Color Correction - FCE has me feeling blue

I have a clip a few seconds long, shot indoors and lit by a halogen lamp. I know, I know, but's that what I did. It has a strong overall blueish cast which looks very cold.
Is there a simple way using Color Correction to warm and correct the colors? The Color Correction literature is copious and daunting and I don't really want to spend the time to learn all about Color Correction at this time. I need a quick fix so that I can finish my movie. ( A vast and impatient public is holding its breath.) A suggestion really would be appreciated.
If I make it yellower, won't that give me an overall green tint? Red, a purple haze?

If you're interested, Izzy has a free tutorial that as I recall covers the subject of making video feel colder (or in your case) warmer by using the Color Corrector filter. The tutorial video is under chapter 3 on this page:
http://www.izzyvideo.com/learn-final-cut-express/
If you don't want to watch a slightly longer tutorial though, Tom's tip should do the trick.

Similar Messages

Correct FCE 4 Output for Blu Ray

Hi,
First post here...
I'm having a tough time figuring out how to export a finished HD project (made from AVCHD files) in a file format suitable for burning onto a blu ray disk (using Toast 9.0).
Do I export as AVI, QT Movie, MPEG-4?
Thanks!

Thanks for these replies.
I've notice that when I export from FCE to MPEG-4 the video looks terrible in Quicktime. Is this normal? Video exported in H.264 looks pretty good, but is a bit choppy. Will this choppiness go away once burned to a disk?
If it's so hard to get Blu Ray disks burned on a Mac, what's the point of being able to edit and export HD video?
Is there another way to get my rendered HD video from FCE onto my TV for family viewing? I'm not wed to a blu ray disk, I just thought that was the only way to get HD movies from FCE to my TV.
Thanks,
Brian

Color Correction Rendering

Hi Guys,
I'm working with some DVCPRO HD 720p footage. I drop it into the timeline and it plays fine without rendering. However when I go on to make color corrections it has to render the entire clip. Now forgive me if this is nothing new to people but just wanted to get clarification. I thought because I was using the Easy Setup for the footage I captured, I wouldn't need to render color correction as I thought this was in Real Time.
If someone could clarify this for me that would be great!
James
Dual 2.3Ghz PowerMac G5, 1.5 Ghz Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

That's exactly the same as my settings:
Try creating a new Sequence - that will ensure the Sequence settings exactly match the Easy Setup.
Drag a clip to that - and if the problem still exists, try Trashing your Preferences.
FCP gets it’s knickers in a twist from time to time and if you trash your preferences it will often sort things out (with no harm done to your project etc etc) . . .
Download FCP Rescue :
http://fcprescue.andersholck.com/
Once it’s downloaded, hit Backup first, then hit Trash. If the Trash does no good, hit Restore and everything's as it was. (Easy-Peasy)
FCP Rescue is freeware but there’s provision to make a donation if you wish – (it’s well worth it)
If you need reassurance about trashing your prefs, go to this Apple page:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302337
Or this Ken Stone page:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/trashing_fcpprefs.html
Andy
Quad 8GB. 250+500 HDs. G-Raid 1TB. NORTON. FCP 5.1.2. QT 7.1.3. Sony HVR Z1E Mac OS X (10.4.7)
"I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".

T61 Color correction won't stick

Is there some way to make a color correction made (to eliminate a blue tint) stick? I find I must make the correction anew each time I reboot.

when you say the filter was not applied are you saying that the filter disappears from the filter list for the clip?
just for reference heres a workflow i've found helpful when adding and adjusting filters:
before you correct, change your playhead sync mode to open (View > Playhead Sync > Open). that way you can be sure that the clip you are viewing in the canvas window is the same clip you are adjusting in the viewer window. drag and drop the filter or otherwise apply the filter to a clip in the timeline. move the playhead so that you are looking at that clip in the canvas. adjust the settings for the filter controls in the viewer window.

Needing to color correct a bunch of blue clips!

I recently did a shoot and the other shooter I hired gave me a bunch of blue video. What is the fastest way I can color correct those clips? I used a color corrector 3 way on those clips but it didn't really take the blue out. I then copied the settings from my camera (it was a 2 camera shoot) and then pasted the attributes to the problem clips and again I didn't see much of a difference with the blue being removed. Am I doing something wrong?
Message was edited by: DVX100Shooter

Using the 3-way there is a feature...white balance. There is an eyedropper next to the HIGHLIGHTS wheel. Use that to click on something in the image that is supposed to be white. The 3-way will then adjust the settings to make that white.
Same with the LOWS. Use that eyedropper to hit something that is supposed to be black.
Shane

My wife is very color deficient and has a hard time with the font colors in call log. Any way to change and does Apple have plans to correct?

