OT: Final Touch SD

[Walter Biscardi]

I have Final Touch HD here for an evaluation and have been dying to install it. All I’ve heard are fantastic things about it. Pay special attention to the Graphics card requirement if you plan to purchase it.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Scott Witthaus]

thanks Walter –

A colorist who I respect greatly tells me that it can replace a DaVinci in some arenas. Interesting.

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
Greybox, LLC
Richmond, VA USA
http://www.greybox.cc

[Rupert Watson]

Hey Scott!

Are those the arenas with only five grand to spend?

Careful which arenas you choose to do combat in 😉

[Joe Murray]

Technically speaking, you may be able to accomplish a lot of what a DaVinci can. Artistically speaking, don’t expect to compete with a great colorist with lots of experience. There are also certain advantages to working directly from the film (resizing, etc.)

Joe Murray

[Scott Witthaus]

well, this was a VERY experienced and big market colorist who sent me the info. I have always wondered why colorists did not have a tablet and pen to do free-form shapes…stuck with GVG100 switcher wipes on a million dollar box!

so, has anyone seen it or is it all jabs in fun!?!

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
Greybox, LLC
Richmond, VA USA
http://www.greybox.cc

[Scott Witthaus]

[Joe Murray] “There are also certain advantages to working directly from the film (resizing, etc.)”

this is so true. there is a 2k version of Final Touch that seems to go for $24k!

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
Greybox, LLC
Richmond, VA USA
http://www.greybox.cc

[Stephen Downes]

Scott,

I’ve seen Final Touch HD in action and I must say it is a fantastic product. I know a number of post facilities that are dropping their Pandoras and going with Final Touch for 2K DI work. It has great integration with FCP – you export an XML of your cut and open your timeline in Final Touch. This enables you to correct each layer of a composite. The software is arranged in rooms for primary correct, secondary correct etc. The secondary correct looks extremely powerful. It has good control over masks and even has a very good motion tracker. All in all, nothing else comes close to Final Touch for the price and paired with a good correct console, rivals high-end proprietary systems for functionality.

Stephen Downes

[Glenn Chan]

I’ve played around with Final Touch HD a little. Here’s my impressions:

Good:
Fairly powerful – can do lots of things. Motion tracking rocks, and having four grades is nice (you can quickly compare between up to four looks).
With noisy DV footage, some functionalities in FTHD may not perform
that well. The “curves” in the secondary controls can change hue,
sat, or luminance based on hue. Changing luminance based on hue can lead to noisy results.

Reasonable rendering times + good preview speed- I’m seeing about 2-4 : 1 rendering with FT HD with 24p 720p (not sure if the system can be
configured to go faster). Haven’t tried rendering extensive colorFX,
although you can preview them well when I was playing around with it.

Watch out for:
Bugs. FT HD is a work in progress. Sometimes your project doesn’t conform right and FTHD does crash (which may really disturb your clients).
From reading the FTHD forum, it seems many people have problems with
XML/EDL import.
On the other hand: New builds come out pretty often to fix bugs and
accomodate feature requests.

If you want things to be broadcast safe… FT HD is confusing to me.
I would get an external vectorscope to check your levels. I don’t
think FTHD has a way to monitor the (composite voltage) of a signal on
the waveform monitor, nor does it have a broadcast safe filter with soft knee.

A control surface may really help. Support between devices may vary.
(I haven’t tried a control surface myself.) Some parameters are hard
to adjust with the mouse… it can be easier to type things in with
the numpad, which slows down tweaking.

Learning curve. Documentation is weak.

Dislike:
No Photoshop or Color Finesse or Combustion-style curves. You would use such a feature to get film-like gamma, or to have lots of control over crushing blacks or highlights.
No luminance operations. Gain and gamma affects the image’s hue/saturation.
The falloff on vignettes/masks/power windows and the secondaries’ key blur looks wrong.

At its price point, Final Touch is pretty strong. Other options would be
Combustion/AE + Color Finesse + Automatic Duck (should be really powerful, should conform well)
In a similar vein, Shake.
FCP + Natress’s Film Effects (fast)
FCP + Magic Bullet Editors (easy to get great results, but REALLY slow rendering)
FCP + Color Finesse.
I haven’t really investigated these other options.

You can also compare FT HD to the higher-end color correction systems out there- Da Vinci, Quantel iQ, Lustre, etc. From what I can gather, it does mostly what those systems do at a fraction of the price.

dv.com has a review of Final Touch (HD) if you register and click on reviews and search in your browser.

FTHD is definitely a cool program to have. For mid-to-high-end color correction, it definitely is a capable tool. It does have a learning curve because the documentation is weak and because it does have bugs. For simple color correction, I would probably also consider Nattress or MBE and/or Color Finesse (perfect conforms, should be stable, easy).