FXPHD – DCT303 – Advanced Digital Colour Theory

Colour image coding is at the heart of digital imaging; it is a critical element of high-quality digital cinema and HD production. In this course we follow colour from its spectral form in front of the camera into acquisition where colour is reduced to 3 components, then through the post-production, grading, finishing, approval, mastering, distribution, and display/exhibition stages. We discuss the colour transforms and colourspaces used at all of these stages. We discuss colour aspects of subsampling and compression (H.264, as in Canon cameras, ProRes, as in Alexa, and JPEG2000, as used in DCPs).

We'll present lots of diagrams, graphs, and equations using math at intermediate level; we hope that you're quite familiar with y = mx + B, and somewhat familiar with matrices, power functions, and logarithms. (WARNING: The presenter is Canadian; colour will be spelled with a "u".)