in in the in designing tools, but one was the one we just explained.

00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:41.759
The other one was well, loop development is a complex operation, you have to make it simpler, as simple as you can.

00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:45.840
But you don't want to make it too simple because if you make too simple, you lose possibilities.

00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:49.200
So that balance we argue struggle for hours every time.

00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:50.960
Should we remove this slider?

00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:52.240
Should we keep this slider?

00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:54.159
How should we present the sliders as well?

00:16:54.159 --> 00:17:06.640
So even the in the way we the order in which we present the sliders and which one are shown by default or hidden by default, it's a reflection about what do you use often and how uh in which order you should you think your look.

00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:15.279
And we think you should think your look first by using working on the contrast, then on the color tone curves, then on the color volumes, which doesn't mean that you won't go back up.

00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:20.559
Of course, you're gonna do, you know, but a rule of thumb path that you should follow because it makes life easier.

00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:26.799
And also to make it easier, the presets, the idea was like loop development is hard and it's actually a long-term game.

00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:27.920
You know, you get better.

00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:30.720
The more loop development you do, the better you get at it.

00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:32.319
I'm sure you have this experience as well.

00:17:32.319 --> 00:17:34.799
And uh stop learning.

00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:36.400
You never stop learning, man.

00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:41.359
And so the idea was what's the best way to keep to learn from my previous experiences?

00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:45.920
Well, it's to have the ability to start from them, but not being locked in my last look.

00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:47.279
Just okay, I did that.

00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:48.799
That was that was okay.

00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:55.359
I liked it, but I really like the contrast, but the color tone cast was a bit too much, or just it's not gonna fit that project.

00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:58.799
Well, I'm just gonna load the contrast part of my previous presets.

00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:07.599
You know, I'm just gonna load the contrast preset, but then I'll I'll I'll start from scratch on the color tone curves, or I won't start from scratch, but I know I will have a lot of editing to do on them.

00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:19.200
But the idea was it can be incremental, it doesn't have to be like you start from scratch every time because well, it it takes time, it takes skills, and also we live in um in an environment with where time is a constraint.

00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:22.240
So, you know, you don't always have two days of prep for a look.

00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:28.400
And so maybe you had this great feature film with a lot of money when where you took a lot of time to prep the look, and that was great.

00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:42.319
But maybe you can use some of that time for the next project, which is maybe a short film or a documentary with less budget, and then you're like, okay, well, I'll just start from the preset I built last time and I'll edit it because I know I I took a lot of time in this preset.

00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:45.119
I know it's very robust, and so I'm gonna start that.

00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:53.039
So there was a lot when building the the tools, there was a lot of um it was built on the the way we think it should be used, you know.

00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:58.640
I mean, how we make the life simpler while preserving the power of the uh features we invented.

00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:02.640
We we fixed the order of the process order, the order of operations.

00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.160
We fixed it to try to simplify the way you you craft the look.

00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:10.640
That was one of the first things I noticed is how much thought you guys have clearly put into it.

00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:15.279
Because I mean, first off, I don't see a lot of OFX plugins that let you import and export looks.

00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:26.160
Yeah, you can obviously create a power grade from it, but like you guys literally allow you to export a preset right from the OFX plugin, which I think is genius, by the way, because you don't want to start from scratch each time.

00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:30.160
Look development is not black or white, it's sort of a gray zone.

00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:45.359
And if you've put all this work into creating this nice look, you want to save it and, like you said, start from that the next time and maybe continue to adjust it a little bit because you might come up with something totally different, or you might just need to adjust, like you said, just the contrast curve or just the color volume for a specific hue.

00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:47.759
And so it's really nice to start with something proven.

00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:53.599
It also is really nice for clients when you already know that you have something that's robust and you don't need to start from scratch again.

00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:55.680
So I thought that was a really smart part of the plugin.

00:19:55.680 --> 00:20:10.799
And I think that's also you're talking about order of operations, that is the biggest difference between something you develop for internal use versus something that you send out into the world, is you are like almost teaching people how to use a tool based off the order of operations.

00:20:10.799 --> 00:20:17.200
And so as I was going through it, I was basically being taught what you guys were suggesting how to use first.

00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:29.359
And so that's what I thought was so different about your guys' tool, is it almost feels both technical and not technical, in that it's very clear you guys separated things out into these three sort of areas for this look development.

00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:30.319
And I really loved that.

00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:34.799
I liked how I could easily set the preset and what the preset was applied to on the tot.

00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:40.720
I thought it was a very neat mentality, and I can see how that would come in handy, especially if you already have a couple of your favorites.

00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:44.160
So, I mean, off the top of my head, there's a silvery bleach kind of a look.

00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:49.759
And a lot of people get sort of caught up with that and they immediately go to, well, how is bleach by pass done and how do I do that?

00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:54.000
And you sort of jump to the other side of that and go, here's what's involved with this.

00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:55.200
What do you want to keep?

00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:57.759
It doesn't really matter how bleach used to be done.

00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:00.880
This is what you want to keep and what works for your production.

00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:06.960
So the other tool, Diaphony, that one I thought was really, really interesting.

00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:10.880
I love the first thing that was just like, wow, was your texture.

00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:14.799
Basically, you split out your texture into five or six zones, if I'm not mistaken.

00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:19.440
And I just loved how easy it was for me to adjust the texture.

00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:22.240
It was so, so quick and so easy.

00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:34.559
And yeah, we have a couple of these tools with uh frequency separation in Resolve, but it was set up so nicely out of the box that it was just immediately allowing me to create such different imagery.

00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:39.279
So honestly, fantastic job for those that are not aware and haven't checked out this tool yet.

00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:47.839
This tool, and correct me if I'm mistaken, focuses on MTF characteristics through frequency separation, halation, bloom, and grain, correct?

00:22:20.730 --> 00:22:23.929
Yeah, for no for no, that's that's what there's inside.

00:22:23.929 --> 00:22:31.849
And what's very cool about diaphany is that we can add stuff later because there is plenty of other texture.

00:22:31.849 --> 00:22:36.970
Yeah, spatial operator, we can put optical stuff in in there.

00:22:36.970 --> 00:22:40.730
So we are for for now that's that's that's what's inside.

