Color Correction

[John Fishback]

Color is a high-end color grading system. It’s significantly more powerful than the 3-way CC or Colorista (which is preferred by many over the 3-way CC). Color has a steep learning curve, but it’s worth learning. Walter Biscardi has an excellent tutorial. Search for it and it’ll pop up. Here’s a link to a tutorial by Stu Maschwitz which is an excellent discussion of grading style. And here’s a video by Walter comparing FCP and Color.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Ron Pestes]

Color is not that hard to learn if you use the Apple Pro Training series book “Color”. It is MUCH easier to learn than Motion thats for sure. It is definately worth learning.

Apple Certified Master Pro FCS 2
Sony EX-3
MacBook Pro

[Robb Harriss]

I LOVE Color. It’s Definitely worth getting into if you’re at all serious about how your footage works. All the tutorials mentioned are very good. And so is the series at Lynda.com, which while it doesn’t have the depth, will bring you up to speed quickly.
I just finished a show which normally I’d spend a week in final color and adjustments. I flew through it in a total of 5 hours. Of course now that I’ve done that I can’t wait to go through again and make more grading choices. At the time I didn’t have the time to do what I really wanted to do, but the look was great and fast. And this is true HD from HDCAM at full 1920×1080 in ProRes HQ. I was able to “rescue” shots that normally would have been tossed. And instead of being passable, they look great.

I don’t know about adding monitors to an iMac. I have MacPros with dual 23″ displays, and then MacBook Pros with extra displays (23″ offbrand) for working at home, though not for color grading. Plus we’re monitoring on external monitors out of the Kona cards.

I do have a 19″ Sony Broadcast HD monitor for sale . . . 🙂

Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.

[Don Walker]

Mark,
The number one issue for you is the need for external broadcast quality monitor in which to grade your footage with. Another computer monitor connected to the external monitor out of your IMac would be a waste of money. The Matrox MXO however would take the dvi (actually mini dvi out) of your I’mac and process is such a way that you can color correct on a DVI computer monitor or a broadcast quality monitors such as the ones made by Flanders Scientific, Sony and Panasonic. The absolute best case would be to purchase a MacPro and a Kona Card from AJA, and take it’s HD/SDI output and connect to one of the previously mentioned monitors. Bottom line, another “computer” monitor running off your external monitor out of your computer would provide an incorrect view of what your footage looks like.
Hope this makes sense.
Don Walker

John 3:16