major issues with color matching

[Oliver Peters]

This feature does not work well. Color matching changes the color in the color profile of the clip, so the actual changes made are invisible. It does not make changes in the Color Board. So if you have color corrected a shot using the Color Board and then try to use Color Match to match another clip to those adjustments, an entirely different process is used. In fact, you can color match the same clip to itself (without any color correction) and the results will be a slight change to the matched clip, thus indicating that the process isn’t truly transparent (when it should be in this example). It’s a real hit-or-miss feature and I find it pretty much useless.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Steve Connor]

[Oliver Peters] “and I find it pretty much useless.”

He’s right, it’s not very good at all !

Steve Connor
“FCPX Agitator”
Adrenalin Television

[Matthew Celia]

I’ve had decent luck with it. As with anything that’s automatic, I find it is helpful to try and match shots that are fairly similar. Two medium close ups of people in similar environments, or a multi-cam shoot (for example). It really falls apart when you try and match, for another example, a really dark shot with a really light shot.

I prefer to do it manually any way – hoping they add a still store / split screen feature to coloring so we can compare a bit easier.

—————-
FCP Guru
http://www.fcpguru.com

[T. Payton]

Before you throw completely disgard Color Match, I agree it gives odd results sometimes, but other times it is pretty fantastic. Take a look at this quick keying example and color matching to the background from some Cow Tutorial footage:

One click later, in the ballpark:

And this, color mismatch between takes (footage from FCP X Training):

A click later the color changes are hardly noticeable:

I think you have to take the tool for what it is. It does color match and sometimes it gets there and sometimes it doesn’t, just like any other “automatic” tool: color balance for example. I just had a bunch of footage that had a horrible blue cast and color balance got me not to a final color correction, but at least to the point where the blue color cast wasn’t a distraction to me while editing.

Regarding the Color Match being “invisible”, I agree. However if it is just an issue of quality because of the image possibly degrading, that shouldn’t be an issue because FCP X renders with “float” precision and filters stacked upon filters don’t result in generation loss.

So when Color Match is working, it is very impressive indeed.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[Lance Bachelder]

Why not just the good old copy and paste effect like FCP7? Fast and it works. You can also go to your corrected interview and save the color timing as a pre-set in the Color Board naming it whatever you like.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Thomas Frank]

I noticed Color Match does really good job when in both clips have the same type or amount of colors.
Example if one clip has allot white and you color match it with a clip with no whites it will most likely miss it.

So I think it was designed for same scene different camera different angle. Do not know…