00:22:40.889 --> 00:22:42.409
And so it's a sandbox, yeah.

00:22:42.490 --> 00:22:48.089
You can just we we we have a few ideas to add more um section to diaphany.

00:22:48.089 --> 00:23:04.009
But uh you're right about the frequency separation stuff is one of my favorite because I don't know why, but in fact you're right, there are several uh options for frequency separation, but I prefer I was uh and and but for for very um uh specific reason.

00:23:04.009 --> 00:23:11.369
I mean I don't like that much the one from Da Vinci Resolve, which is which behaves a little bit um odd, oddly a bit old.

00:23:11.369 --> 00:23:18.730
Uh I mean it it can it can help uh when you what does when that that's the only thing you have, but it's a little bit odd.

00:23:18.730 --> 00:23:20.649
And of course there is baseline.

00:23:20.649 --> 00:23:30.809
Baseline is one is like the the standard one, but because the way it's it's done, I I guess that's a Laplacian pyramid, that that's how it's called.

00:23:30.809 --> 00:23:37.529
A subtraction uh of blurred uh image to remove the details to get every band frequency frequency band.

00:23:37.529 --> 00:23:43.450
And so there's a uh the the main issue is that the smaller zone can be that small.

00:23:43.450 --> 00:23:45.289
I mean it can be one pixel small.

00:23:45.289 --> 00:23:49.929
It cannot be one pixel small because the smaller zone is how do you how do you explain that?

00:23:49.929 --> 00:23:53.769
Uh it's uh it's a minimum size of uh of a three by three kernel.

00:23:53.769 --> 00:23:59.049
Yeah, of a three by three by kernel, so the minimum size of blur that they that you can generate.

00:23:59.049 --> 00:24:03.369
And so when it's about uh removing small, small, small details, it's a limit.

00:24:03.369 --> 00:24:12.009
And so you when you want just to get a very digital image but but just remove what's too sharp, it's not that perfect.

00:24:12.009 --> 00:24:18.889
And there are also the fact that it's only applying gain on the all the frequency selections.

00:24:18.889 --> 00:24:27.689
And when you apply gain only, you pretty quick you get this halo when you are and that's because gain only it's not enough.

00:24:27.689 --> 00:24:30.730
And so we we've made uh the our math a little bit different.

00:24:30.730 --> 00:24:37.609
We started with gain only and and at the end it's I think it's uh very uh powerful.

00:24:37.609 --> 00:24:41.929
You can adjust the band of frequency if you want to I mean deep dive into that.

00:24:41.929 --> 00:24:46.889
You can create your own selection, and it it's it's very, very powerful, in my opinion.

00:24:46.970 --> 00:24:49.369
So I love diaphany on every tool.

00:24:49.369 --> 00:24:57.849
I I love MFT, but I love diaphany because it's very uh simple in its appearance, but uh it addresses very complex stuff.

00:24:58.089 --> 00:24:58.809
That's true, yeah.

00:24:58.809 --> 00:25:07.529
And for some reason, for we started working on diachromy and uh which had yeah the first product was diachromy because colors seemed more simpler.

00:25:07.529 --> 00:25:11.929
But and so we're like, okay, I thought we're gonna have to do some texture work, I think.

00:25:11.929 --> 00:25:14.889
And uh and it was actually way simpler than we expected.

00:25:15.210 --> 00:25:21.369
But colors, diachromy was we we we keep getting back to diachromy again and again.

00:25:21.369 --> 00:25:27.929
We think it's done, and then some p some guy shows us look at this gradient on our like, oh yeah, okay, we need to take that again.

00:25:27.929 --> 00:25:29.689
Yeah, because the other one helped us a lot.

00:25:30.569 --> 00:25:50.970
Something I meant to say when we were on diachromy, maybe the final uh pillar on which we built diachromy was robustness, an ideal of robustness, which is you're gonna do your look and we're gonna do whatever we can mathematically to try and make it not breaking at some point in any so as with every tool, if you tweak it hard enough, it will break, no worries.

00:25:50.970 --> 00:25:55.929
But we we really wanted to be as smooth as possible, and we found so many issues with that.

00:25:55.929 --> 00:26:02.409
And luckily for us, Antoine joined the team at some point, and he was like, Okay, you guys have been in your head for years and years.

00:26:02.409 --> 00:26:04.649
Yeah, I'm fresh, let me look at it.

00:26:04.649 --> 00:26:12.089
And he fixed so many issues which were we didn't we never had the time to get into the at the time and also probably the skills.

00:26:12.250 --> 00:26:13.289
Yeah, in the skills so yeah, yeah.

00:26:13.529 --> 00:26:16.730
And so ironically, I think Diapany was ready for release a bit before that.

00:26:17.689 --> 00:26:18.889
Some some nice glitches too.

00:26:18.889 --> 00:26:20.809
Uh I'm not needing to address that too.

00:26:21.049 --> 00:26:25.289
I think the real the real difficulty with color tools is how intertwined everything is.

00:26:25.289 --> 00:26:33.289
Like uh when you want to have a tool that has a lot of control, you need to be really careful not to break things and to break the interaction between two tools.

00:26:33.289 --> 00:26:35.609
So it takes a lot of time of fine-tuning.

00:26:35.609 --> 00:26:40.730
Whereas for a texture tool, uh all the components are independent from one another.

00:26:40.730 --> 00:26:44.490
So it's easier to address problems one by one.

00:26:44.490 --> 00:26:45.129
That's true.

00:26:45.129 --> 00:26:46.889
I think it's uh the difficulty.

00:26:47.369 --> 00:26:47.529
Yeah.

00:26:47.529 --> 00:26:51.609
I mean, those are really difficult, and it's everybody's using slightly different workflows.

00:26:51.609 --> 00:26:53.689
You guys also have your own internal color management.

00:26:53.689 --> 00:26:55.289
You guys are working in ACEs, correct?

00:26:55.289 --> 00:26:57.129
That's the like internal color model.

00:26:57.769 --> 00:27:11.769
Internal uh data is is uh AC CCT AP1, and that's where we're and we're actually uh looking to simplify a bit the color management interface because it uh the way we thought we designed it during uh in the first version of the diagram.

