WARNING TO NEW COLOR USERS

[Kevin Wild]

I got mine today. I have to admit, opening color for the first time is a bit daunting. But one thing you can’t help but notice is how UN-APPLE it looks. The text on the opening screen is horrendously pc/linux looking or something. Not Apple at all.

[Jerry Hofmann]

I think you expect too much. It’s not a plug in color corrector…. it’s grading software and comes from the film workflow paradigm. More sophisicated than any other NLE’s color manipulatoin software to boot. Making it into a slick Cocoa application ala Motion ain’t easy, and Apple’s only had it for a few months… this will take years to do I think.

This software was 25k, Apple rolls it into Studio 2 for free and you bash it?

aw com’on….

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Jeremy Garchow]

Great points, Jerry. I hear you and have mulled it all over. I stayed home this evening so I have a response.

It just seems that the whole point of putting $25,000 grading software in Final Cut Studio that is used for broadcast would be to make sure that the output was legal, is all. The weird intricacies like no ‘undo’ on certain functions, weird multiclip support, some XML hang ups, df/ndf stuff seems to be all bugs to work out of the system and most people can probably work around those. It’s those types of things I do not fret about in today’s download-a-point-release-for-instant-gratification-and-bug-fixes world we live in today. If it is going to be integrated into the Studio of apps, it seems it should work well with the apps. Shake was kept separate and never integrated into Studio, perhaps Color should have been the same, just like Shake isn’t for everyone, Color probably won’t be either. DOn’t get me wrong, I am excited. I was evaluating Final Touch when the big announcement was made that Apple bough them. This is a tool that I would love to use extensively. But to grade on a $25,000 app only to have it render all messed up and then have to buy a suggested hardware legalizer seems kind of goofy.

Frankly I am really sick and tired of the excuse of “What do you expect? Final Cut’s only $1300 and now Final Touch is free!” That excuse is completely lame and if you are going to make an application to be used by professionals, it should work professionally. Final Cut Pro is used by professionals in professional environments and judging from your Cow Bio you know that as well as anyone.

WE all know that Apple hardware is Final Cut’s pimp, after all they are still a hardware company, no? . While FCP is hard at work out on the corner, hardware is sitting back, getting faster, stronger and collecting more and better looking features and turning them out, for better or for worse. Apple is going to get a bunch of my hard earned money this year from an upgrade, I have waited long enough and it is long overdue for me to update the big box and move to an all intel backbone. Apple’s plan has worked and I am not mad at them for it, but it’s ‘messed up’ that those more and better looking features aren’t quite as pretty as expected. It’s the principle of it that makes me chuckle. It’s as if someone is saying, “Here’s this awesome application that the Cohen Brothers didn’t use to make Oh Brother, but when it goes to broadcast, high contrast images are rendered wrong! Have fun and don’t forget that we only charged you $500 for it, what do you expect?”

Why do you think AJA is waiting until July to release the ioHD? I would wager that it’s not ready yet, and when Apple releases a tool to help you achieve broadcast legal values and that’s the feature that doesn’t work so well, I think it’d be best to wait to release it, no matter how much Final Touch used to cost and how little Apple is charging for it now. And speaking of cost, since you keep mentioning the magic $25K I highly doubt that the FInal Touch folks sold 800,000 seats of FT 2K as Apple stands to do (I understand that not all 800,000 registered users are going to upgrade at once, but you get my point). Simple math would show that Apple doesn’t HAVE to sell Color for $25K, but it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

Funny enough I just now got my email about my upgrade is shipping. I am glad that Apple has released this information so I don’t waste anytime installing/testing it until things get a bit more sorted.

Sorry about the rant, Jerry, and I mean no personal attack.

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

[Kevin Wild] “I got mine today. I have to admit, opening color for the first time is a bit daunting. But one thing you can’t help but notice is how UN-APPLE it looks. The text on the opening screen is horrendously pc/linux looking or something. Not Apple at all.”

Yes, because it wasn’t designed as an Apple product at all when it was first created. But don’t let that scare you. Just get in and start using it. One thing I wish Apple would do is offer that dark grey background screen for all the apps because when you’re trying to color grade in Final Cut Pro, the screens are just way too bright with all the light grey almost white interface. Color’s dark interface is perfect for using when CC’ing.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

[Ben Insler] “You recommend colorista over FCP’s CC options? And since you mention broadcast safe, have you found a nice…or I should say smooth way to use the saturation section of the braodcast safe filter so that you don’t get terrible flat spots?”

Yeah, I recommend Colorista as a good complement to the FCP 3 Way. The one big issue Colorista has is a hard clamp on the luminance for anything over 100 IRE. Even if you pull the levels down after applying the filter, you’ll still have a hard bright spot with a loss of visual information on the screen.

In those cases, I’ll apply the FCP 3 Way first to drop down the highlights, then apply Colorista to grade from there. I use the FCP Broadcast Safe Filter only for protecting the luminance, I handle all saturation manually.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

An excellent post by Michael Sandness in the Color forum to bring some sanity back to all our lives.

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/223/1280?

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

[Jerry Hofmann] “Making it into a slick Cocoa application ala Motion ain’t easy, and Apple’s only had it for a few months… this will take years to do I think.”

I honestly hope they don’t change the background color of it though. Keep it dark and give us an option in Final Cut Pro to make the background color dark too.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Gary Morris mcbeath]

Walter,

I couldn’t agree more. When working in FCP, I actually have a piece of foamcore I have to place in front of my second monitor (where I keep the bins) to knock down the brightness so I can see the image properly on my grading monitor.

As an example of this done right, Apple’s Aperture photo editing program has an excellent “dark” user interface that allows me to grade the photos without the distraction of bright backgrounds.

Gary

[Andy Mees]

[JeremyG] “It just seems that the whole point of putting $25,000 grading software in Final Cut Studio that is used for broadcast would be to make sure that the output was legal, is all. “

I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you Jeremy.

I do beleive the point that Jerry was making, and made very well, is that Color is not, as you maintain, for making your show broadcst legal.

It seems to me that grading is all about enhancing the images that were captured, manipulating them to better reflect the mood, or a look or feel that the DOP was aiming for. Yes, also for correcting errors to a minor extent, but to my mind its not at all about making something broadcast legal. (Frankly it should have been shot legal in the first place.)

Color was not bought and incorporated in the FCS suite as some kind of steroidal 3-way color corrector come broadcast sfae filter. Both of those filters still have their place. For instance, if I want to put a bug on something, I’m not going to do it in Shake. If I need to bring down the levels on something that was shot a bit hot I’m not going to send it to Color.

I appreciate that we’re all pro’s here to a lesser or greater extent, and that we all understand what the different components of the suite are for. Obviously nobody likes buggy software! But it seems there is a level of over-reaction going on here that is out of proportion to the “issue” at hand.

[Jason Levy]

[Jerry Hofmann] “Color is grading software, not color correction software.”

Could you explain the distinction to me?

thanks,

jason