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More “demystification”…
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[Bill Davis] “If you have counter material from equivalent sources arguing that Adobe or AVID or Resolves methods of doing this stuff are better – bring them to the table. Seriously. Please.”
It’s not a competition. It’s not about who’s better. It’s about using the mutually agreed upon standards on making fast and accurate corrections. There are obviously feature differences between pieces of software but if you learn the basic tools on one you can easily transfer that skillset to some other program. Or if you’re learning from a book that’s also what you get. I started with FCP classic and went on to Color, AE, Color Finesse, Premiere, iQ, Smoke/Flame/Lustre, Speedgrade, Fusion, Nuke and now I’ve parked on Resolve. Every single one of these worked like I expected them to and I could use the skills I’ve learned along the way and learning only the program specific new stuff.
If for some reason the tools would not work like that I’d probably first think I’m in a special mode (like the log tools in Lustre or Resolve) and not that there’s something wrong because every single software has used the same standard before.
Those Phil posts have a lot of good technical stuff but it’s mostly irrelevant tech jargon in this case. Instead I’d really like to see some real world footage this new approach is supposed to tackle well. I don’t have FCPX but according to the information I’ve gathered it would take multiple corrections to do one if the shadows and highlights don’t stay where they’re supposed to. I’d never have a client around if the image would keep changing multiple times when making, then fixing, a single correction.
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Isn’t Phil’s text in Bill’s OP part of video coloring 101? I remember reading about it in FC Legend’s user manual when I first started seriously grading maybe 10yrs ago or so. Bill, Phil basically talks (in painful detail) about how scopes can show users levels that are out of broadcast safe and why that’s normal.
Bill, I know you have an audio background so let me take a stab at a very rough audio analogy.
Imagine you are using a new three band audio equalizer and the Mid adjustment bleeds into the Bass and Treble in a way that you’ve never experienced with any other three band equalizer you have ever used. So every time you touch the Mids you have to make excessive Bass and Treble adjustments where as other three band equalizers don’t require the same back and forth/counter balancing adjustments to get the same, desired result. On top of that, you discover that the equalizer works as expected when working with 48k, 16bit audio and it only gives you the unexpected results when working with 96k, 24bit audio.
[Bill Davis] “This is supposed to be a conversation seeking the TRUTH about the allegation that a piece of software may have BAD DESIGN at its core.”
So go seek the truth. Listen to what people have to say. Google things. Ask questions. Listen. You are interjecting a surprising amount and you seem to be more inclined to agree with Phil because he is speculating in a way that puts FCPX in a more positive light and less inclined to agree with Simon or Michael or Oliver just because they’ve aren’t.
[Bill Davis] “Phil continues, but I’ll stop there because this whole conversation is getting boring. “
Unfortunately you stopped right when Phil was getting on topic. All but one of posts you’ve copied and pasted from Phil aren’t really relevant to the discussion being had here and the one copy/paste that was very on point Phil seems to have backed away from because it looks like he inadvertently based the whole thing on a false assumption.
You’ve said more than once that all of this is totally outside of your wheel house (which is fine) yet you are still trying to tell people that they wrong but you, admittedly, don’t know what you are talking about so you end up trying to use Phil as your proxy warrior. Hell, I used to color full time for broadcast and I still remember enough that I don’t have trouble following what’s going on (including Phil’s quoting of chapter and verse) but there’s no useful info I can add to the discussion so I’ve just been lurking and learning.
[Bill Davis] “If you have counter material from equivalent sources arguing that Adobe or AVID or Resolves methods of doing this stuff are better – bring them to the table. Seriously. Please.”
People already have, they’ve just tried to keep things in laymen’s terms so the conversation can be accessible to experts and non-experts alike. It’s not as impressive sounding as quoting scripture, but it keeps the non-experts from getting left behind as they try to decipher what all the jargon means and how it’s applicable (or not) to what’s being talked about.
