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Color Correction: FCPX vs Premiere Pro
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Honestly, I’m pleased with the realtime color board, multiple secondaries and masks. They’re very fast and easy to work with. Combined with Magic Bullet , which I like because it opens and works within X, we’ve got plenty of grading power. Similarly, Cosmo that comes with MB looks could use more control, but the combination of X and MB works really well.
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I agree – would like to see a freehand masking tool added to secondaries.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
I just started using FCP7 again after learning and using PPro for a few years. I missed the control of curves. Then started learning Color. For what I do it’s great. Curves are back!
I edit whiteboard scribing videos. Fairly simple stuff, but I like the ability to pinpoint the red marker and change it to a super vibrant red. The Hug and Luma curve are super helpful to get client logo colors a lot closer. Does X have these same controls? I played with it a little but it seemed limited and to where the hi mid & lows were. -
[Aaron Williams] “but I like the ability to pinpoint the red marker and change it to a super vibrant red.”
You can do that with the secondary color correction in X. Same as “limit” in FCP 7 or the secondary keyer in Color.
[Aaron Williams] “The Hug and Luma curve are super helpful to get client logo colors a lot closer”
There are no hue, sat or luma curves, but you can buy the Nattress Curves package via Noise Industries and get most of this functionality. Also many of the slider-based and wheels-based filters, like the ones Simon has produced, will also enhance the grading power.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Also many of the slider-based and wheels-based filters, like the ones Simon has produced, will also enhance the grading power.”
Many thanks for mentioning my “grading” templates here – and also in your excellent piece on FCPX 10.0.3.
Unfortunately I need to mention that I have withdrawn from circulation the Color wheels template you refer to (which was only ever a “proof of concept”), as I wasn’t really happy with the way it was going. I may revisit this as some point but for now the limitations (and weaknesses of Motion 5) mean that I don’t think it’s working well enough.
I have also withdrawn most of the other “grading” templates for similar reasons.
The main one is that there is a level of complexity in the design of these things that is quite quickly reached at which performance becomes undesirably sluggish. What works smoothly in Motion, can become unduly cumbersome in FCPX (as I believe you have pointed out elsewhere).
The other issue is that while the Motion 5/FCPX template model works fine for at a fairly simple level, there is again a complexity threshold at which things start to break – and the only way to fix it is to build everything again from scratch. This applies particularly to very complex parameter linking within Motion 5 which after a certain point can behave unpredictably in the sense of simply turning itself off.
Apologies to anyone who has tried to use any of these templates and had issues.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “The other issue is that while the Motion 5/FCPX template model works fine for at a fairly simple level, there is again a complexity threshold at which things start to break – and the only way to fix it is to build everything again from scratch”
Too bad. These work well for me. However, in general, I’ve noticed that most of the non-Apple filters and effects are not nearly as RT as the built-in ones. Therefore, you have to render and FCP X tends to render more slowly than other apps. The more complex the effect, the more taxing it becomes. For instance, the DV Shade Easy Looks filter that’s part of FxFactory has many options and is nearly all slider-based. So, it’s ideal for FCP X’s layout. Yet, this versatility takes more processing, so back to a less-than-RT situation.
It’s very unfortunate that FCP X has no true effects API. In other words, developers cannot actually create a filter than interacts with the application in exactly the same way as some of the built-in effects, AFAIK. Apple advice to developers discourages complex effects control exposed to the user in FCP X.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Aaron Williams] “I like the ability to pinpoint the red marker and change it to a super vibrant red. The Hug and Luma curve are super helpful to get client logo colors a lot closer.”
You might like to try out the new free effect (Motion Template) that I have created that specifically addresses this:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/8736
Isolate your chosen color and then adjust hue, saturation and luma, just as you would with the Color secondary curves. The two big advantages if this effect over using the Color Board keyer (which sort of does the job at a pinch), is a) that you can view the key directly (as a black&white/Grayscale image) which really helps in isolating exactly the range you are wanting to affect, and b) you can blur the key, which is a feature currently not available in the Color Board and it an important consideration for this kind of grading challenge.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Oliver Peters] “It’s very unfortunate that FCP X has no true effects API. In other words, developers cannot actually create a filter than interacts with the application in exactly the same way as some of the built-in effects,”
Absolutely agree. This definitely needs to be addressed.
[Oliver Peters] “AFAIK. Apple advice to developers discourages complex effects control exposed to the user in FCP X.”
I think this is just a recommendation about template design in general – as in, don’t give the editor too much to play with!
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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