00:27:11.769 --> 00:27:18.809
I think we a little bit overtly the interface is a bit too complicated for what it does, and some people are a bit worried about it.

00:27:18.809 --> 00:27:25.289
So we have an update version coming up in the next weeks or something that will uh make it a little bit uh easier, you know, simpler.

00:27:25.289 --> 00:27:26.569
Let's check boxes and so on.

00:27:26.569 --> 00:27:30.569
You'll just you know say in which color space you want to work, and we deal with the rest internally.

00:27:30.569 --> 00:27:34.329
But yeah, our core uh color space is uh AC is uh CCT AP1.

00:27:34.569 --> 00:27:41.129
Yeah, so you have to deal with going back and forth between your internal data and then with the DOP and what you're putting in there.

00:27:41.129 --> 00:27:49.369
And so there is a bunch of stuff that can go wrong there, and especially as you guys have stated, when you when you twist the knobs to 11, sometimes thing can go a little bit wrong.

00:27:49.369 --> 00:28:03.369
I'm interested that that doesn't happen as much on the texture side, actually, or you found it easier to resolve those issues because you can you can't really twist hues, but like you're adjusting contrast in a way that can be pretty ugly.

00:28:03.369 --> 00:28:07.289
So I found it uh really interesting that you guys had less problems with that one.

00:28:07.289 --> 00:28:11.609
I think your Halation model is really, really pretty, especially along with some bloom.

00:28:11.609 --> 00:28:16.089
So I found that really, really interesting, and I thought they sit really nicely with each other.

00:28:16.089 --> 00:28:19.049
How was it developing these two tools next?

00:28:19.049 --> 00:28:21.929
Meaning how do you deal with interaction between these two tools?

00:28:21.929 --> 00:28:25.689
You touched on it a little bit, but like how do these tools interact with each other?

00:28:26.009 --> 00:28:26.809
That's a good question.

00:28:26.809 --> 00:28:33.769
Because in fact, uh making two tools was very obvious at the beginning, because in fact so many sliders.

00:28:33.769 --> 00:28:36.889
Yeah, that's that's too many slides, too many sliders.

00:28:36.889 --> 00:28:45.129
But sometimes uh we would love that it would be just one tool because some interaction precisely are very uneasy to manage.

00:28:45.369 --> 00:29:02.490
For example, if you are uh expanding contrast and then you add diffusion just after you can like uh send you the value to the roof and uh very uh you know uh shoulder very very soft, then the halation from diaphany will have difficulties to kick in.

00:29:02.490 --> 00:29:04.809
So maybe you would like to put halation before.

00:29:04.809 --> 00:29:09.289
Most of the time diachromies and diaphany is very good combo.

00:29:09.609 --> 00:29:26.569
But sometimes you can find new ways to do things by yeah, breaking down in different I think this question of diachromy, diaphany, two plugins, it touches at a topic that is frequent for us, which is the limitations of OpenFX.

00:29:26.569 --> 00:29:31.609
We we player, you know, I mean OpenFX, I mean that's a great framework.

00:29:31.609 --> 00:29:34.009
We wouldn't be here if it wouldn't it didn't exist.

00:29:34.009 --> 00:29:39.689
But well, you have uh the interface is limiting, it's mostly lists and lists of sliders.

00:29:39.689 --> 00:29:47.049
So we felt at some point that if some people already feel that there's a lot of sliders, and I completely understand it can be like overwhelming at first.

00:29:47.049 --> 00:29:53.129
We knew we had to split texture and color just for that, for you know, to give the the users a chance, if I may say so.

00:29:53.129 --> 00:29:58.809
Not just because it's it's already it would be awful, the user experience would be awful otherwise.

00:29:58.809 --> 00:30:06.329
And then we realized that it would it was also helpful so that sometimes you can put the Alation before the color and then the rest of the texture after.

00:30:06.329 --> 00:30:14.169
And so it gives you a way to play with the other operations, which you wouldn't have if we had fixed everything in one plugin, you know.

00:30:14.169 --> 00:30:16.009
So it gives you back this freedom.

00:30:16.009 --> 00:30:23.609
And sometimes we also put like two instances of diachromy because we want to do the hook, then some texture, then just maybe some tinting after.

00:30:23.609 --> 00:30:24.970
It will depend on what you do.

00:30:24.970 --> 00:30:39.849
So you can bypass the fact that we fix the other operations by using several instances, but it is a limit, and so it's I think it's the best compromise with the development environment, which is being a plug-in inside an open effects constraint and so on.

00:30:39.849 --> 00:30:49.049
But it's something we've talked a lot about, and we we still feel a little bit frustrated because we feel that that like we we've we've pushed the walls to the limits, and now the question is what do we do?

00:30:49.369 --> 00:30:55.129
But there's there's also another um explanation, which is we don't want to make only film looks.

00:30:55.129 --> 00:31:25.849
Yeah, I mean uh most of modern production want a certain part of film behaviors, uh, but also like some digital behavior, and to be able to split the texture from the the color and to build also like a node graph with a bit of texture and then the color, and that it's a better way to uh explore new aesthetic uh because if you just want to make a good film look, I mean there's a typical order which is uh which is fine, and and that's it, and that's film look.

00:31:25.849 --> 00:31:45.450
But the main idea is to be able to make pretty good film looks, but also and more important to be able to move away from film looks to new aesthetic and to some stuff that are newer, and you you can rely on a lot of behavior from film, but but but having also new stuff in your image.

00:31:45.450 --> 00:31:52.569
And so that's that's why it's important to split uh the way you think between core behavior and textual behavior.

00:31:52.889 --> 00:31:57.450
I love that because I mean, don't get me wrong, I love film emulation just as much as the next guy.

00:31:57.450 --> 00:32:09.529
But I think I think uh our clients may be a little bit tired of them, and I think the the demand during an actual session is more for clean modern looks.

00:32:09.529 --> 00:32:15.929
And the creation of a clean modern look and a film emulation look has a lot of crossover.

00:32:15.929 --> 00:32:29.369
You use almost the same tools, but you tweak them in a slightly different way, and you're still using texture management tools, but instead of adding grain and heavy halation and heavy uh bloom, you might be just taking that digital edge off.

