Calibrating FCP for Color Correcting

I'm about to do some color correcting for a video project. The challenging thing is I don't have a TV monitor hooked up to my computer, which is preventing me from seeing what the exact color looks like.
Does anyone know a way I can callibrate my FCP's canvas window to show the same color a TV monitor would show?
Thanks for your help.

TVs aren't used for this, as they vary greatly in every way...brightness, contrast, color...more. TV's aren't designed for broadcast color correction. You can try, but it won't be a true representation. Sorry to be a purist, but in this case, it is true.
Try these articles:
http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm
http://www.bluesky-web.com/colorbars.html
What is this for? If you are doing any sort of broadcast work, then you'd better get a broadcast monitor. Can't afford it? Aren't they paying you? Paying for your system?
Shane
"There's no need to fear, UNDERDOG is here!"

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HT4589 Is there a recomended way to delete proxy and optimized clips once a project is completed and is ready for archive? also, can proxy and optimized clips be removed (to save space) once a project is ready for color correction and the original clips a

Is there a recomended way to delete proxy and optimized clips once a project is completed and is ready for archive? also, can proxy and optimized clips be removed (to save space) once a project is ready for color correction and the original clips are used

No, they are NOT the same as proxy or optimized.
When you add a clip to your timeline and, say, apply an effect to it, or superimpose a title on the clip, FCP X has to make many calculations to determine what color each pixel of each frame should be. If a section of your timeline is not rendered, it has to do all these calculations every time you play those frames. A render file has the frames already "calculated", so it plays fast and smoothly.
For simple compositions and a fast computer, you may avoid rendering completely - and you may also choose to only render the portions where playback stutters.
Render files can be safely deleted. FCP X can recreate them if needed (either automatically if you have "background render" on, or on demand, when you select the "render" or "render all" commands).

Best procedure for setting iMac screen for color correction

Hi All
I know the iMac screen is not ideal for color correction, but I would like to know the best way to set the color space of the iMac screen to achieve the best possible result when color correcting.
Specs: iMac 21.5” 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo
Cheers
-j-

use Generic RGB
any other profile is for colour managed still photography

Advice for logical workflow for color correcting and color grading

I am an experienced user of PPRO CS5. I am a novice with color correcting and color grading. I am also just barely competant in AE CS5. It has been suggested that I use AE for color correcting my footage. Can you advise me as to the most logical workflow for doing this in coordination with PPRO CS5? Are there some tutorials that you recommend? I subscribe to Lynda.com and I think that they have some great tutorials, I am unsure as to where to begin looking and what to search for.
Thanks so much,
Lisa

lisaellensegal wrote:
I am an experienced user of PPRO CS5. I am a novice with color correcting and color grading. I am also just barely competant in AE CS5. It has been suggested that I use AE for color correcting my footage.
You can do it that way, sure. But you don't have to. You can accomplish quite a lot without leaving PPro. This has two major advantages. First, if you aren't using AE for anything else, it gets you out of using AE at all, so gets you out of climbing another set of learning curves.
Second, even if you are using AE for other things (I use AE to make motion lower thirds, for example), doing the work in PPro can improve exporting speeds. This is because AE gets restricted to a single processor core in some workflows as discussed in this thread and others (search around if you're interested). This can make exporting take 3x as long or longer, depending on how much footage has to be processed by AE.
So, how to do color correction without leaving PPro? Use either a luma corrector or luma curve effect to set black and white points, and contrast (use a waveform monitor to help). Then use a three way color corrector effect to get rid of any residual color casts (use the vectorscope to help, and the RGB parade, etc.).
If you find you have specific colors that need to be fixed, you can apply another three way color correction effect and use it to make that secondary color correction (for example I find the blue dyes used in many labels tend to fluoresce under fluorescent lighting, and has to be desaturated with a secondary color correction or it "blooms" on an HDTV -- IOW, it has to be made "broadcast safe").
If you want tutorials for using these tools, the ones on Creative Cow by Andrew Devis are quite good, and free. The ones on color correction with PPro cs6 start at tutorial number 47. There's a bunch of them. All good.
Finally, get a copy of Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook. May be the best technical book I've ever read, and it'll certainly point you in the right direction for doing color correction work regardless of which tools you use to do it.

