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New Improved TKY Free “Power Grade” Effect
Here’s an FCPX Effect that gives you very significant grading power all within the one effect and supplements some of the inadequacies of the FCPX Color Board:
There is a Master section which includes the 3-way type color wheel controls (recently used in the popular Ripple Training 3-way color corrector effect); this section also includes a range of luma and saturation controls as well as a Tint option.
There is a “Power Window” section for grading inside or outside a shape (selectable between rectangle and circle) with controls for the scaling, positioning and feathering of the shape. In addition to more color controls here, there is an option for blurring inside/out the window.
There are onscreen controls for positioning, scaling and rotating the “power window”. (However please note that the scaling is uniform so if you want to change the aspect ratio of the shape then you need to use the controls in the Inspector.) [I am working on seeing if these can be made to turn on/off as well as a workable means of being able to control the aspect ratio interactively.]
The Highlights/Shadows section (adopted from a previous effect of mine) enables separate grading of the highlights and shadows based on a luma-mask, with lots of control for the mask itself. Note this effect is very powerful and can’t be achieved within the FCPX Color Board so it’s well worth checking out.
The Diffusion section enables some nice diffusion of either the whites or the blacks or both and can add some really nice enhancement to the grade.
Overall, you can get some really polished looking grades from this effect on its own without having to stack up layers of separate effects to achieve the same result.
Summary of controls:
Master controls:
Hue; Saturation; Brightness; Gamma; Contrast; Contrast Pivot; Contrast Color Clip Values; Shadows, Midtones and Highlights Color Balance (available as color wheel controls); Color Balance Clip Color Values; Tint Color, Tint intensity; Tint On/Off.
Power Window controls:
Window shape selector (Rectangle/Circle); Window Invert; Window Feather; Window Position; Window Scale; Window Rotation; Brightness; Hue; Saturation; Gamme; Blur; Shadows, Midtones and Highlights Color Balance (available as color wheel controls).
Highlights/Shadows controls:
Show Mask On/Off; Mask Strength; MAsk Shrink/Expand; Mask Soften; Mask Erode; Mask Blur; Shadows Brightness; Shadows Gamma; Shadows Saturation; Shadows and Midtones Shadows Color Balance (available as color wheel controls); Highlights Brightness; Highlights Gamma; Highlights Saturation; Highlights and Midtones Highlights Color Balance (available as color wheel controls).
Diffuse controls:
Highlights Diffuse Mix Amount; Highlights Diffuse Spread; Shadows Diffuse Mix Amount; Shadows Diffuse Spread.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
11 Replies
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Hi Simon,
thanks for that. It all looks really useful especially the blur inside or out function. Just need to learn how it all works now.
Does this replace your previous grading filters?
If so I will remove them from the Motion Effects folder.
Again, thanks for this and all the other filters/fx you have published.
Mark
Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv -
Hi Mark
Hope it’s useful to you!
I think this does replace my previous grading filters, certainly any earlier version called Power Grade, as well as the Shadows/Highlights Adjustment Effect which I have folded into this, so I’d say probably it’s a good idea to bin the others.
I would warn you that this is quite heavy to process because of everything that’s going on in it. Also it’s there’s some complex stuff going on inside which means that although I’ve done my best to QC everything, there may still be things that aren’t quite right. If you find anything that bugs you do let me know.
Meanwhile I will try and do a quick video showing how it all works.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Simon,
A video would be really useful. Also do you have any tips as to how I can establish a white balance which was a doddle in FCP7 (or FCP Legacy as people are now referring to it which makes it sound very dead )
At the moment if I need to check the white balance I use the crop tool to select / isolate a white or near white area in the image and then using Vectorscope together with the colour board I adjust this area – How would you go about it?
Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv -
[Mark Dobson] “any tips as to how I can establish a white balance which was a doddle in FCP7”
I’m afraid I can’t offer any useful advice on this – I reckon your way of going about it is as good as any and is probably the way I’d go about it. I share your frustration that this has “gone missing” – it was useful and it worked!
The Color Board certainly doesn’t seem configured to allow for this in its current state – no room in the UI for any of the “fancy stuff”.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Hi Mark
Here is a link to that video is was promising:
Hope it gives you some useful pointers on how to use this effect.
And here’s a new version with some small improvements that occurred to me while making the video.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Hey Simon, I downloaded the newest version, but can’t seem to make the OSC do anything. What is it supposed to control?
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Hi Andy
It controls the position, scale and rotation* of the “power window” – but you won’t see anything until you actually change the grading parameter values for the window.
* centre control affects position, outer ring affects scxale, handle affects rotation.
Hope that works for you – do let me know if you still have problems but it all checks out this end.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Thanks. I’ll check it out when I’m back at my X machine. As a suggestion, have you thought about creating a guide for the size, position, scale of the power window?
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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[Andy Neil] “As a suggestion, have you thought about creating a guide for the size, position, scale of the power window?”
I’m not quite getting what you mean here – sounds interesting but what did you have in mind?
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
Well, sometimes it’s hard to see the area being affected by a mask when the changes are subtle. If you look at programs like resolve, when you create a power window, you can see the outline of the shape of the window to more easily position it. You could create an outline shape linked to the shape and size of your mask that is rigged to a button so you can see guidelines where your mask is.
I did something similar with a blur filter I created.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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