00:32:29.369 --> 00:32:32.409
So you don't see every pore on your talent's face.

00:32:32.409 --> 00:32:37.769
But you may not be adding intense grain, you may not be adding intense bloom, you may be keeping halation off.

00:32:37.769 --> 00:32:48.169
I still try and sneak it in there, but you're trying to get this clean modern look that doesn't feel digital, but at the same time doesn't invoke the nostalgia of film emulation.

00:32:48.169 --> 00:32:51.529
So it's this fine line, but you're using the same tool.

00:32:51.529 --> 00:32:58.730
So I completely understand what you're saying there, and I like that you separated them out in that way to try and encourage that experimentation.

00:32:59.369 --> 00:33:01.849
A good example, for instance, is the grain module.

00:33:01.849 --> 00:33:09.929
If you only use the grain uh module of diaphany, you you can, in some situations, with some settings, implement a grain that is sharper than the actual image.

00:33:09.929 --> 00:33:14.409
And that's something that people have pointed out, pointed out, like, oh, you it shouldn't be like that.

00:33:14.409 --> 00:33:20.329
And it's true, it shouldn't be like that if you want to do a proper film print emulation, a proper grain of a film emulation.

00:33:20.329 --> 00:33:31.609
But and in which case we're like, okay, yeah, if you want to do that, just combine it with the texture uh expensive specializer, and then you can find, you know, right, tweak properly your grain, your definition.

00:33:31.609 --> 00:33:48.970
But the idea is okay, maybe it's a bit less instinctive because it's two components instead of one, but the extra freedom that you get from splitting these and not just putting some loss of definition automatically every time you had some grain, which some could be a way to do it, but we didn't want to do that.

00:33:48.970 --> 00:34:00.970
It's uh an it's actually more freedom to you know explore new new new maybe new kind of grains because grain might look different if you want to, you know, and maybe it will look weird, but I mean let's try it out, maybe work for your product.

00:34:00.970 --> 00:34:05.049
I think that's a good example of um of this kind of new new zones.

00:34:05.049 --> 00:34:11.610
I mean, that's a small one, but sort of new reels to explore in terms of uh what uh what a digit what an image could look like in a digital world.

00:34:12.090 --> 00:34:14.409
With great power comes great responsibility, right?

00:34:14.730 --> 00:34:16.090
That's it, that's it.

00:34:16.090 --> 00:34:16.809
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:17.210 --> 00:34:19.450
So I found your presets really interesting.

00:34:19.450 --> 00:34:21.530
Like, for instance, your vision preset.

00:34:21.530 --> 00:34:24.250
Tell me a little bit about how you guys developed that.

00:34:24.250 --> 00:34:33.929
Were you guys sampling film, or were you going based off of the feel of what you guys know codec vision film feels like after grading for years?

00:34:34.329 --> 00:34:38.409
No, it's not about sampling, it's about like watching film print.

00:34:38.409 --> 00:34:46.250
Because there's a big issue with sampling, which are the tools are developed, is that that's algorithm and that's not like sample data.

00:34:46.250 --> 00:34:51.690
So the main idea was to have like behavior that feels like vision three, for example.

00:34:51.690 --> 00:34:57.690
But we know that we cannot be as I as accurate as uh sample data.

00:34:57.690 --> 00:35:07.289
But about sample data, there is uh like a uh big issue, which is like when you are trying to sample film, you're sampling also the whole chain of tools that you use.

00:35:07.289 --> 00:36:05.190
You're sampling your scan or you're sampling your and and so there are, in my opinion, some uh systematic shifts on sample data, which make that if you are uh projecting a film print on a 35mm projector, and then you are uh projecting the same uh shots uh with very good some sample LUTs that doesn't fit.

00:36:05.190 --> 00:36:08.790
And that's something I've I've I've uh experienced several times.

00:36:08.790 --> 00:36:28.150
And so we've we've shot on film, but we've watched the results by uh with our own eyes on projectors, and uh we've made a proposition which is I mean, actually I I think it's it's just as inaccurate as simple data's, but it's another proposition, uh if you know what I mean.

00:36:28.550 --> 00:36:29.750
Yeah, I do know what you mean.

00:36:29.750 --> 00:36:44.470
It's sort of funny, like having developed my own film emulation product, you have to make a bunch of decisions, and not all of them are easy decisions, because of course film doesn't go through a DRT or color management in the same way that you would, especially if you're trying to emulate a contact print.

00:36:44.470 --> 00:36:53.510
And you have to make, especially if you're trying to create a product that's gonna go through color management and have a DRT, especially if you're gonna allow the different DRTs.

00:36:53.510 --> 00:37:03.350
Well, DRTs change things, there's roll-off, there's all these different questions that can you don't have the answer to because the artist is gonna answer that question.

00:37:03.350 --> 00:37:09.750
And so, how can you develop an emulation for that when you don't have the other parts of the equation?

00:37:09.750 --> 00:37:17.830
And so I think that what you guys developed is a great middle ground in the sense that you guys are offering a vision-like preset.

00:37:17.830 --> 00:37:19.110
I think it looks great.

00:37:19.110 --> 00:37:27.590
And all your presets I thought were really interesting and are great starting points, which is I think I don't like to think of presets as the final game.

00:37:27.590 --> 00:37:34.310
I think they're great starting points to sort of give you a little bit of an idea, and then obviously the project is going to dictate where you go from there.

00:37:36.230 --> 00:37:38.150
Just to complement the film presets and so on.

00:37:38.150 --> 00:37:47.270
It's actually interesting, uh, just about the way we developed the tool, is that pretty early on, we we did um a shoot where we shot our digital and film on the same.

00:37:47.270 --> 00:37:50.310
So we we acquired some data uh pretty early on.

00:37:50.310 --> 00:37:56.950
And the idea was to because sample data, once you've done your job correctly, you're kind of locked into the sample data.

00:37:56.950 --> 00:37:58.790
You know, you can't really like tweak it.

00:37:58.790 --> 00:38:11.110
And as it was not one of our principles of development, we were more looking for the proper mathematical functions and algorithms to emulate some of the behavior, the behaviors that we actually liked a lot about film.