FCP export to Vegas for color correction

I work in FCP, I don't have the best eye for color, so I'm having a friend do the color correction with a PC, using Magic Bullet and some other software. Rather than exporting the entire film, or entire scenes, which he'd have to go back and cut into individual shots in order to edit them all individually with their own color treatment, he has me exporting every shot from the film and exporting them to his harddrive or DVDs for him to work on. I've been doing it a scene at a time. It's incredibly tedious, very easy to screw up (if a shot goes a few frames long and under another shot, for example, it's out of sync, and if I forget a shot, mislabel a shot, get out of order when labeling them, etc, it's out of sync, etc), and I'm sure, at some point, I'm going to screw it up and it's going to be very annoying. Is there any more practical way to do this so that he has the markers, the shots are cut already, etc, but he doesn't have to reconstruct it from a thousand shots I've exported one at a time? I don't want to make him go back and make all the cuts himself, either, though that actually seems slightly easier to me.

"I don't have the best eye for color" means I'm color blind. I don't appreciate the "learn the 3 way" comments. You can learn to drive a manual all you want, but if something in your brain tells you train tracks are highways, you're bound to run into trouble. And a train.
The other editor lives an hour away, and he hates working on a Mac. He came here once and tried to edit using my system, but he couldn't get the hang of it. Add to that he came an hour each way to do that, and I had to pay for his gas, that made it very expensive, timely venture. It also means he'd have to have, say, at least 4 hours set aside each time he wanted to edit, to travel here and make it worth his time to do so. At home, he can do it anytime.

Configuring an external Monitor for Color Correction?

I currently have my Mac Book Pro 17in connected by the mini DV port and one USB port to a Mac 30" Cinema Display for editing on FCP7. I use it in a two monitor configuration with my Bin on the laptop screen and the FCP interface on the Cinema display. This works well for me.
I also have an external ESata drive via PCI slot. I would like to connect an external video monitor as well for quality checks and Color correction purposes. I am also looking for advice on what sort of external video monitor I should get and how would I connect it to the laptop or via some external third party device. I would be hoping to use a video monitor connected via a hdmi connection. Most of the work I do is supplied on drives, original material EX3 or Canon and some on HDV (Camera) that I ingest via Firewire800. Many thanks in advance.

Sorry Mark, you can't always have everything ... with the Matrox MXO2 (or similar, like Motu HDX-SDI) you wouldn't be able to use your eSATA drive at the same time as the I/O device as they both use the ExpressCard/34 port ... you would have to use a FW800 drive for your media instead. On the plus side the MXO2 includes a calibration tool which can help you calibrate your LCD/LED screen via HDMI for accurate color reproduction.
An alternative device would be the AJA IoHD (or perhaps Motu V4HD) which connects via FW800. It's a superb piece of kit but is costly and doesn't offer any calibration utility ... that said, a good quality plasma display, such as a Panasonic Pro Plasma, can be found relatively cheaply and many of these have built in picture controls suitable for getting an accurate calibration.
The future is much brighter for Mac laptop users with the introduction of the Thunderbolt connector on the latest MBP revisions. As with FireWire and ExpressCard, you can expect to see I/O devices, hard drives and monitors etc that will connect directly via that connection, greatly expanding the capabilities of a simple laptop setup.

What's the best decklink usage apply for color correction

Hi Guys,
recently i jsut noticed that matrox supplied a very good color corrcetion for Adobe, im using blackmagic hd extreme 2 now, seems it doenst grade color very well compare with matrox, i wonder, any decklink u guys using that grade color very well? Im newbie in color no matter in FCP nor COLOR. Thanks for help guys

What is this footage that you are trying to color? The hardware used really doesn't matter in this case, all they are doing it outputting a signal to your monitor. How that footage looks and how far you can push it isn't dependant on the cards...it is dependent on the footage you have to work with.
I know your English might be poor, so I hope you don't get lost.
Read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling
Now, if you have 4:4:4 footage, you can push it very far. Film, HDCAM SR, Viper...all sorts of high end HD can have this sampling. However, a more common high end format is 4:2:2, like DVCPRO HD, HDCAM SR, D5. If you shot HDV...HD on those miniDV tapes, then your chroma sampling is 4:2:0. You are missing information COMPLETELY. So HDV cannot be pushed very far when color correcting. DV is 4:1:1, so it too cannot be pushed very far. If you shot on those formats, there is only so much you can do.
Shane

CRT settings for color correcting?

Hi. I am color correcting my showreel with FCP using an external CRT monitor. I am wondering about monitor settings regarding chroma, contrast, brightness etc. As a rule should all of these functions be set to 0 for best overall results? I am guessing there are additional variables to consider, but for standard TV viewing, is there a norm? Any input or discussion this may provoke is very welcome.
Thanks in advance!

