FCP7 Mask Color Correction Filter

[Jared Hawco]

Hello,

I’m trying to apply a mask to a color correction filter so that it only applies to a certain area within the frame. See screen shot attached. I only want the color correction filter to apply to the image and not the black side bars.

Thanks,

Jared

[Dennis Couzin]

A proper method would entail alpha channels, which I, and probably you, know nothing about. If you can make a clip which is perfectly black where you speak of masking, and perfectly white everywhere else, then that clip can be your “mask”. In an FCP7 sequence, the “mask” will be one track and your movie scan will be the other track. Apply color correction filters to the movie scan track. Combine the tracks using Modify > Composite Mode > Multiply. Export the product.

“perfectly black” and “perfectly white” need comment. FCP7 probably transforms whatever encoding is used to ER’, EG’, EB’ for its multiplication. So you want ER’=EG’=EB’=0 and ER’=EG’=EB’=1 in the mask clip’s black and white, respectively, Your movie scan clip might include values greater than 1. Hopefully FCP7’s multiplication will preserve these if you opt for Super-White in Sequence Settings > Video Processing > Process Maximum White as.

How will you make your mask clip? The perforation protrudes a bit into the picture area and there is colored glow all around the perforation which you presumably wish to preserve intact. Also the perforation and the picture area are not perfectly stable in a scan, unless one or the other has been post-stabilized. Your illustration shows part of the camera’s dirty frameline. Don’t you wish to mask that too, to preserve it intact?