00:38:11.110 --> 00:38:19.670
And once we found these, for instance, the fact that the the higher the saturation of a color is, the more the more density is gonna be high in film.

00:38:19.670 --> 00:38:21.270
We we really liked that.

00:38:21.270 --> 00:38:34.070
So we used our um film data and our um digital data to find the best mathematical function to get that same behavior, but then you can parameterize it so it's not all or nothing.

00:38:34.070 --> 00:38:38.150
And you can also try and apply that same behavior to other characteristics.

00:38:38.150 --> 00:38:46.070
So you can also try and apply that to other characteristics of your image, and then maybe you're gonna find something that's actually interesting and maybe a bit of new.

00:38:46.070 --> 00:38:49.670
Maybe you get some innovation in the way you're gonna manipulate your image.

00:38:49.670 --> 00:38:59.670
But so basically the idea was what inspires us from film, because that's like decades of uh research and development and a lot of knowledge, so you gotta learn from that.

00:38:59.670 --> 00:39:05.670
And then how can you iterate from that, maybe evolve from that, and then try and get new results?

00:39:05.670 --> 00:39:09.110
And we had a lot of stuff that didn't look good at all, so that they're not in the plugin.

00:39:09.110 --> 00:39:13.270
But uh, from time to time you you get a good idea, you know, you mix and match, and and it works.

00:39:13.270 --> 00:39:21.110
So that was, I think it's interesting because we hear from time to time, oh yeah, but you guys don't scan anything, you have no idea what film is like, you just you know do math and so on.

00:39:21.110 --> 00:39:22.870
We yeah, but we don't do math out of the blue.

00:39:22.870 --> 00:39:26.870
Like we don't just think of functions in our sleep and then just try and apply them to the images.

00:39:26.870 --> 00:39:31.910
So we I think we try and we try and get both the best of both worlds if we can.

00:39:31.910 --> 00:39:34.550
And so that's an interesting point in the way we built the tools.

00:39:34.870 --> 00:39:43.270
Yeah, and that's interesting in the also as a practitioner, because we are forced to think about what do we love in that color behavior.

00:39:43.270 --> 00:39:51.990
For example, we are this day we are talking about maybe a way to uh through that saturated color converging to us uh to the same uh U.

00:39:51.990 --> 00:39:52.470
Yeah.

00:39:52.470 --> 00:39:53.670
So at a certain point.

00:39:53.670 --> 00:39:57.750
And that's something we have observed in autochromes.

00:39:57.750 --> 00:40:00.790
Autochromes, it's an old photographic process.

00:40:00.790 --> 00:40:04.790
And at a certain point of saturation, all the reds seem the same.

00:40:04.790 --> 00:40:14.790
We like that behavior, and we are going to try to make something uh out of out of that idea, but we're not going to sample uh autochrome because it's not the point.

00:40:14.790 --> 00:40:16.550
The point is what the idea behind.

00:40:16.550 --> 00:40:17.590
I love it.

00:40:17.910 --> 00:40:26.630
I mean, I it's yeah, it's basically like you can essentially curve or S-curve essentially the hues after a certain saturation level so that they start converging.

00:40:26.630 --> 00:40:27.590
That's fantastic.

00:40:27.590 --> 00:40:28.470
I love that idea.

00:40:28.470 --> 00:40:32.310
I was gonna ask, you basically gave me an example, but I'd love another one.

00:40:32.310 --> 00:40:38.230
What is something else that you guys either a slider or feature that you guys brought in based off some of that film research?

00:40:38.230 --> 00:40:45.110
Because I mean I saw some of that, like some of the low saturation and the saturation roll-off that I assume was from those film prints.

00:40:45.110 --> 00:40:50.390
But what is the feature that you guys discovered from those film prints that you parameterized?

00:40:50.790 --> 00:41:13.190
There's something that I which is a uh uh very uh discrete, I mean very small, but that I love is that the mid-push slider in the contrast curve, we which meant that you can push the middle of the curve so it's not a three-part curve, but it became like a five-part curve because sometimes on some sensometric curves you have that break, a little break in the middle of the curve.

00:41:13.190 --> 00:41:23.270
But in fact, we have um we we have implemented it in a way so you can push it in a direction and in the other side, and I mean you can make it very strong.

00:41:23.270 --> 00:41:25.590
In fact, it's that behavior is never very strong.

00:41:25.590 --> 00:41:47.990
I mean, it's it's just a slight break in the middle of the curve, but in diachromy you can put it a lot, and in fact, that became quite interesting because it's it's making the all the upper part of the curve very flat, and so you can get to new aesthetic, and it's it starts from an observation, but the way we have implemented it, I mean there is no link with the reality.

00:41:47.990 --> 00:41:54.950
And for example, on all this behavior, once the mat exists, we put the trader in a way and in the other way.

00:41:54.950 --> 00:41:57.830
And the other way it never exists in the reality.

00:41:57.990 --> 00:42:03.830
But that's something we we we started doing almost constantly, is like, oh okay, we invented that, it goes from zero to one.

00:42:03.830 --> 00:42:07.590
Okay, what does what happens if it goes in two and if we go to minus one?

00:42:07.590 --> 00:42:15.270
And and then you start that that doesn't look good, but then it starts sinking in like okay, it's but it's but it's not that bad.

00:42:15.350 --> 00:42:21.830
And if if we adapt it, but that's the beauty of math, is that if it goes in one direction, it can go in the other one.

00:42:21.830 --> 00:42:25.750
Um if everything is uh continuous and smooth.

00:42:25.750 --> 00:42:30.070
Yeah, and smooth, continuous and smooth, and there's some equilibrium between every part of it.

00:42:30.310 --> 00:42:31.190
It's not always the case.

00:42:31.190 --> 00:42:32.630
That's a tricky part in math.

00:42:32.790 --> 00:42:36.950
Sometimes you find a perfect curve that's go uh wonderful.

00:42:36.950 --> 00:42:38.950
But below zero, it goes to infinity.

00:42:38.950 --> 00:42:39.350
Yeah, yeah.

00:42:41.270 --> 00:42:42.550
Yeah, you get illegal values.