My wife is color deficient and has a hard time with the font colors in the phone log and messaging. Is there any way to change color or background and does Apple have plans to correct this?

There are some minor settings in Accessibility that you can look at, however it really isn't much for color changing. As far as what Apple might have in mind, we are not Apple here, we are users like you. It is against the terms of service to speculate what Apple might have in mind. If you want to provide feedback to Apple, that is done here: www.apple.com/feedback and click on the appropriate link.

FCE not exporting color corrections (help please)

I see there are some really experienced Final Cut folks here. Anyone care to help with this glitch?
I've imported AVCHD footage from a Canon Vixia in 1920x1080. I edit it in Final Cut Express. I add Color Correction and Brightness / Contrast Filters. Then I export it as regular Quicktime (no compression). For some reason the brightness changes get exported but the color correction changes do not. I have tried rendering the footage before export. No change. It only exports brightness edits.
How can I fix this?
thank you for your help!

Hi and welcome to the forum!
What are your sequence settings? Are you seeing the color changes in your canvas before export?

Color Correction in Final Cut Express HD

I'm editing a stage production of A Midsummer Nights Dream that was shot on two different cameras. The set is very bright and vivid, and i have read and re-read the FCE Help page on the color correction topic. I have corrected my master shots (wides). What i want to know is how i can adjust the colors of my close-ups:
1. the subject (Bottom in this case) is lit in a blue light (moon light).
2. the set (the woods) are lit by a bright green light.
What I want to do is match the colors to the master, but if i adjust to match the blue light on Bottom, the background loses its bright green. Likewise, if i try and make the green brighter to match the master shot, Bottom turns green too.
The help file mentions Limit Effect, but doesn't expand on it. Bear in mind i'm an 18 year old student, i pretty much need to be spoon-fed a solution!
Any help would be very very gratefully recieved, as i'm a bit pushed for time and trying to finish it this weekend (A-levels are looming...)
Thanks in advance,
James.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 17", 2.0GHz, 1Gb RAM

Limit effect is not going to help you in this case. You really need to control the overall image and get a balance between the wide and the CU. Color match Bottom's skin tone so it appears correct to you. Leave some of the blue cast to not lose the moonlight effect. Then color match the wide shot so that it has the same look as the corrected CU.

I just LOVE Color Correcting in FCP X

Don't ask me about the technical stuff but for some reason, I can now get great color (colour really) from some clips I shot back in 2006. The stuff I shoot these days is usually very consistent but these old clips muddy and have severe colour casts.
The new Color Board in FCP X seems to cope really well.
Being able to drag either of the four buttons to the colour that needs adjustment, slide it up or down for a rough adjustment, and then a tiny bit to the left or right to perfect the job is so user-friendly.
I disliked the old color wheels on FCP Studio, where it all seemed much less precise unless you were able to move a mouse in a perfect circle.
Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

My on-going off-and-on project has been editing and moving my old home movies to DVD so they can languish away digitally instead of as VHS tapes. (This includes quite a few Super-8mm films which were converted to VHS in the mid 80s, so its still all VHS.)
Sprinkled in with this are more current home movie projects such as "How we spent our year" Travelmentaries (commonly called vacation movies), and an annual DVD of our Boy Scout Troop outings for the year.
First I have to say, this has all been hobby and goes along in fits and starts. FCP 3 got old and clunky when it had to be pushed thru Rosetta like a meat grinder, and I messed with iMovie until FCE 4 came along. If I had dedicated myself, probably would have finished all the VHS stuff long ago, but mostly worked on stuff when it occurred to me that peeps in the Super-8 stuff, for instance, might actually enjoy seeing it all again 40 years later. And the color correction stuff was tedious and wearing, making anticipation of the next project less inviting.
In all this, doing a limited amount of color correction and sharpening worked pretty well. But I have to say that having all the parts (color, saturation, exposure) right there working the same with the same 4 "grab and drag" method has actually made the whole job far less imposing.
The one thing I miss about the color wheel, however, is that whatever color over-tinted the clip, dragging the "button" directly away from it pretty much settled the problem. For instance, if shot inside with the yellowish incandescent tinting, blue was the color needed, and it was opposite yellow.
It took a bit to get used to the color bar's method of removing yellow in maybe light tones area and adding a little blue, perhaps, in the mid-tones. But I also quickly found that by playing with the exposure in either area, I can sharpen those old fuzzy VHS tapes -- something I never noticed was happening until I tried it. The sharpen effect works pretty good as a start (used unsharp mask in FCE), but the color bar really sharpens things up, if not overdone.
Personally, I find I am anticipating spending lots of time on my "restoration" projects now, all because of the ease of use and power of FCPX. I finally finished one I started (converting the VHS tapes to DV) in 2009, although in all fairness, it was an extra four hours left over after having processed at least as much at the time. (To make things less intimidating, I have also moved the VHS player and now convert the tapes directly to disk using an otherwise now unused Canon DV camera as an AV to DV convertor.
But I am certainly one of those apparently targetted by Apple with the new FCPX at the expense of losing their loyal professional base. And the Color Bar's ease of use is a major part of that.

