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FCPX and color correction tools
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[Bill Davis] “If you give people what they expect – that’s the choice they’ll make 9/10 times.”
So let me get this straight. Choice is a bad thing? How very Apple of you!
[Bill Davis] “Maybe sometimes, prioritizing innovation over conditioned comfort is a useful idea? “
Are you serious? To call the way the color board was designed as “innovation” is pretty hard to fathom. It’s about as dumbed-down a way to deal with color as anything anyone can think of. It was nothing more than change for change’s sake.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Bill Davis] “If they’d given me the option of color wheels from day one – I, like many, would have just set THAT as my default and NEVER really learned the color board.”
What would be wrong with that?The Color Board isn’t better. It is a tad bit different.
[Bill Davis] “Instead, I was forced to learn something new. Something that for the type of correction I need to do most often – turns out to be significantly faster. I don’t have to juggle three separate wheels for every correction.”
You wouldn’t use three separate wheels for every correction in Premiere Pro either. Sometime one drop of the white balance filter does the trick. Having said that I don’t see how the Color Board is faster considering you may have to invest in plugins. Even without plugins I don’t see how the color board is faster. Could you please demonstrate how it is faster?
[Bill Davis] “Maybe sometimes, prioritizing innovation over conditioned comfort is a useful idea?
I get that some editors won’t see it as innovation, just “wrong.” but that’s MAYBE the trap. Is it actually “wrong” or just “unfamiliar?””
The color board is a tad bit different but not innovative. Having said that do you consider the Lumetri panel of Premiere Pro innovative?
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[Bill Davis] “I don’t have to juggle three separate wheels for every correction.”
PS: You currently have to juggle three pucks. How is that different? (Four pucks if you count global.)
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Bill Davis] “Something that for the type of correction I need to do most often – turns out to be significantly faster. I don’t have to juggle three separate wheels for every correction.”
I’m curious how it’s faster. With color wheels you have shadows, midtones, and highlights. With the color board you have shadows, midtones, and highlights (and overall). And with the color board you have 3 separate tabs to cycle between for color/saturation/exposure. Seems like just as much, if not more, to juggle, with the color board than with a basic three way color plugin.
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Scott Witthaus]”Just my humble opinion based on observations, experience and direct conversations.”
My observations and conversations have been with Blackmagic and the team at Fairlight that I know personally and have worked with for decades. You make a good point though. If companies have issues with focus and intent because they are a bit overwhelmed by the range of software they have to develop and support, then clearly Blackmagic and Avid have the least distraction.
But lets look at it from the point of view of how each is actually developing and supporting the software. I’m sure you would struggle to defend Apple, Adobe and Avid against the development team at Blackmagic. Sure they have grown a lot in a short time and their attention is more diverse than before but in terms of how the Resolve & Fusion software has developed in the past few years, I think it fair to say BM are winning the focus and intent battle comfortably. Coming from well behind in terms of an editor they are making huge improvements in a very short time frame. After giving the AAAs a huge head start they are catching up very quickly. The latest rewrite of the engine plus the Fairlight integration is almost unprecedented by any NLE software development.
Are they there yet? For some never, for others – close and closing the gap. In areas like grading and soon audio, they will be well ahead of any NLE. If you don’t see it, I suspect it is because you are happy with what you have. I was just like that when Apple killed FCP7 and I suddenly found myself in development stasis for a couple of years as there really was nothing to cover my needs. I did get CS6 to work with Resolve but I never went to CC.
I’m putting my money on BM to get well beyond Apple for many people’s needs before too much longer, and with an identical price point now for a much more comprehensive package, it might even hasten the end of some NLEs.
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[Bill Davis]”Instead, I was forced to learn something new. Something that for the type of correction I need to do most often – turns out to be significantly faster. I don’t have to juggle three separate wheels for every correction.”