00:42:42.550 --> 00:42:46.630
But that's the cool part about having parameterized data as opposed to sampling data.

00:42:46.630 --> 00:42:50.550
All you can do is change the opacity of it, or you can apply it inverted.

00:42:50.550 --> 00:42:53.990
But when you parameterize something, you can do that, like you guys are saying.

00:42:53.990 --> 00:42:56.470
You can double it or you can go in the opposite direction.

00:42:56.470 --> 00:43:04.630
And I mean, obviously, you you might get the end result that it is not aesthetically looking the way we want it, but technically it should work.

00:43:04.630 --> 00:43:54.369
And maybe if you twist a different knob in the right way, you might get something that's pleasing.

00:43:54.369 --> 00:43:57.410
So I love that you guys are keeping an open eye.

00:43:57.410 --> 00:43:59.650
So one door closes, another one opens.

00:43:59.650 --> 00:44:00.769
That's how I sort of see that.

00:44:01.090 --> 00:44:05.730
Yeah, and sometimes we want to go in another direction, but the mass will not allow us to do that.

00:44:05.730 --> 00:44:12.530
So we blend toward a new function when you go to minus to get where we want it to go, to invert the direction of the curve.

00:44:12.530 --> 00:44:13.250
Or uh yeah.

00:44:13.570 --> 00:44:20.210
Yeah, some slider, some sliders are made in fact of two beh totally different behavior between the positive parts and the negative parts.

00:44:20.210 --> 00:44:28.210
For example, color density is in fact, but that's quite common nowadays, like it's lowering the density of the high saturated color.

00:44:28.210 --> 00:44:36.289
But when you are going to the other side, it's not only like brightening, uh brightening brightening, it's brightening and desaturated.

00:44:36.289 --> 00:44:37.730
So it's folding.

00:44:37.730 --> 00:44:39.570
Getting in pastel colors.

00:44:39.970 --> 00:44:40.690
Yeah, yeah.

00:44:40.849 --> 00:44:41.970
It's different from a bleach.

00:44:41.970 --> 00:44:43.809
I mean it's it's another behavior.

00:44:43.809 --> 00:44:54.769
But when you are watching the volume, in fact, it seems to be the symmetrics of some of the behavior, but only if you are watching the volume, because uh mathematically it's something which is totally different.

00:44:55.890 --> 00:45:13.010
But that's inspired from film, but that's yeah, a lot, a lot of inspiration from some film behavior, but sometimes we pushed it like I'm thinking about bleach bypass, but which is the effect, like at the end of the plugin, you got just this effect which is called bleach bypass.

00:45:13.010 --> 00:45:20.930
And yeah, it does what it looks like bleach bypass, but it's more really stronger than uh actual bleach bypass.

00:45:20.930 --> 00:45:25.250
So just getting in the directions and find finding some sweet spot.

00:45:25.490 --> 00:45:36.450
I was actually playing with the bleach bypass feature last night, and I that was one of the first things I noticed is how I was able to push it in sort of a modern bleach bypass direction because of the control you gave us over it.

00:45:36.450 --> 00:45:56.530
And I I think that's really cool because I mean, don't get me wrong, I I love a good classic bleach bypass as much as the next person, but I also like being able to put a little bit more fill in so that I'm not getting such a crunchy bleach bypass that I I can get a little bit more modern, because I mean clients like really bright images now.

00:45:56.530 --> 00:45:57.570
And so it's sort of nice.

00:45:57.570 --> 00:46:03.170
It can give it almost a silvery fashion vibe kind of a thing going on when you bump the fill up a little bit.

00:46:03.170 --> 00:46:06.369
So it's I thought it was a really neat control that you gave in there with that.

00:46:06.369 --> 00:46:08.450
And so I thought that was pretty inspired.

00:46:08.450 --> 00:46:09.490
So very, very neat.

00:46:09.809 --> 00:46:25.410
What's funny also with those uh specific tools like Big Bash PlayPath is that you can like uh put several instances of diachromy and like starting with a very small bitch bypass and then applying a global uh global look and then putting something else.

00:46:25.410 --> 00:46:44.450
Because we are, I mean diachromy is working in in Sun Referred, you know that you can uh put several diachromy and choosing your own order of operation if you want to make stuff that are very different from uh you can instantiate multiple diachromy instances because if you want to get over the order we we we imposed.

00:46:44.450 --> 00:46:45.010
Yeah.

00:46:45.010 --> 00:47:01.010
For example, I I often add color tone curves module after the bleach bypass, so I put a second diachromy nodes because when you are bleach bypassing, by definition, you are removing colors in the up and in the low, and so there is less saturation in the color tone curves.

00:47:01.010 --> 00:47:05.809
And so I'm very happy to add back some colors in the color tone curve.

00:47:05.809 --> 00:47:20.610
And because I mean it's behaving very straight, you can just add color tone curves, add color uh in the highlight and in the shadow after a strong bleach bypass, and then you get something which doesn't look like uh bleach bypass at all because bleach bypass don't have color costs.

00:47:20.610 --> 00:47:28.130
So that's uh that's because it's very reliable in terms of robustness and you you we worked a lot on that on robustness, yeah.

00:47:28.210 --> 00:47:30.690
But you don't want to look at the node graphs of this guy.

00:47:30.690 --> 00:47:31.730
No, no, no.

00:47:31.730 --> 00:47:32.450
That's wrong.

00:47:32.610 --> 00:47:33.329
That's wrong.

00:47:33.329 --> 00:47:40.289
I mean, there most of the time there is two nodes and that's so as we get to the end of our time with each other.

00:47:40.450 --> 00:47:44.849
I wanted to ask you guys what can we look for with the future of diachromy and diaphany?

00:47:45.170 --> 00:47:54.210
Well, we're looking at a lot of things, but uh if we'll take it uh chronologically, I don't know when it's gonna be uh this is gonna be a broadcast, but we're finishing up um a diacra.

00:47:54.210 --> 00:48:03.809
We just released today the diaphany 1.3, which we introduced a couple of new features, including Yeah, we improved Halation diffusion, thanks to one-to-one a lot.

00:48:03.970 --> 00:48:10.369
Like we're uh reworking some of the algorithms to get more robustness and uh yeah.

