-
FCPX Viewer image non-standard
-
What are you using to calibrate your computer monitors?
-
Eh, it’s like I used to tell clients in the edit suite (before color correction). The would ask “which monitor should I look at?” and I would answer “which one do you like?”.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
That’s all easy to say and I would agree. However, I rarely work in a suite anymore these days with proper SDI monitoring. And that includes at broadcast facilities. BTW – how many folks work in a facility where the “correct monitor” is a 50″ Panasonic plasma hung on that wall? That’s hardly accurate either. In any case, it doesn’t address the issue of things not matching on the same desktop display.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Here are some screen grabs for comparison pulled from two different machines. Main display on one is a Dell 27″ LED. Main display on the other is an Apple 27″ LCD.
You’ll note the grabs from the two different displays are pretty close to each other. In both cases, the FCPX grabs are lighter than all the others, which are pretty consistent with each other. I suspect this has to do with how FCPX is handling color management of the UI. No filter, LUT or color correction has been applied to the source clip, which is a ProRes MOV.
Best to download these and compare full screen in Preview or somewhere in order to quickly toggle between them to see the differences most accurately.
– Oliver
Avid – Dell
Premiere Pro – Dell
Premiere Pro – Apple 27″
FCPX – Dell
FCPX – Apple 27″
Resolve – Dell
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I’ve tried various profiles, but basically these are the default monitor profiles for these models. I would note that what I’m seeing is consistent across a dual monitor set-up. For example, each of these systems has a secondary display, which is a 20″ Apple. Whatever I’m seeing on the main monitor is consistent on the second (with slight color purity differences, but not levels or gamma).
While monitor calibration could explain variations between the profile and “correct”, it wouldn’t explain why 3 out of 4 apps match each other on 2 completely different system, while the 4th is different in the same way on both systems.
Again to reiterate, the outputs to an SDI monitor all match each other, as best as I can tell. With the exception of FCPX, the other 3 apps in the viewer display look pretty close to the way the image looks on the SDI monitor.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Just to add another couple of data points. Another person on this list has tested the same clip on an iMac and I tested it on my MacBook Pro. Same results for both of us.
FCPX is shifted slightly brighter. Clearly the monitor profile is completely irrelevant, because this test have now been done on 4 machines and 6 different displays, all with the exact same results. All Premiere, Resolve and Avid grabs are nearly identical. The FCPX grabs all match each other and in all cases are brighter than the other NLEs.
In my mind, I chalk it up to Apple’s low-standing issues with display gamma.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
One more data point. If I compare a full screen grab of the source clip in VLC, QT7 and QTX against FCPX or Premiere, here’s what I see. Both QT players match FCPX, i.e. slightly brighter. VLC matches Premiere, i.e. slightly darker than FCPX/QT.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Oliver sent me his test images since I have a late 2015 5K iMac at home, and I’m seeing the exact same thing he is. I opened the clip in 4 NLEs (FCPX, PremiereCC2015, Resolve 12.5.3 Beta, Media Composer 8.3), set the viewers to 100%, pulled a screen grab and layered them in Photoshop to compare.
- FCPX appears brighter with less saturation than Media Composer, Resolve, or Premiere. It looks like a gamma shift.
- Media Composer has slightly less contrast than Resolve and Premiere and slightly lifted blacks.
- Premiere and Resolve appear identical.
I’m feeding the images to a Flanders monitor via SDI and that output appears identical across all NLEs.
Anyone that wants to see how they compare can download my Photoshop file.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7sw1v6cy19i63y8/5K%20iMac%20Late%202015%20100%20percent.psd?dl=0
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
Oliver, this is interesting and not surprising.
But I would ask, “so what?” I would never judge color on any computer display. That’s what picture monitors are for. Like, Flanders or JVC or Boland or any of the other broadcast monitors (I hesitate to include Marshall or TV Logic in the list).
Or is there a large group of people color correcting on computer displays? If so, God help us all…
-
[Jeff Markgraf] “But I would ask, “so what?” I would never judge color on any computer display.”
Of course, the final CC arbiter is often a client viewing highly compressed footage on an uncalibrated 7 year old PC laptop. 😉
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up