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DSC Labs ChromaMatch – A Clever Tool to Grade & Color Match Cameras

May 9^th, 2016

by Sebastian WöberMay 9^th, 2016

The ChromaMatch is the latest product from DSC Labs, the industry-leading company responsible for many widely-used color reference charts in video and film productions. At NAB 2016, I sat down with founder and president David Corley to talk about how the ChromaMatch gives you a clever way to control your colors at any stage of your workflow, and even allowing you to color match cameras quickly and easily.

When looking at the DSC Labs ChromaMatch, the difference to conventional color charts is immediately striking. The circular shape of the color bars makes scaling irrelevant and helps you move quickly and efficiently.

How The ChromaMatch Works

The idea is simple but ingenious. You film the chart on set, and later bring in a circular digital reference file and place it over your captured frame so that the bars match. You can then use a vectorscope to easily match the colors in post, which can even help you when you color match cameras.

I tried this very quickly within Adobe Premiere for the interview video above, but the results weren’t pleasing, so I took the shot into DaVinci Resolve to get a more accurate color reproduction. As you can see, the colors are still a bit off. But considering the lighting in the Convention Center hall was truly horrible, I think the chart can work very well when you use the right tools and a proper vectorscope.

If you would like to know how the matching process works, there’s a nice tutorial by IT Enquirer. They have a video taking you through the color correcting steps in Final Cut Pro with a GoPro Hero 4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpiMB7ji-Bs

The Standard version of the DSC Labs ChromaMatch is available for $300, with a Pro version with more colors available for $500 – dsclabs.com