How do I set the white balance?

[Brendan Gibbons]

As far as I know there is no eye dropper function as per fcp 7’s 3 way color corrector.

As you say a lot of the color balancing is now automated, eg option+command+b to auto balance or jump into the color board, command + 6, and eyeball it to your own taste.

As far as viewing a rgb parade in the video scopes…

command + 7 to bring up scopes
then select rgb parade from the settigs menu in top right of scopes window.

Hope that helps.

cheers

Brendan

[Mark Dobson]

Thanks for that info.

It confirms what I thought. Until I’ve got a full HD external calibrated monitor I won’t know what I’m looking at.

So who’s going to come up with the goods first to allow me to see things on my 32″ LCD Bravia. I originally had an Intensity Pro card and then bought a Matrox MX02 mini which has a calibration function.

Neither of these work with FCP X and the Matrox administrator has shut down any communication about the issue on their forum.

If I had the cash I would probably buy a couple of 27″ Cinema displays and use colorsync.

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Neil Goodman]

i am also bummed to see no “show excess luma” in the viewer and no exclamation mark for un safe color in the viewer 🙁

Neil Goodman: Editor of New Media Production – NBC/Universal

[Michael Harwood]

Even though there is no “native” eyedropper for the color balance tool in FCP X you can create a new FCP Effect in Motion 5, add the “Color Balance” effect tot he project, and “publish” all of the sliders so that they are exposed in FCP. Once this is done you will be able to use Motion’s COlor Balance effect in much the same way you can in Motion. You can similarly “export” other Motion effects to offset the lack of native tools in FCPX.

I have been very successful in correcting white balance issues in FCPX using a combination of this “exported” effect and FCPX’s native auto correction.

[Mark Dobson]

Thanks’ for that Michael,

not really up to speed in Motion yet so am unlikely to be able to publish an effect – but I can have a go – everybody else is doing and don’t like feel left out!

It seems that Motion is really the hidden strength behind FCPX.

I honestly think that in a years time people will wonder what all the fuss was about.

So Yeah, it would be great to have that eyedropper white balance back under my fingers.

ta

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Geoff Dills]

A method I used to use was to crop the image so only something white is visible and use the vectorscope to adjust white balance. Very accurate.

Best,
Geoff

[Michael Harwood]

If you are interested I would be happy to write up the procedure. I agree with you that it certainly appears that Motion integration provides a lot of flexibility and may be an acceptable way to address some of the missing features.

[James Taylor]

Michael,

That would be awesome!

JT

JT

[Michael Harwood]

Sorry for the lateness of this post – life intervened. 😉

The process I have been using to make Motion 5 filters available in FCPX is as follows:

1. Open Motion 5
2. Select “FInal CUt Effect” from the Project Browser to start a new Motion project
3. Click on the “Add filter to selected objects” button to bring up a list of all the filters you can use. It is located just below the viewer. Select the filter you wish to use in FCPX. For this example I chose “Color Correction –> Brightness”
4. Make sure the filter is selected in the time line and click on the “Inspector” tab in the upper left region of the GUI.
5. Make sure the “Filters” tab is selected. You should see the parameters for the Brightness filter.
6. At each “level” of the rigs at right of the filter you will see a drop down menu if you hover the mouse over. In the drop down list you will see the option “publish”. You must select this option for whatever rig you wish to expose to FCPX.
7. After you have selected the controls you wish to publish select “Save as” in the file menu. In the dialog you will need to name the effect as it will be seen in FCPX, and create a category if there is not already one created. I created a “Motion 5 Color Correction” category, unclicked “Include Unused Media”, and then saved the project.

After this is done you will immediately see the saved project in the FCPX effects browser, and can use it as any other FCPX effect.

I hope this is helpful.

[Jack Niedenthal]

Below is a link for the single most useful plug-in I have found for FCPX and it is for white balance. FCPX is very lacking when it comes to color correction, I really struggled with the color corrector, then I found this:

https://www.fcpeffects.com/collections/new-stuff/products/white-balance-plugin

Use their discount codes that you can find on the website and they knock 30% off.

Jack Niedenthal
Microwave Films of the Marshall Islands
http://www.microwavefilms.org
iMac i7 using Lion 10.7.x, HPX 170 using only one 64GB card
I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific, YOU are my only resource.