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The way color wheels work in rec 709 is giving me acid flashbacks to doing a tech set up on a analog video camera , say a PC70. Back in those days it was the case that engineering set up controls were pretty interactive, so if you adjusted black shading, it affected white shading, so then you’d have to re adjust white shading to compensate, with an inevitable trip back to black shading again as you balanced controls in an iterative process that was boring and time consuming. Color wheels work prety much like this in Rec 709 . This might be what apple intended but I think they have some serious explaining to do about WHY this is better, OR they better fix it fast. Color wheels are nice, I want them to work, but they are just a waste of time for rec 709.
I watched a color grading tutorial on youtube the other day touting the new color wheels. Throughout the tutorial the WFM in X was visible and as the tutor went through adjustments to his sample footage, levels moved up, and levels moved down . Net result was that his sample looked the same post grade as pre grade, nothing had changed, all the while the tutor was struggling with the fact the if he tried to adjust either the highlights or shadows, the adjuste he made affected the whole image.
I say Apple needs to roll out 10.4.1 with color wheels that work , darned soon. -
[Andrew Kimery] “Imagine you are using a new three band audio equalizer and the Mid adjustment bleeds into the Bass and Treble in a way that you’ve never experienced with any other three band equalizer you have ever used. So every time you touch the Mids you have to make excessive Bass and Treble adjustments where as other three band equalizers don’t require the same back and forth/counter balancing adjustments to get the same, desired result. On top of that, you discover that the equalizer works as expected when working with 48k, 16bit audio and it only gives you the unexpected results when working with 96k, 24bit audio.”
I have been waiting for someone to make that analogy. Simon’s posts led me to that exact scenario, and it is very helpful in understanding the way the color wheels are supposed to work.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “and it is very helpful in understanding the way the color wheels are supposed to work.”
If you want to see how the color wheels are supposed to work (correctly), open a fresh Library and set it to wide gamut. Then create a 2020PQ project. Now import some log footage, preferably Alexa LogC. The built-in LUT will be active. Apply color wheels and grade. Behaves as one would expect. In wide gamut Rec2020PQ.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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For those who really want to understand color correction, might I suggest two of the best books:
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “For those who really want to understand color correction, might I suggest two of the best books:
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique-Digital-Color-Correction/dp/024081715X...
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques/dp...
“Both great recommendations, Oliver!
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[Oliver Peters] “If you want to see how the color wheels are supposed to work (correctly), open a fresh Library and set it to wide gamut. Then create a 2020PQ project. Now import some log footage, preferably Alexa LogC. The built-in LUT will be active. Apply color wheels and grade. Behaves as one would expect. In wide gamut Rec2020PQ.”
Wait, what?
The same controls are NOT disfunctional in one mode with one set of files, but they are disfunctional in a different mode with other files?
That’s kinda weird isn’t it?
If the color correction algorithm is wrong, it seems like it would be wrong everywhere – but I don’t know enough to have a useful opinion – as I’ve noted from day one.
The crowd here obviously feels this tool is broken.
Others, elsewhere, apparently don’t think so.
If Apple feels this is an issue that needs addressing, I suspect they’ll address it in one of a few obvious ways…
Change it to work more like you guys expect.
Issue guidance on how to use THIS new tool.
Or ignore the whole thing and see if their users adapt to it just like I’ve adapted to the way keyframes function in X – which hardly anyone feels is ideal – but still lets me get my jobs done just fine.
Time will tell.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Wait, what?
The same controls are NOT disfunctional in one mode with one set of files, but they are disfunctional in a different mode with other files?
That’s kinda weird isn’t it? “Exactly. That’s what we’ve been saying across several threads.
[Bill Davis] “If Apple feels this is an issue that needs addressing, I suspect they’ll address it in one of a few obvious ways…
Change it to work more like you guys expect.
Issue guidance on how to use THIS new tool.”That’s really all we’ve been asking for all along and have stated at every opportunity.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Bill Davis] “The same controls are NOT disfunctional in one mode with one set of files, but they are disfunctional in a different mode with other files? That’s kinda weird isn’t it? ”
Finally the penny drops. It’s not the files however but the mode that determines the inconsistency.
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