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Color Matching – For Real?
I wasn’t planning to move to X anytime soon, but some severely mismatched P2 ftg has me thinking of using the color matching feature in X and then exporting the files back to 7. Is this nuts? Is it worth it?
I have Color & Resolve Lite, but am not a colorist, and have never used them.Peter Tours
TnT Video Services, Inc.
Fort Lauderdale, FLTRI EA5 1974-1977
Convergence ECS1B 1977-1979
Sony BVE 500 1979 – 1984
Datatron Vanguard 1984 – 1993
GVG VPE141 1993 – 1998
Media 100 1995 – 2006
Final Cut Pro 2005 to infinity and beyond! -
28 Replies
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Match Color in FCP X is a mixed bag. Some shots are pretty good. Some aren’t very close at all. Check out these samples on my blog:
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/understanding-color-correction-in-fcp-x/
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
So that’s a no then, eh? Any suggestions?
Peter Tours
TnT Video Services, Inc.
Fort Lauderdale, FLTRI EA5 1974-1977
Convergence ECS1B 1977-1979
Sony BVE 500 1979 – 1984
Datatron Vanguard 1984 – 1993
GVG VPE141 1993 – 1998
Media 100 1995 – 2006
Final Cut Pro 2005 to infinity and beyond! -
I wouldn’t really say no. It just depends on what you are trying to do. The Match Color feature isn’t really to make bad things look good. It’s to make automatic subjective corrections to try to get one shot to look close to the tonal qualities of another.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Oliver – thanks so much for your interest. I have posted two dozen stills at https://www.flickr.com/photos/52396929@N08/sets/72157627277617219 showing the issues. The shots starting with R are the second shoot day.
Perhaps you can give me your opinion as to whether it’s worth $300 on X just for this?
Thanks in advance.
Peter Tours
TnT Video Services, Inc.
Fort Lauderdale, FLTRI EA5 1974-1977
Convergence ECS1B 1977-1979
Sony BVE 500 1979 – 1984
Datatron Vanguard 1984 – 1993
GVG VPE141 1993 – 1998
Media 100 1995 – 2006
Final Cut Pro 2005 to infinity and beyond! -
[peter tours] “Any suggestions?”
You really have only two options Peter, and FCP X doesn’t really change a thing.
Option #1 – Hire someone who knows what they’re doing
Option #2 – Learn color correction so you know what you’re doing
If automatic color correction was really “all that,” no one would ever hire anyone to color grade anything, and every pice of video would be stunning and perfect. Period, end of story.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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I would give the same answer myself. I am doing the 8 hour lynda.com Color class tomorrow, I guess. Oughta make the DP do it, eh?
Peter Tours
TnT Video Services, Inc.
Fort Lauderdale, FLTRI EA5 1974-1977
Convergence ECS1B 1977-1979
Sony BVE 500 1979 – 1984
Datatron Vanguard 1984 – 1993
GVG VPE141 1993 – 1998
Media 100 1995 – 2006
Final Cut Pro 2005 to infinity and beyond! -
[peter tours] “I am doing the 8 hour lynda.com Color class tomorrow, I guess. Oughta make the DP do it, eh?”
I applaud you. Clap! Clap! Clap!
You’ll be a much better person once you wrap your brain around the process of color correction and color grading.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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Color is intimidating, I think because of a different looking UI than the rest of the suite. But once you get into it, IT”S FUN! and can make your video look great. The first time I used Color, it was to fix a lighting problem in a shoot (My fault). I was thrilled with the results.
don walker
texarkana, texasJohn 3:16
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By all means, your DP should take a class in color grading. Best practices Color Grading workflow starts with the DP in pre-production and if you have a good DP, ends with the DP and Colorist during the Color Grading process. If you are DP, Director, Editor and Colorist, guess what fun stuff you get to learn!
Talkin’ bout film is like dancing about architecture.
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The auto-match is not working too well on my side. I need to do test, but maybe it is working with the metadata and matches shots from the same camera better than when mixing different cams. Looks like that to me.
But in some shots it works fine. The problem is: all your colourcorrection tools stay at their presets: so you don´t know what FCP did to the image.
It is really a consumer feature and in no way a real colourcorrection or even grading tool.I mean you can try on a shot, if it worked, great, but if it doesn´t then you still need to know how to get your image where you want it. So educating yourself on colourgrading is always a good idea.
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