YOu have to properly calibrate the monitor to color bars. Every monitor will be different...
http://www.lafcpug.org/phorum/read.php?11,152712,170810#msg-170810
Shane

Work Flow with FCP and color correction

I am looking for a decent workflow between FCP and motion when I need to apply color correction to the clips.
I have a goup of clips in FCP that I would like to send to motion, animate them and send them back to FCP. Problem is I want to use FCP for the color correction- nicer than motion's. The, all bad options I have come up with are:
1. color correct in FCP and then send to Motion- will not work because filters are not applied in send.
2. Export the clips as one QT self containned movie- I lose the clip partitioning.
3. Exports individual clips to QT then into Motion- I lose the clip ordering
4. Color correct after I get back into FCP from Motion- clip boundaries are lost making applying color correction harder.
Any ideas?
Rick

I've done this two ways - both variations on the methods you have outlined. First and simplest and one I used last week on a PSP project was to apply the color correction to the Motion clip (.motn file) after it came back from Motion. This is simple and easy, but if you've done titling, you may not want to color correct that.
The second is as you said to render and export a self contained movie, then import it and copy it onto the timeline above the original clip that produced it, thus (at least organizationally) maintaining a connection between them. I then send the quicktime to Motion.
Sorry I cannot think of another better way of doing it...
Patrick

Color Finesse vs Colorista 2 Premiere vs After Effects for color correction

Hi,
I want to get in to color correcting of my Canon XF305 footage that is converted to the Blackmagic 10 bits lossless codec.
I have two Eizo calibrated monitors etc , but my only doubt is the choice of the program (to do it in Premiere-pro or After Effects) and with Color Finesse or with Colorista 2.
So if there are people with color correction experience please share it here.
Thanks! David

When shooternz said 'gain' I presume he means "what was the benefit". If your original footage can be opened in PP, converting it isn't usually necessary unless you find the scrub performance is really hampered by the camera's codec - and that's more of an issue for line editing rather than color correction as you won't be playing it back and forth very much. PP will edit in 32-bit color space no matter what the footage is, so you don't need to force the ingested material into a higher bit depth.
We get the 'real time' question asked a lot. PP is a non-linear editor so realtime playback and scrubbing are essential, but the exact content of each frame isn't all that important. AE works on individual frames so it's not designed to play back in real time - it has to compose all your effects onto every single frame before it can show you the results, and in every frame it processes every pixel. The realtime monitors in PP don't do that - they show something that looks visually the same but only some of the frames are actually processed, then the rest are interpolated.
AE has some extremely powerful CC tools, but realistically it's intended for use on small clips - if you look at grading workflows in studios their typical AE timelines might only be 20 seconds max, and often only a couple of seconds. It can work with longer clips but it gets painful. The big advantage in AE is the ability to layer up lots of effects with masks, so for example you can color-correct a video clip so it exactly matches another clip or a still image, fine-tuning one coffee cup in the background of a scene or relighting in post by masking up zones of color and exposure adjustment.
PP on the other hand is great for long timelines and cutting together clips into a program - that's what it's designed for - but it works on clips so correcting at a frame-by-frame level is correspondingly horrible. I'd say the 3-way CC in PP is perfectly fine for prosumer and indie work; if you know what you're doing it's possible to replicate any of the motion picture styles people are used to seeing, it's simply that it doesn't have a library of presets and you don't get the same level of spatial controls (there's no masked adjustment layer concept in PP like there is in AE). As shooternz says some of the third-party plugins for PP give you those power tools.
New in CS6, Speedgrade provides a standalone program with more powerful features, though the workflow at the moment isn't all that seamless (SG wants frame images, as do most pro grading applications, so there's a gnarly export-import thing to go through that makes round-tripping a one way street).
A professional colorist will use a standalone grading program for several reasons, but they're not all down to pure 'quality';
pro colorists tend to use special hardware desks with physical versions of the three color wheels, and they only work with certain software.
if you're matching the 'look' of an entire motion picture, being able to store, share and batch process with preset styles and look-up tables (LUTs) is important - MB Looks and the Colorista plugin bundled with AE both have libraries of presets, the native fast and 3-way CC tools in PP don't.
On a big project the grading is done by someone other than the editor, so they don't generally need (or want) access to the master timeline - they'll get an exported mezzanine format from edit (an image sequence or uncompressed video track) so don't care about all the other stuff PP or AE can do.
If your only job is grading then a standalone package is the way to go. If it's one of an army of things you do, from shooting and editing to burning the DVDs and writing the blog, I'd say to stick with the inbuilt tools in PP/AE, have a go in Speedgrade if you have CS6 and some time to teach yourself, but the expense of a standalone grading tool would only be worthwhile if you have a few months spare to learn the skills. There's a reason the best colorists earn top dollar, it's 50% art, 50% science and 100% dedication.

