YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorial at Creative COW

Andrew Devis

©2011 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
The YC Waveform graph in Premiere Pro gives us a graphical display of the Luminance (brightness) and Chrominance (color) of our footage and is an essential tool for correcting and improving the look of our image by giving us empirical data about the changes we make rather than just relying on our eyes. In this short tutorial, Andrew Devis introduces the YC Waveform graph and shows how to use it as a reference for brightness adjustment of a shot.

This tutorial is also available as a podcast.

Comments

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Josh Fertik

Hi Andrew,
Yes, that was it! Thank you!
Excellent tutorials by the way.

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Josh Fertik

Hi Andrew,

I seem to be having the same problem Dave had but I'm not clear on the fix.

My YC waveform suddenly lost the Setup button at top and now only reads "V" over the scale (instead of IRE) and displays ranges from 1.2 to 0.1 instead of 100 to 0.

Any ideas what I did and how to fix this?
Thanks!
Josh

•

@Josh Fertik
by Andrew Devis

Hi Josh
This is because you're working with PAL footage and not NTSC footage. Just think of it as being % and keep below 1.

Hope this helps
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Dave Rogers

Andrew

Thank you very much for the comprehensive reply, 0.1 to 1 it is then.

Looking forward to more of your great tutorials.

Dave

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Andrew Devis

Hi Dave

Sorry about this ...

I pulled in a PAL bars and tones into a new sequence and had a look on the waveform monitor and clearly the scaling they are using is just above 0.1 for black to 1 for white.

What I suggest is that you do the same to see the right range. Go to the new item icon, choose Bars and Tone and then in the drop down choose a PAL setting and then pull the bars into a new sequence and open the waveform monitor and you will see the range they use.

The figures given above (0 - 714) are scope values for calibrating a waveform monitor against IRE - they are actually correct, but as you can see they make no sense with the PP waveform monitor, so go with what they show with their own calibration levels which are the Bars and Tone.

Hope this helps and sorry if my first answer was misleading.

Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Andrew Devis

Hi Dave

IRE 100 = 714mv (0.714V)

IRE 7.5 = 53mv (0.053V) (NTSC US Black)

IRE 0 = 0mV (0V)

In short, you multiple the mV value by 0.14 to get the equivalent IRE value.

So a safe range for PAL should probably be 0 to 0.714 or to give a little headroom, just inside those figures ;o)

Hope this helps
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

-1

•

@Andrew Devis
by Andrew Devis

Have just run a check and those figures may not stack up with PP's levels ... will come back to you as they seem not to make sense ...

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Dave Rogers

By limits I mean the correct work area to aim for i.e. .1 to 1.0 or 0.0 to 1.2
Thanks

•

@Dave Rogers
by Andrew Devis

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Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Dave Rogers

Great tutorial thank you

on NTSC footage the YC waveform screen displays as in your tut byt when I open YC waveform on pal footage the range is from 0.1 at the bottom to 1.2 v at the top of the screen, it has the chroma check box but not the setup(7.5 IRE option) what are the limits when working on this scale

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Andrew Devis

Hi Simon, you are welcome and thanks for the comment.

Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

•

Re: YC Waveform Graph in Premiere Pro
by Simon Nuchtern

Excellent and clear lesson - never understood it as well.

Thank you!

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