Question on Color Correction / gamma

I'm correcting footage shot with a "flat" camera style. When I correct the footage using SA Color Finesse in AE, I feel like I'm pretty clear on using the HSL controls - except for gamma. My goal is to set Pedestal to crush the blacks a bit around 0 and Gain to bring the brightest white point toward 100. But Gamma is throwing me and making my footage look inconsistent I think. Is there a proper way to work with these controls? What if you have footage where there's no real black or white? Thanks!

[Sorry for the slow response. The flu hit Synthetic Aperture Global HQ hard.]
I wouldn't use the automatic color match tool to try to correct a problem in the extreme highlights (white). Because white (or near white) is so far to one extreme, automated color matching tends to make changes which aren't right for the rests of the image.
If the problem is one of overall incorrect color balance, try the Auto Color tool instead. In the full UI it's located in the Levels tab, in the lower-right corner. The Auto Color button is also available in the simplified interface within AE. (Like all auto color tools, it can sometimes be fooled and be spectacularly wrong.)
If the problem is one of contaminated whites while the rest of the image has a proper color balance, my approach would be to sample the white with the eyedropper. Note the readings on the individual color channels. For a neutral white all of the color channels whould have equal values. You'll need to adjust the RGB channels to accomplish that. Select the RGB tab, then the Highlights tab. Now use the Red, Green, and Blue Gain controls to balance the color channels to be equal.
Bob Currier
Synthetic Aperture

What to do about bright spots before color correcting

I have a video of the Lion King show from the Animal Kingdom at Disney World. I shot it on HDV using a tripod, although I occasionally zoomed or panned the camera. This is not an important project, just one I would like to finally get done seeing as how I have had the footage since 2006. Procrastination is a bit of a problem for me as you might infer from that. The export might be my first Blu-Ray export, but more likely it will just end up on Vimeo.
The problem with spotlights is probably familiar to many of you so I thought I would ask for some advice before I even begin. My initial thought was to use a gradient matte over the top 1/3 or 1/2 of the frame at times to dim the spotlights before using an adustment layer to color correct each section. A vignette so to speak that would help focus attention on stage. Or, perhaps a large collection of little circular gradient mattes over each of the brighter spotlights (using AE)
I am not planning on zooming in to the video in Premiere Pro. The shots are the shots and they are staying that way as far as I can tell, unless something really screams for that and I can get away with it. There are quite a few changes in lighting. I attached three examples of what I will be dealing with.
What I would really like to know is how other people would go about this. I haven't researched Speedgrade yet, mainly because I think I might be able to handle this in Premiere Pro and After Effects. Although it may be the perfect opportunity to learn Speedgrade. I have a subscription to the Creative Cloud, so any Adobe product is fair game. I am not planning on buying any third party tools. This is just a hobby project, and I can not justify any additional expense for it.
I don't want to over do the correction. The yellow and blue tints are really there, but I would like to reduce the tint so that just the hint of yellow or blue is visible. I have a feeling that I am going to have to spend some time adjusting curves to deal with some of the dimmer lighting like the last image. Or, is there a set of magic parameters I can change to keep this simple and get close to my goal without a huge effort.
There will be no cutting other than what might be needed at points where colors change dramatically. I would really like to see everything keyframed so all changes are smooth if that makes sense technically. The video is 00;31;31;02 in duration. This is going to be a pretty big project for having zero cuts. The longest I have ever done without a cut as far as I can remember.
Here are three sample frames. Any and all suggestions are welcome. How would you start?