Monitor for color correction

Hello guys,
I am a newbie to Color and Color Correction. I have a dual monitor setup with my Mac Pro.
I have two 24 inches of DELL 2408WFP & DELL 2407WFP. These monitors have different color, and I think it is just stupid how Dell manufactures them.
Anyways, From what I have learned, I know I am not suppose to do perform color correction for videos on any regular LCD monitors. Can you experts suggest me good color correction monitor? Not too expensive. I am not doing any major flim/music video or anything such. This is just a hobby of mine, and I'd like to learn new things as time goes on. Most of my videos are travel videos & I try to make a cinematography out of it. I also shoot landscapes.
I hope you guys can direct me right.
Thanks,
Lowell

I think there is a lot of snobery on this forum regarding hardware requirements. If you are not entertaining clients who have just come from a Da Vinci suite, then you CAN live with out a Broadcast monitor that meets EBU specs. The important thing is to use a video monitor and not a computer monitor. You will need a decklink like card to get the video into composite or component format, that later will give a cleaner image but most television is viewed in composite any way. Colorgrading is a matter of comparing the before and after image and comparing the graded shot with the pictures around it. The scopes will keep you informed of the limits and will help you interprit the monitor. Rember if the shot looks better after grading on a cheaper monitor then it will look better on a Grade A monitor with SDI inputs. Don't let the "big" boys put you off, and use the software that you own to inprove your video and your skill-set.
Good luck from Boaz

Best conditions for Color Correcting

Hi
If I'm color correcting at home, what are the best conditions to have in my room?
Probably not near a window, daylight, even without direct sunlight seems to change things. Maybe not even direct lighting from lights.
Any tips, suggestions?
best
elmer

Hello elmerlang,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
To calibrate your display follow the steps in the article below:
OS X Mavericks: Calibrate your display
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13768
Take care,
Alex H.

FCP 3Way Color Correct Shows Up Incorrectly

I have a 1080 60i ProRes project that I have done an initial balancing pass in FCP using the 3 way color corrector. When I send that project to color, all of the settings that I have used in FCP come thru, but the actual output looks really, really red on my external monitor.
I am viewing thru fcp and color thru my AJA IoHD (HD-SDI) - but of course color only output SD. Is the difference because of colors' downconvert? I'm really thinking about trashing my work in FCP and starting over in just color, but I won't get the benefit of viewing the HD output.
Not really sure what to trust.

Can I just add to this. When I send a Pro Res sequence to Color from FCP with no colour correction the clip appears much redder in Color than in FCP - I've tested this from an IoHD and an Lhe.
If I do the same but this time with a DCVPRoHD 1080i50 sequence and media the clips are the same colour in both FCP and Color as I would expect.
I'm confused, what am I missing about Pro Res, why does it appear differently in FCP and Color - which should I use to grade ?
Any help appreciated.

Auto-select clip under playhead? (for color correction)

Hi all
Another newbie question concerning color correction in FCS2.
When moving from clip to clip in the timeline, the viewer (which contains the 3-way color correction filter) doesn't refresh until I remember to double-click on the current clip to select it. In other words, if I change a filter on one clip, then move in the timeline to the next clip, the viewer still contains the previous clip's filter, and if I forget, I'll start fiddling with it, thinking I'm now looking at the current clip.
Still with me?
So, my question is, is there an "auto-select" feature whereby, as I move my playhead along the timeline, clips on a selected track (eg V1) will automatically get selected and loaded into the viewer?
I know there is an auto-select feature for tracks, which I've enabled for my video track, but it doesn't seem to be meant for what I want.
Thanks!
Matt

If you set the SYNC to OPEN, what is being played in the time line (and displayed in the Canvas view) will also be displayed in the Viewer.
Just a point of clarification - the Viewer doesn't hold the CC filter, it will only display the filters that have already been applied to currently displayed clip. If the next clip displayed in the viewer has not had the 3way CC applied, the 3way CC won't display as part of the filters on that clip.
Good luck,
x

Color correct for color correcting?

Hi
I have a film to color correct and was wondering: How do I know if the color I'm seeing on my 2010 MBP 2.66 is correct? Is there a process to make it right, or a test to test it?
I see there's a way to calibrate it, is that any better than the display profile Apple apparently created or installed last month?
best
elmer

Hello elmerlang,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
To calibrate your display follow the steps in the article below:
OS X Mavericks: Calibrate your display
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13768
Take care,
Alex H.

Calibrating FCP for Color Correcting

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