• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Dark Canvas Issue mk.LXI

  Posted by Andrew Farkas on July 23, 2011 at 9:12 pm

  I know this gets asked a lot, but I haven’t found a solution that actually works:

  I pulled up color bars in FCP 7, and everything looked good- went into Color, worked my magic, came back to FCP (didn’t send anything back yet), and lo, both the canvas and viewer are dark. Like a full stop darker. I pulled the canvas onto my second monitor, and it looks exactly the same. Sent my Color project to FCP, and it looks a stop darker than it does in Color.

  Here’s my idiot check:
  -no, I’m not looking at it on an external monitor- but I’d like my displays to look as they should (and as they did 30 min ago).

  -Apple system profiles have not changed (besides, it looks the same on both monitors, and other applications show good gamma).

  -I’m looking at the same color bars, in the same sequence, as before the shift. They’re FCP generated.

  -lighting conditions are stable- this is definitely a software issue.

  -I’ve played with RT settings and Playback Control in an effort to fix this. No luck.

  Any tips? Anyone heard of this? For the record, I’ve been a colorist for about a decade, and I recognize global system color shifts. This is not the issue- all of the FCP windows and meters look good, as does my desktop image (18% grey, because I’m nerdy like that).
  —

  AJ Farkas

  Colorist
  Documentarian

  Cambridge, MA

  Nick Wilcox-brown replied 14 years, 11 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Jerry Hofmann

  July 26, 2011 at 9:29 pm

  What happens when you restart after sending back from Color? Fixed?

  Jerry

  Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

  Current DVD:
  https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

  8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.
• 

  Andrew Farkas

  July 27, 2011 at 2:00 am

  Unfortunately, still dark. Right now, I’m grading in Color, where it looks good (ie, actual brightness jives with the histogram), and exporting from FCP to get the same color I saw in Color. It’s just in between, in FCP, where it looks dark.

  AJ Farkas

  Colorist
  Documentarian
• 

  Nick Wilcox-brown

  October 12, 2011 at 10:18 am

  Hello Andrew,

  Did you ever manage to resolve this issue please?

  I have exactly the same on a new MBP laptop.

  Opening the same project on MBP (Lion) and the desktop (Snow Leopard), both with carefully color calibrated screens, the laptop canvas / viewer are dramatically darker on the laptop. Strangely though, the thumbs on the expanded timeline are identical on both machines.

  Is there any minor control relating to canvas / viewer display that I am missing? It looks like a gamma issue, but settings are identical on bath machines and the laptop output a perfectly normal Quick Time Movie.

  Thanks for any help,

  Nick.

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up