Thoughts on Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse?

[Shane Ross]

The new version of CF is a stand alone application…whereas the previous version was a plugin launched from within FCP. I have played with it and liked it…except that you cannot play the footage as you color it. Stills only. The new version allows you to do RAM previews much like After Effects.

I do like the levels controls and how you can isolate changes to specific colors, but I really just stick to the 3-way color corrector. It does a great job and most of the time requires little to no rendering. But I can adjust the colors separately better with CF. But I don’t like that I cannot play it in real time. THus I haven’t spent the $money$ to buy it.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[David Battistella]

Walt,

I am so sorry to hear that Final Touch is not reliable enough to run in your current workflow. I thought you really liked that product. I love the concept of the product and that it uses the Graphic card GPU to work in Real Time.

It’s too bad that the product is in lala land right now, but I guess it’s going to be another core technology in the studio.

By then we won’t even be able to use third party hard drives with FCP.

d

Peace and Love 🙂

[Alex Viarnes]

Hey Walter,
I’m suprised to hear you are not happy with Ft hd. I read somewhere, maybe POST magazine that you where using it in your work flow for a cooking show. What kind of problems are you having ?
Aloha
-A

[Walter Biscardi]

[David Battistella] “I am so sorry to hear that Final Touch is not reliable enough to run in your current workflow. I thought you really liked that product. I love the concept of the product and that it uses the Graphic card GPU to work in Real Time.

It’s too bad that the product is in lala land right now, but I guess it’s going to be another core technology in the studio.”

Right now the XML workflow is so incredibly buggy it’s put us back 5 days in our current production timeline. 5 days that we simply don’t have so we’re going to have to work like crazy to get caught up.

For every new release of the software it seems like they take a step backwards and I’m not sure if FCP 5.1.2 has caused some issues or what, but we rendered out three complete episodes and could not get the XML to reference the rendered CC’d media. It kept refering back to the original media.

Someone on the Silicon Color forum recommending reseting my preferences before every render. I did that last night and that XML actually worked so we’re going to try that again today.

The actual color correcting is working flawlessly as far as I can tell, it’s the XML going back to Final Cut Pro that’s just beyond buggy. Maybe by April they’ll have a working version, but right now I would not recommend anyone spend $5,000 on this product. You’re better off staying with the FCP 3 Way right now than introducing this into your workflow.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Walter Biscardi]

[alex viarnes] ”
Hey Walter,
I’m suprised to hear you are not happy with Ft hd. I read somewhere, maybe POST magazine that you where using it in your work flow for a cooking show. What kind of problems are you having ?”

That was before this latest round of color correction on the show. See my response to david above, the thing has gone beyond buggy now and I would not recommend at this time. Maybe in April Apple will have a new version for us, but not right now.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

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

[Matt Short]

I’ve been using CF (plug-in) in AE & FCS for awhile now and love it. I think I probably use it too much. Its hard not to go to it now when you know how good a shot ‘could’ look. I don’t regret the purchase one bit.

[Oliver Peters]

Walter,

I did the review in the October issue of Videography – print, haven’t seen it online yet. I generally liked it, but it is similar to the Avid Symphony layout. A few things weren’t working, like keyframes. You can do them, but they don’t show up in the renders. The XML trip seemed OK, but then I didn’t run a really heavy duty project through it either. It also has an optional panel. The controls were a bit laggy in the custom UI, but that might be greatly improved on a current machine.

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com