stills in browser

[Andy Neil]

You don’t need to put them in a timeline or anything like that. Just select a clip in the browser and open the inspector (CMD+4). Then click on the color correction and correct away.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Craig Alan]

Then what setting do I have wrong? Because I’m not seeing that option in the inspector. On a selected video clip I’m seeing color with the box you can toggle on and off but there is no arrow icon to enter color correction.

On stills, I am seeing info and share tabs at top of inspector that is all.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Bill Davis]

Not sure I’d ever want to import a bunch of 22.5 Megapixel RAW stills into X for color correction. At the video raster sizes X is built to handle – it’s a little like folding a 22×28 poster up to store in your wallet. I’d do the still work in Lightroom or Aperture. Then export a 1920×1080 frame at 600 dpi – which would give you ample zoom headroom without totally wasting storage space and clogging up the X pipes with stupidly oversized rasters. But that’s just me.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Andy Neil]

Sorry, I didn’t read your post clearly enough and forgot a step besides. You do need to select the clip in the browser, right-click to Open in Timeline and then apply the color correction there. Its not a destructive step other than you’re adjusting the entire master clip (which is what you want to do anyway).

I don’t have a problem using Open in Timeline with stills so if you are, I suspect there is an issue with the format of the stills. Perhaps you can’t open RAW files in a timeline like that?

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Bret Williams]

[Bill Davis] “Then export a 1920×1080 frame at 600 dpi – which would give you ample zoom headroom without totally wasting storage space”

1920×1080 is 1920×1080 no matter what dpi setting you give it. There isn’t any extra zoom headroom there.

[Craig Alan]

I recently read that raw stills gives you more freedom to color correct, but I am just getting my feet wet with color correction so I’m not defending the practice one way or the other. These stills will be used for both FC movies and for stills and prints. I don’t own Lightroom or Aperture. I’m not opposed to learning, though I have my hands full at the moment. I have downloaded DaVinci Resolve lite. Hope to start learning that.

If there is a better workflow that will still yield the best image quality, I am more than happy to hear suggestions, which is why I posted to begin with – to learn.

One 13 second clip from our P2 cam is 183 MB; where as one raw shot is 26 MB. And I need to save the still images on my media drive anyway. Or are you suggesting that importing these files slows down FC?

If no professional imports raw stills into their NLE because it wastes space with no possible gain, then I will certainly consider an alternative. That said, until I own and learn another program for stills, I am using FC and will be exporting frames from FC to use as stills and prints. I lot of the shots look really beautiful to me on the Mac and on the broadcast monitor.

Sometimes I can help another poster with something that I have learned that they don’t know yet. I don’t do this to show off how smart I am or how stupid the OP is. But that’s just me. Oh wait, I take that back, that’s almost every one else on this forum as well.

Still my original question remains: what is the best workflow within FC to color correct before editing to the timeline?

If I were to edit the stills in another program, my media drive would not save any space, but would FC remain faster or have less trouble with the media?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Andy. Maybe. But they will edit into a primary storyline no problem. And it does, if I understand correctly, change the master clip when you “open in timeline.” When you color correct in the timeline (not open in timeline) you can always go home again in the inspector by toggling off the box in front of each # color correction.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I thought higher resolution media allows you to maintain quality even when you crop a shot? Does DPI mean anything on an all digital workflow?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Mike Drew]

Just got to pop in here to say that it is unlikely you’ll be able to process RAW files from any still camera in a video editor. They are designed to be be used as the base for final output to jpeg or tif or other format. You need to open the files in Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom or the Canon software that came with the camera and export them as jpeg or tif from there. Leave them full size if you want headroom and import those files to FCPX. You should be good to go then.

[Bret Williams]

Right. (I’m pretty sure Bill probably just misspoke or I’m misunderstanding what he’s saying.) In my experience, DPI means nothing in video or motion graphics and is ignored. DPI is nothing more than a command to tell the printer what density to print the pixels involved. If you have 1920 pixels @ 600dpi, then it would print out a picture 3.2 inches wide. It’s just a little math. 1920/600=3.2. 1920@300dpi would just mean the printer should print those pixels at a 300 dots per inch density resulting in an image that would be 6.4 inches wide. 300dpi is roughly considered photo quality where the human eye can’t discern any pixels. So a standard 1920×1080 still of HD can be printed at 6″ wide and have photo quality. You can usually push this into the low 200dpi range and it still be pretty acceptable. Thats for photos you hold in your hand. The bigger something is, like a billboard, the farther away you’ll be so it’s relative size is smaller and it’s dpi can be less. Billboards are not 300dpi. Stand a foot from a billboard and you’ll see the pixels no problem. They’re huge. That’s where Apple is going with it’s whole retina thing. They make the argument that the bigger the product the farther away you’ll hold it so it’s all the same. Classic apple.

Resolution is all about the number of pixels. Until they get placed on a tangible physical object. Then it’s about dots per inch. That’s why you don’t buy a “600dpi” camera. The phrase would have absolutely no meaning. It could mean that it takes a picture that is 600dpi, but only if you print it at 3.2 inch size. It has no bearing on the actual number of pixels in the image. That’s why they use megapixels and we use 2k, 4k, 5k.

If you were scanning photos, then you have to do the reverse math. You have to determine the number of pixels you want in your picture and choose the appropriate dpi. Scanning a bunch of 4x6s at 600dpi is overkill (if they’re horizontal) because you’d end up with lots of 3600 pixel wide images. But if they’re verticals, you’d be in the ballpark for HD because the horizontal would be 2400, giving some room beyond 1920 to play with crop or scale.

In your case, if you wanted to do a little zoom creep, I’d probably use an image of around 2500 pixels wide. That gives a lot of zoom room. Especially in a world where 720p is often mixed with 1080p without much notice.