Working with Printer Lights

Note: On CentOS, make sure to use a Flame Family OS user account OR update your own user account to ensure you have the right custom keyboard mapping. See the script /opt/Autodesk/<your product>/bin/res/customizeUser.py.

Printer Lights are measurements or settings used by colour labs to operate the optical printer that produces the film copy. This method is used in Lustre to grade shots according to printer lights and fstops, affecting the red, green, and blue content in printer lights..

You can use a similar Printer Lights grading style in MasterGrade. Using the keypad you affect a specific grading control, based on the Image Type setting of MasterGrade.

Image Type Setting	Controls Affected by the Printer Lights
Log mode	Brightness
Video mode	Offset
Scene-linear mode	Exposure

To use the printer lights grading style:

1. Holding down a modifier key, press a key on the keypad to modify the RGB channels.

   So Ctrl+8 in Log mode decreases the brightness in the Green by 1 step. Ctrl+Alt+8 in the same mode decreases the brightness in the Green by 1/8^th of a step.

The size of a single step is intended to allow you to quickly arrive at roughly the desired grade. At that point the fractional steps may be used to refine your adjustment.

The size of a step depends on the MasterGrade Image Type setting:

Image Type Setting	One Printer Lights Step Equals...
Log mode	1.0 Brightness units
Video mode	0.02 Offset units
Scene-linear mode	0.1 Exposure units, equivalent to 1/10th of a stop

Within the Printer Lights grading style, there are two methods to control the RGB channels: the Lustre style, and the Flame style.

Lustre Style

• RGB adjustments only affect a single channel, independent of the other 2 channels.
• Results in a shift in brightness along with the balance change.
• Uses the top 6 keys of the keypad: Num Lock, /, *, 7, 8, 9

Flame Style

• Colour balance adjustments are better decoupled from Master adjustments.
• An increase in one channel is balanced by a decrease in the other channels to minimize the brightness shift.
• The Flame style uses the same method of colour balance adjustment as the one used in the Colour Wheels.
• Uses keypad keys 1 through 6.

Finally, you can affect all three channels simultaneously with the master adjustment.

Master adjustments move all three RGB channels in sync.

• +: +Master
• Enter: -Master

Printer Lights on Tangent Panels

Printer Lights grading style is available on the Tangent Arc panel.

In the MasterGrade in Image context:

• Primary: Function module (pages 1-2)
• Selective: Function module (pages 3-4)

Note: Printer Lights grading style has not be mapped on Tangent Element and Wave/Wave2 panels since the mapping occupied all modules. But it is possible to use the Tangent Mapper to assign Printer Lights controls to these panels.