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Color/Brightness Change Between Final Cut & After Effects
I imported DVCPRO HD 1080 24pA footage into Final Cut Pro, from P2 cards with the advanced pulldown. The footage had nice color contrast in Final Cut Pro. I then opened up the source files, from my capture scratch, in After Effects and the footage was brighter(maybe more grainy). The Composition matched the DVCPRO HD natively. I exported the footage natively back into FCP, to compare the footage. The footage from After Effects was much brighter. Am I doing something wrong? I’ve kept all settings native to the source. Final Cut did not have to render the footage. I’m not sure why After Effects would brighten up the image so much. Looking at my past projects it has happened before. Any ideas?
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7 Replies
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I believe I just found the answer to my question from reading this article below. It has to do with how AE interpets your footage’s luminance. If your footage is washed out when you import into AE, right click on your footage, click on Interpet footage, go to the bottom of the page, and click the box next to “Expand ITU-R 601 Luma Levels”. It worked for me. Here is the article I got this from.
https://www.dv.com/features/features_item.php?articleId=196601411
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Dave, we must have posted at the same time. I didn’t see your post before I posted mine. In regards to your post, I was using the same monitor for both FCP and After Effects. I also did a side by side footage comparison in FCP, with the original footage and the AE footage. The “the Luma Levels” button explained in my next post fixed this problem. Thanks for the pointer.
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From that blog it sounds like After Effects is having trouble interpreting the footage no matter what. Does the “Luma Level” button truly solve this problem of my image being washed out, or is there more to this issue? My footage definitely became darker when this was selected.
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if fcp can convert y the clip to rgb and then import a rgb file and convert it to yuv, then i would let all the conversions happen in fcp.
i work with avid editors mostly, and i usually ask them to export their footage using an option they have to convert it to rgb. then i effect it as normal and render our as normal, to rgb. and then when they import it the just check a box that says rgb color space, and avid then converts it.
the reason i recommend the nle do the work (if it can) is i honestly don’t know exactly what the expand luma level check box does. so if i try to scale my effect clip back to 601 using an adjustment layer with levels output settings set to blk: 16; wht: 235, i don’t know if that is the exact reverse of you ae made the adjustment to rgb. or, if i send them rgb and they tdo the conversion, i don’t know if it will be the same as what ae did.
but if the conversions are done in the same nle software, i think there is a better chance that the conversion will be the same.
does that make sense? it’s not to offload work or responsibility, it just to try as hard as possible to maintain consistency, or at least the best chances of consistency.
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This helps a lot. I’ll try letting FCP do the conversion to RGB and see what my results are. Thanks.
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Also, if your card that you are using to capture footage into FCP is setting the levels to 16 – 235 then in AE you need to use a levels effect to get it back to 0 – 235 / 255 (you need to be careful not to clip the highlights.)
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