00:48:10.369 --> 00:48:11.410
And nicer results.

00:48:11.410 --> 00:48:12.450
More control also.

00:48:12.450 --> 00:48:16.050
Halation is getting a little uh yeah, more sliders to it.

00:48:16.369 --> 00:48:27.730
But so because we got a we got a lot of um we got a lot of great uh feedback from the from the users these last two months, and there's nothing like uh releasing uh software to get some really really good testing.

00:48:27.730 --> 00:48:31.570
You know, you can test all you want, but then people are gonna find new ways to push it.

00:48:31.570 --> 00:48:33.329
I think you know that as well as we do.

00:48:33.329 --> 00:48:40.289
And so we we address some of uh of the issues and um and small improvements, which we could, and also we added a couple of new features.

00:48:40.610 --> 00:48:43.170
Yes, it's also an opportunity to add new features.

00:48:43.170 --> 00:48:54.450
Every time we bug fix, we think, oh, okay, we need to change the behavior, but what can we do to improve the behavior and not just bug fix but also find new creative tools like for Halation?

00:48:54.450 --> 00:49:03.329
We added um a control on the loss of definition in the midterms, and this is a new idea we had while fixing um things due to the feedback.

00:49:03.329 --> 00:49:12.690
We thought about this new idea, and we are always trying to not just fix things but also um take it at an opportunity for uh improvements.

00:49:13.010 --> 00:49:20.289
Yeah, we improved some of the sliders because now some of them are expressed in terms of exposure values, in terms of stops.

00:49:20.289 --> 00:49:23.090
When addition starts, when does it stop?

00:49:23.090 --> 00:49:26.849
And uh well, not really when does it start, but when does it start and especially.

00:49:26.849 --> 00:49:29.650
But yeah, we also added something about grey.

00:49:29.650 --> 00:49:31.329
But to talk about the future, maybe?

00:49:31.329 --> 00:49:32.130
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:32.130 --> 00:49:33.809
This is kind of the immediate future.

00:49:34.130 --> 00:49:39.170
Altwin is working on Gambit compression these days, uh, because that's a big issue.

00:49:39.170 --> 00:49:41.809
In fact, if you I mean we hate negative values.

00:49:41.809 --> 00:49:55.809
You'll explain, but if you are by the way Artwin is uh the real color scientist of the true when you are dealing with DRT of the color managed workflow, you have to accept how it behaves.

00:49:55.809 --> 00:50:07.170
I mean, when you are building a film look plugin, you can rely on the DRT made by Kodak, which is wonderful, but uh but but you have that limitation.

00:50:07.170 --> 00:50:15.730
If you rely on on um on the DRTs of the of the color managed workflow, sometimes out-of-game values are very difficult uh.

00:50:16.769 --> 00:50:23.490
Yeah, you are exploring an open domain of values that can be tricky to get uh to get around.

00:50:23.970 --> 00:50:36.050
Yeah, so we're working to be able to um give a better redition of unbound data, so imaginary data created, uh imaginary colors created by the uh input device transform, for instance, uh of the camera.

00:50:36.050 --> 00:50:43.329
And right now we have AC reference gamut compress, which um you may already know, which is really great.

00:50:43.329 --> 00:50:52.369
But it does some U shifts, so it's not always easy to uh get the redition we want of the out-of-game values.

00:50:52.369 --> 00:50:57.250
So we are working off our own custom solution to be able to propose an alternative.

00:50:57.250 --> 00:51:01.730
We will keep, of course, AC reference gamet compress, uh, and we will propose an alternative.

00:51:02.050 --> 00:51:12.450
We realized also that AC reference gamut compress was designed also with a lot of constraints, like to be invertible, to be like uh to to please everyone.

00:51:12.450 --> 00:51:20.289
Um so at some point we're like, no, maybe we can get somewhere else with that, something that will be more pleasing to us because we are the end point.

00:51:20.289 --> 00:51:21.410
It's the easy part.

00:51:21.410 --> 00:51:30.849
We are like at the end point, even if we are just before the DRT, you can just when you arrive in diachromy or diaphany, it's the end of your color grading or your color correction.

00:51:30.930 --> 00:51:34.530
So ASUS 2.0 dramatically improved the gamma compression.

00:51:34.530 --> 00:51:41.890
But I mean it's not perfect, and like you said, it's trying to please everybody, and when you try and please everybody, you usually please nobody.

00:51:41.890 --> 00:51:51.250
So there's still a lot of adjustments that you guys can make, especially for tweaking for your own software, especially as you know where you are in the order of operations, mostly.

00:51:51.730 --> 00:51:57.170
There's a room in the gamut compression for something that's also aesthetically pleasing.

00:51:57.170 --> 00:52:02.690
The way you the way you you bend the eye saturation, it can be something.

00:52:02.690 --> 00:52:07.329
And by the way, uh, I mean in ACs, they that's not their main goal.

00:52:07.329 --> 00:52:25.329
They they want something which is mathematically clean, but we have another goal which is to produce looks, so we can uh bend um I mean a little bit stronger, and you can do so so Antoine is working on that, so that will be probably a separate feature in in diachromy, the way you chose the gamut.

00:52:25.329 --> 00:52:34.450
The way you how to how how you compress the gamut, and then we are definitely going to add a new textural module to diaphany.

00:52:34.450 --> 00:52:38.289
And also we are thinking about um how do you say that?

00:52:38.610 --> 00:52:46.690
We've started our development, and what we realize is diachromy and diaphany are kind of targeted to the high-end uh users, I would say.

00:52:46.690 --> 00:52:55.809
You know, we are now Hal Picture is part of a French post big French post-production house, so we're close to uh post-production of feature films, of TV shows.

00:52:55.809 --> 00:52:58.289
That's also what we do as you know filmmakers.

00:52:58.289 --> 00:53:01.329
We we and that was what we had in mind when we developed it.

00:53:01.329 --> 00:53:08.769
We wanted something that was industry uh compliant, industry proof, and that could uh really uh integrate well with the highest standards of the industry.

00:53:08.769 --> 00:53:11.250
And I think we're doing a pretty good job there.

