Is there a good post-production reference guide online anywhere?

[scrimski]

Which field of postpro do you talk about?

I spend the last 6 years on learning about CG and editing and I never heard of anything like a generic rule for whatever.
It's such a huge field, which just can't be handled in two sentences or even one single book.

Guess you have to read a lot of them


Digital Lighting and Rendering
Shot by Shot
Grammar of the Shot
Grammar of the Edit
Art and Science of Digital Compositing

are a few to start with if you go more for post production (which I consider to be editing and compositing).

[DrQuincy]

Sorry, I'm being too vague. I mean a reference guide for image enhancement and restoration.

Here's a simple example:

To enhance the colour in a drab looking image duplicate the original, apply a Guassion Blur, reduce opacity to about 60% and set blend mode to OVerlay.

This is generic in that you could easily use it on Combustion, Photoshop, After Effects, etc.

[arvid]

Learn the math behind all those operations, then you can ask yourself for help instead of blindly following someone elses ideas of what a good result is. Know what you want, then go get it. Every shot is a new challenge.

[DrQuincy]

I'm not blindly following someone else's ideas neither to I intend to - that's why I'm asking for a reference guide. I don't need to know the mathematics (math is bad grammer) of a blending mode to know how to use it.

[arvid]

You can use it correctly if you know what it actually does, instead of just browsing through them picking the one that seems to do the job best. Sounds like you're asking for tutorials to do the job for you. :shrug:

[DrQuincy]

For the third time: I'm looking for a decent reference guide! If you don't understand the question ask for clarification rather than flooding the thread with extraneous information.

[arvid]

Then I guess I don't understand the difference between tutorial and guide. Never mind.

[Bonedaddy]

Every situation is different. Any guide or tutorial will only work for one specific set of circumstances. If such a guide exists out there, it is either extremely long and repetitive, or not very useful. Far better to just get your hands dirty and learn that way.

[leigh]

Every situation is different. Any guide or tutorial will only work for one specific set of circumstances. If such a guide exists out there, it is either extremely long and repetitive, or not very useful. Far better to just get your hands dirty and learn that way.

Couldn't have said it better myself :) I think this is what Arvid was trying to say as well. The fact is that every comp is different. Your overlay trick, for example, may work well for one render but look terrible on another. Because of this, it's hard to really write up a list of "recipes" that work everytime, so I am not sure that the guide you're seeking even exists.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to learn your tools very well, and understand colour and lighting and all the rest of that great stuff :thumbsup:

[DrQuincy]

Thanks guys, that's useful. I'm just trying to strike the right balance between and arranged learning. I'll get experimenting . . .

[scrimski]

Every shot is a new challenge.

Quoted for agreement.

What I see for myself is that working in post is still a lot of trial and error. The biggest difference to a beginner is that I know where and what to try. Well, at least I pretend to.

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