ProRes

We saw in Part 3, Camera Space, that the modern digital cinema cameras produce a torrent of image data that needs to be stored for later editing, visual effects, and color correction. How that data is stored has a profound effect on the retained quality of those captured images so the modern visual effects artist needs to understand the consequences of their choices of file formats for storage. The rapid increase in available disk space and network bandwidth has reduced the need for data compression as the primary motive in selecting any particular storage file format. Instead, the emphasis now is on protecting the quality of those images and “future proofing” the project. To do that effectively you need to understand the various file formats along with their strengths and weaknesses.