Dark Canvas Issue mk.LXI

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

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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.

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