• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Brightness is OFF in Final Cut

  Posted by Mike Smith on February 7, 2012 at 2:45 am

  Imported files from Canon Mark II (photos and videos) into Final Cut. Prior to this I exported as .mov in Mpeg StreamClip with Apple Intermediate Codec.

  The files are significantly darker in Final Cut. As soon as I export from final cut though, they match the original. I’m completely stumped. Played around with gamma settings. Did not notice a difference.

  The following are the original and how it looks in Final Cut:

  https://iwodapparel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Screen-shot-2012-02-04-at-6.47.30-PM.png

  https://iwodapparel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Screen-shot-2012-02-04-at-6.46.51-PM.png

  Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

  Matt Lyon replied 14 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  Michael Gissing

  February 7, 2012 at 3:31 am

  Not sure how you are importing these files. Probably best to follow this tutorial and see if you still have problems.

  https://library.creativecow.net/ross_shane/tapeless-workflow_fcp-7/1

  AIC is a poor legacy codec and has been superceeded by the vastly superior ProRes.
• 

  Mike Smith

  February 7, 2012 at 4:12 am

  Followed instructions to a T. Still having same issue.

  Im using final cut pro 7.03. Any other suggestions? Thank you.
• 

  Michael Gissing

  February 7, 2012 at 4:19 am

  In that case then I would trust what you see on an external monitor via FCP. Quicktime is not reliable. Many people report that files look lighter and more washed out in QT.

  Also, if you are still on Leopard, it displays gamma 1.8 which is wrong. FCP is 2.2 which is correct. Snow leopard fixed that to some extent but if it comes to a tussle, trust FCP over QT.
• 

  Mike Smith

  February 7, 2012 at 4:29 am

  In the log and transfer, when I play the video that I’m about to convert, the color matches the original. As soon as its converted and play in timeline or viewer, it just gets dark. Could this be a sequence setting? I’d like to think this problem can be solved. I can’t edit files based off of what I think the original looked like. Thanks.
• 

  Michael Gissing

  February 7, 2012 at 4:57 am

  If you are converting to ProRes422 and the sequence settings are the same then FCP is most likely accurate. As I pointed out there are lots of reasons why a computer is not showing correct gamma.
• 

  Matt Lyon

  February 8, 2012 at 8:02 am

  My experience is that FCP darkens the gamma of clips, regardless of whether you are running Leopard or Snow Leopard. This is discussed in the manual (not in great depth):

  https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=85%26section=8%26hash=apple_ref:doc:uid:TempBookID-ReplacedWhenAssociatingWithMessierRevision-44034RND-1019474

  So my advice is always to set your screen gamma to 1.8 in your system preferences. Then your effective gamma in the FCP displays will wind up being 2.2, after FCP applies its gamma multiplier.

  So if you’ve left your system gamma at 2.2, which is the Snow Leopard default, then the footage in your FCP viewer will appear too dark.

  hth,

  Matt Lyon
  Editor
  Toronto

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