That’s why Resolve has four wheels so you can use the fourth to control a color shift overall. Or just grab a temp or hue control. But sometimes you need to get in and have that control. Sometimes I need to switch the wheels to log not linear. Sometimes to levels, curves or HSL key and power windows that track. I have to say that the ability to grab a grade from the previous shots with a single key stroke or save a grade and quickly apply it means I can basic grade very fast. As I don’t know you competency with a conventional wheels based grade tool, your faster has no reference to the experiences of others who grade for a living.
Just being fast is not doing the job for me. I find Resolve allows me to chose when to be fast and when to take time and have real control. The ‘light box’ view that allows me to very quickly select and set a grade across whole scenes or transfer to all instances of a interview makes things very fast. The ability to set a timeline grade or group shots into a new look to apply say a vignette makes it incredibly fast to change things to the clients taste.
Taking away the familiar is not a sure recipe to making something better or faster. Improving the functionality and versatility of the familiar might be a better bet.
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[andy patterson] “[James Sullivan] “FCPX is a freaking nightmare of mousing and switching between tabs. Now that you can have the inspector run the whole length of the screen they need to fix everything about how color correction happens. And No the touch bar is not the answer. (Please work with Tangent and kick BM where it hurts.)”
I agree. The FCPX GUI needs a serious overhaul.
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It’s just had one and it’s very good, it still needs some tweaks but NOT a major overhaul. PPro is just as much of a “freaking nightmare of mousing and switching between tabs.”
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[Michael Gissing] ”
Are they there yet? For some never, for others – close and closing the gap. In areas like grading and soon audio, they will be well ahead of any NLE. If you don’t see it, I suspect it is because you are happy with what you have.”Good post.
I certainly see it, but do I need it? I throw out there that the vast majority (ok, not vast but certainly a strong majority) of visual storytellers don’t NEED what Resolve offers. Does the corporate guy/gal need all that? Wedding videos? Online marketing folks? Offline commercial editors? Offline film editors? I see so many people jump up and say “oh yeah, tracking masks in color correction! Curves! Fairlight mixers! Gotta have that!”. For what? Are the jobs so complex that Premiere/FCPX onboard tools can’t handle it? Or with a simple plug-in?
I throw out there for debate (after all, this is the Resolve/CC Debate Forum, cloaked under an FCPX title so as not to confuse anyone where it is in the list! ???? ) that many of us try to make things too complex in the jobs we do, therefore we think we need overly complex tools. Why? Maybe it’s that if the tools look complex/confusing to the outside world, that means our jobs as editors become more important. So when an elegant design like X comes along, the “complex crowd” gets in an uproar: “It can’t be that simple. Just look at that interface! Why, even a high schooler can do our jobs now…”. Yup, they can. So be better.
That’s why my theory is that I want the most elegant tool (FCPX for me) that does the work I do without the technology or design getting in the way.
OK folks, blood in the water! Have at it! 😉
Scott Witthaus
Owner, 1708 Inc./Editorial
Managing Partner, Low Country Creative LLC
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Scott Witthaus] “That’s why my theory is that I want the most elegant tool (FCPX for me) that does the work I do without the technology or design getting in the way.
OK folks, blood in the water! Have at it! ????
“I agree, that’s exactly what FCPX seemed to be designed for, however I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having powerful tools on hand if you need them providing they don’t complicate the basic editing interface and I think that maybe what the team at Blackmagic are trying to do.
I’ve done a couple of edit projects in Resolve and I’ve been very impressed with it.
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[Scott Witthaus] ” many of us try to make things too complex in the jobs we do, therefore we think we need overly complex tools. Why?”
Tools have gotten more complex because expectations have gotten more complex.
In video it used to be that the “look” was baked in, and the whole idea of “grading” was some pipe dream from the world of film. Now everyone, especially the wedding videographer, is shooting flat or raw and grading is an expectation. Same with audio – either you sent it out to Pro-Tools (if you had the budget) or else you just worried about levels. Now I am routinely asked to lower ambient background noise and remove beeping phones from the middle of dialogue and that’s for the rough cut.
Tools like Mocha, Colorista and Izotope RX are essential to my day to day and 20% of my notes are about color correction and product label removal that need mask tracking. These tools allow for more choices, as shots and audio that were once unusable now become serious options.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf
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