RED quietly announced last week that their new image-processing pipeline (IPP2) is available for download. The new pipeline overhauls the entire RED image processing workflow, from RAW sensor data capture to image output.
In his personal announcement, RED President Jarred Land calls IPP2 a complete, ground up overhaul to the entire RED image-processing pipeline. In their official press reelase, RED highlighted the following enhancements:
- Better management of challenging colors
- Smoother highlight roll-off
- Improved shadow detail
- More accurate mid-tone hues
- An improved demosaicing algorithm to achieve higher detail at the same pixel resolution
- Simpler and more intuitive workflow
- A work-flow designed for HDR from the ground up
- Industry-standard naming
- Standardized color space and gamma
RED claims that it has moved towards "familiar industry standards, in a simplified and streamlined workflow."
Workflow improvements also include details intended to improve efficiency, like separating the technical controls (standardized references that seldom change) from the creative controls that individuals will typically access on each shot. Grading operations now also occur within a single, well-defined, wide gamut log space in order to make them output independent.
IPP2 incorporates REDWideGamutRGB and RED's Log3G10. REDWideGamutRGB is a color space designed to contain all the colors a RED camera can generate without clipping, within one standardized color space. Within IPP2, the RWG is encoded using Log3G10, which will allow for 10 stops above mid-gray, and is, according to RED "more than sufficient for HDR output peaking at 10,000 nits….”
A Helium 8K S35 sensor is required to access and control the new pipeline in-camera. Other RED camera users will be able to access IPP2 in post with the latest beta RECINE-X-PRO upgrade. All users will be able to switch between IPP2 and the legacy RED color science in-camera and when using REDCINE-X Pro.
Are you excited by the new RED pipeline overhaul, or are you not eager to re-learn your RED pipeline? Non-RED users: does the more standards-driven pipeline make RED more appealing? Let us know in the comments.
