Although the overall job expectations of a Color Designer using Photoshop or Harmony are relatively the same, the technical skills required of the Color Designer compositing in Harmony justifies why a Harmony Color Designer should be compensated more for the additional skill set

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Rule of Thumb

If it’s not okay for a Color Designer working in Photoshop to do it, don’t ask a Color Designer working in Harmony to do it. 

Overview

It IS within the scope of the Color Designer to use Harmony to paint and contribute to the overall aesthetics of the static asset such as, but not limited to, compositing basic blurs, motion blurs, gradients, glows, lighting overlays, transparencies, etc. 

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to:

• Figure out the technical aspects for assets such as, but not limited to, compositing EFX for animation purposes
• Work with vendor studios and/or post-production to troubleshoot technical issues. 

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to troubleshoot technical issues in Harmony regarding, but not limited to, scripts, model imports, and animation. 

It IS within the scope of the Color Designer to create and set up their own working scenes within Harmony, including importing approved BW line art into the working scene. 

It IS within the scope of the Color Designer to work within the model sheet provided by the model designers.

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to do any type of animation work, including but not limited to, keyframe animation. Regardless if the assets are exported as still images or an animated GIF. The action of slicing individual assets from the model sheet onto separate exposed frames within the timeline, and then aligning the assets along a common registration, is enough to constitute keyframe animation work. (If you are being tasked to do this type of work, you should be paid the animation rate).

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to create, design, and composite EFX without line art.

It IS within the scope of the Color Designer to composite static environmental/ambient EFX if line art is provided.

Turning in Work

It IS within the scope of the Color Designer to turn in their approved assets for shipment via whatever format has been determined to be appropriate for their production pipeline. The format is to be determined by a Technical Director or equivalent. Examples of these formats can include, but are not limited to, exporting TPLs, dropping assets into a shared library folder within the studio’s Harmony database, and dropping assets directly into shipping scenes. 

Shipment

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to prepare shipping scenes. Examples of this include, but are not limited to, organizing approved assets alphabetically within the shipping scene, “staircasing” assets onto descending exposed frames, and generating shipping lists.

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to ship shipments. Examples of this include, but are not limited to, exporting shipping scenes, sending exported shipping scenes or assets to vendor studios, and emailing shipping lists to vendor studios.

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to collect REUSE assets for the sole purpose of shipment, nor should Color Designers be tasked to approve reuse models. Meaning no changes need to be made to the pre-approved REUSE asset, and the sole purpose of collecting the REUSE assets is to include them in the shipment. 

Post-Production

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to do post-production work including, but not limited to: troubleshooting animation, ambient EFX animation, and implementing model changes to completed animation. 

It IS within the scope of the color designer to provide static color reference for post-production.  

File Conversion

It is NOT within the scope of the Color Designer to convert completed and approved PSD assets into Harmony. It is also important to note that those who have been tasked with this job responsibility will be UNABLE to use the work for a color design portfolio. The reason being that it is replicating and rebuilding the work of another Color Designer. Such work can ONLY be used to showcase Harmony skills.