v1.0.2 Sheffield Softworks Cinemage

Streamlined, sophisticated color corrector.

Cinemage sets itself apart from other color correctors, providing sophisticated and streamlined features that are anything but ordinary. This plugin is not intended to simply balance whites and tone highlights, midrange, and shadows. Instead, it is designed to enhance footage and make it look gorgeous.

Cinemage Overview

Cinemage is based around the concept of paired tints. The hue and intensity of these tints as well as their relationship to each other is adjusted via onscreen controls consisting of a double hue ring and the pairing slider. The hue and saturation of the tints are controlled through the central tint rings – (current hue is easily seen by a white line), and the further from the center the tint ring control is pulled, the more intense the tints become. How the hues are aligned with each other is controlled by the pairing slider (below the hue rings). The default is to pair the hues 180° apart. This means that when averaged, the overall effect on your image is neutral, however, in practice, each tint can affect the image differently (especially when used with the built in masks) generating warm highlights and cool shadows, for instance.

You may dim the onscreen control guides or remove them entirely. the controls will function the same. You can also click the peek button to take a look at your image with no color correction on it to compare. As well as the onscreen controls, Cinemage sports both basic and advanced (available below a disclosure triangle) controls in the inspector. Basic inspector controls allow for the loading and saving of presets, controlling the Strength of the tint’s effect on the image, the Balance between the effect of the tints. And the Mix between the corrected and original image. Under the “hood”, the Advanced controls are Soften/Sharpen, Blend modes, Masking, and the ability to retain luma and/or Color.

Both tints are applied to your footage using Blend Modes. Blend modes are mathematical formulas for combining the rgB of your image with the rgB of the tint (more on this in the appendix). the blend modes available are standard photoshop blend modes with a few extensions. they may be combined through Masks of either luminance (light for one tint, dark for the other) or Saturation (high for one, low for the other).

The two tints have mostly the same function, save for two. first, tint 1 (t1) may be used to decrease local contrast (or Smooth), and tint2 (t2) may be used to increase local contrast (or Sharpen). the second difference is that tint 2 is applied after tint 1. in practice, it generally helps to sharpen highlights and soften shadows.