00:53:11.250 --> 00:53:26.930
But some users have um on like when we released, we understood that you know maybe some users felt that it was uh too priced for a high-end user, and that was a big steep for them, and maybe there was a bit too many tools and too many options for other users.

00:53:26.930 --> 00:53:38.930
So we're really uh working around another solution, maybe simpler, that would combine uh the essentials of diachromy and diaphragm into one plugin with obviously less parametricity.

00:53:38.930 --> 00:53:51.090
You know, that would be something easier to use, but that would also uh allow you know broadcast productions, content creators, people on the internet, people that make great stuff for I don't know, YouTube, the platforms.

00:53:51.090 --> 00:54:00.530
I mean, the the world is vast, and there's so many productions and so many different production profiles that we want to cover maybe that uh segment of creations as well.

00:54:00.530 --> 00:54:09.329
And they expect a product that is a bit less expensive, to be to be frank, and also maybe a bit simpler to use, maybe less knobs and sliders.

00:54:09.329 --> 00:54:17.250
You know, so we're looking to um I think it will be before the end of the year, uh, to release something that addresses these needs.

00:54:17.250 --> 00:54:23.170
And maybe, you know, we started with the high end, we started with the the north face, and we're kind of seeing the light now.

00:54:23.170 --> 00:54:35.170
And maybe we can you know uh open up for new users that maybe were a bit either frightened by the complexity or maybe just not able to afford it because it is effectively uh directed for high-end users now.

00:54:35.570 --> 00:54:37.010
And definitely new looks also.

00:54:37.010 --> 00:54:39.329
Yeah, I mean, definitely new looks, always new looks.

00:54:39.329 --> 00:54:49.650
We're going to add new looks, so I mean uh it's just a question of I mean, we have plenty of ideas to add looks, and it's it's just that it's it's so easy to add looks in a new version.

00:54:49.730 --> 00:55:00.130
So yeah, we're gonna try and keep that effort of creating adding new presets as a long-term effort, and you know, whenever we can add a couple of presets in the in the mix for uh people uh to enrich their library.

00:55:00.530 --> 00:55:01.329
Fantastic.

00:55:01.329 --> 00:55:04.369
And for those interested, where can we learn more about you?

00:55:04.369 --> 00:55:06.690
More about diacromy, more about Daphne?

00:55:07.090 --> 00:55:09.010
So we have uh everything on our website.

00:55:09.010 --> 00:55:11.730
So it's uh how-picture.com.

00:55:11.730 --> 00:55:15.490
I'm pretty sure it's gonna be displayed somewhere on this page as I speak.

00:55:15.490 --> 00:55:20.050
So there's uh you can download the demo version, which is basically the plugins.

00:55:20.050 --> 00:55:23.490
All features are available, it's watermarked, but you have all the features.

00:55:23.490 --> 00:55:31.650
I think you just can't export a lot, but other than that, you can you know just play with it and uh uh take uh the measure of the potential of the tools.

00:55:31.650 --> 00:55:38.130
There's a lot of content on YouTube that we produced to help unbox in the in the diachromy and diaphany journey.

00:55:38.369 --> 00:55:44.530
Yeah, no, we are publishing uh articles also about uh some quite nerdy colossal stuff.

00:55:44.530 --> 00:55:44.930
Yeah.

00:55:44.930 --> 00:55:46.610
That will be out.

00:55:47.490 --> 00:56:11.809
One of the ideas when we when we founded a How Picture was also to you know have a voice in the global conversation and share our knowledge and not just, I mean, obviously we have diachromy and diaphany in the back of our head at all times, including when nighttime, but we also uh published papers from time to time about I mean how diffusion and uhation should work, or uh, you know, DRTs is uh display uh transforms are the subject of a big paper that uh Antoine is uh is writing.

00:56:11.809 --> 00:56:13.730
So we share two chapters.

00:56:13.730 --> 00:56:14.769
Uh three chapters.

00:56:14.769 --> 00:56:15.730
Oh yeah, really.

00:56:15.730 --> 00:56:16.050
Okay.

00:56:16.050 --> 00:56:18.369
So we publish a lot of uh material on our website.

00:56:18.369 --> 00:56:20.530
You can do another demo, you can contact us.

00:56:20.530 --> 00:56:23.170
There's an email and contact form on the website as well.

00:56:23.170 --> 00:56:25.970
So you can learn about uh about the tools and stuff like that.

00:56:25.970 --> 00:56:29.570
And we also that's uh a detail but uh close to my heart.

00:56:29.570 --> 00:56:37.970
We have a toolbox online with a lot of uh open, uh small, small um utilities software online to check out all our preset library, actually.

00:56:37.970 --> 00:56:45.010
Like you can check out all our presets online, and there's a little bit of a story and their characteristics and a lot of images to play around with.

00:56:45.010 --> 00:56:57.809
Uh, you can convert the presets uh from our diaphinian diacromy to go from a version to another because there is uh we're very um focused on look continuity, so we don't want people to be scared whenever they update that maybe it's gonna break the looks, you know.

00:56:57.809 --> 00:57:01.650
So we're really uh taking care of that so that it's not an issue, but it's easy.

00:57:01.650 --> 00:57:04.530
So yeah, a lot of a lot of stuff on the website, basically.

00:57:05.329 --> 00:57:07.809
We will have links to all of that in the show notes.

00:57:07.809 --> 00:57:10.130
Thank you so much for joining me today, guys.

00:57:10.130 --> 00:57:12.769
I really appreciate you joining me for this chat.

00:57:12.769 --> 00:57:17.809
I learned so much about you guys, your tools, and the way you go about this.

00:57:17.809 --> 00:57:19.890
Thank you so much for joining me, guys.

00:57:19.890 --> 00:57:22.930
I really appreciate you guys.

00:57:22.930 --> 00:57:27.890
And for this episode of Color and Coffee, I'm Jason Bowdach, and we'll see you guys in the next one.

00:57:27.890 --> 00:57:29.010
And that's a wrap.

00:57:29.010 --> 00:57:33.490
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00:57:33.490 --> 00:57:39.490
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00:57:39.490 --> 00:57:43.650
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00:57:43.650 --> 00:57:50.210
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00:57:50.210 --> 00:57:52.610
Until the next episode.