Oh, I know about the Disney issues. I just like to use my Roku to watch HD videos from Vimeo on my HDTV. It depends on the footage. If it has to be pristine, then Vimeo might not be the best choice, but for most of my footage, it is good enough. Most of the people I show my vacation videos to are friends and family so I just keep the video private and nobody bothers me about it. So far at least

Color correcting more than one clip at a time

Perhaps I am missing something very elementary here... but here is my situation. I have three camera angles, each of the same concert. They are synced and ready to go, each on a separate track. Each needs color correction. I have found the color correction for each that I want. Before I slice up my clips I can very easily color correct each line separately, as the color correction applies to the whole clip. However, this takes about an hour to render because it is so much material. But since I am slicing up each track anyway to form a composite track, wouldn't it make more sense for me to slice up each track as I see fit, delete the unwanted footage, and then color correct each line before I drag them all into one composite track? That way, the color correction would just be applied to the clips that I am using, presumably taking about 1/3 the time to render. Know what I mean? So here is the question: can I select all of the clips on one line and THEN color correct just those? Or do I have to select each little clip and type in the boatload of numbers into the numeric color correction. Or is there another way all together. (Like, is there a way to SAVE the color correction values that I want and call them like "camera one" "camera two" etc... and then just apply those settings to the clips I want?)
With my sound editing program I have presets for this concert. I am able to take each piece, open it up and apply the same equalization, amplification, reverb, etc. that I did for all of the others, thus making them all sound the same. I'm sure FCE has this option for video, doesn't it?
I have 10 more pieces to do and by far this was the most time consuming part of the job. So any help would be most appreciated!
Much thanks!

Apply the color correction to one clip and adjust as needed. Copy the clip. Select all other clips that you want to apply the filter with those settings to. Right-click on one and select Paste Attributes/Filters.
-DH

Color Correction for DVD and online

I have a 13" SD TV hooked up to my mac working as a color correction monitor for FCE.
My question is: Should I always color correct using the TV monitor vs looking at the Canvas in FCE? What I'm seeing is the picture in the canvas is darker and more saturated then the view of the TV monitor. Is it best to trust the TV monitor vs the canvas? And should it make any difference if the final project is going to DVD vs online? I'm assuming the ending product (mov file) should look the same if the mov file is viewed from a computer vs on a TV from a DVD. In a nut shell, once the clip is color corrected using the ext monitor, should I be good to go no matter where the file ends up?
Thoughts?
Thanks so much

Hi
I would take some photos with color miss match eg blue tint (Blå-Stick in Swedish)
and with other known color anomalities.
Put them in TimeLine and playback. View TV - corrected or as bad as from start.
I use a color corrected CRT-broad-cast monitor but prior to this a small TV and
this one did a good job.
Yours Bengt W

Color correction, muzzle flares and smoke questions

A couple of days ago I directed an action sequence called 'Silent takedown' using Premiere CS5 and After Effects. The goal was to do a very fast paced editing style but still within the realm of 'classic' action films from '90 like Face/Off and Mission Impossible 2. I've got some question regarding visual effects done in After effects. Tell me if you thought they were good or bad. Also the color correction was done in AE and PP. Does the overall movie look good?
Here's a full link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O62_hYOmlaY
Thanks for watchin'

Well, aside from it being quite disturbing to have a team of 14 year olds turning everyone to blood soup it's got some great camera work.
Your first mistake might have been thinking there's anything worth copying in mission impossible 2. Sorry, had to be said.
Todd's right. The clouds of blood is comical. Maybe tone that down? Right now it just looks like a string of video copilot tutorials one after another. You need to hide effects, and make them feel seamless.
Ask yourselves what are you trying to showcase. If it's post production, you have to tweak those effects and make them look classy. There are shots where bullet holes are appearing in glass and there's little breakage, and no reaction from the actors. You can't just glue in effects. If the actors don't react, you can't use the shot, or it should be changed so you don't notice. Add a shake etc.
If it's editing, then that has to be solid too.
You've got time shifting all over the place without it being stylistic. For example, the guys who walk up off the top are shown in a wide shot that you re-use for the security cam. They enter, put their masks on, walks softly up to the guards and take them out, but then we are inside and the scarface guy is watching action that happened minutes ago on the monitor. If you're going to jump around in time, you need to find a stylistic way to do that. Why not bring the scarface guy's scenes into the lead up, show the monitor, (drop that long shot at the top) to introduce the guys sneaking up. This introduced tension (will scarface notice???) gives you an idea of who the guards are watching out for and drops that opening super wide of the two kids going up against the wall. That shot doesn't work because when you show them super-wide, you get a feeling for how exposed they are and what a terrible job they're doing of "sneaking" up. But it works as security cam footage...
Another example is when you have one of your agents say "good morning gentlemen. He says something strange to men who are in masks and they give him enough time to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger in spite of the face that they're holding their own guns. Then you have the camera exposure flash cuts to the other agent sneaking up...
If you want to make this effect work, you need to use editing to explain why the second guard didn't reflexively shoot the first agent. have the agent say, "good morning gentleman" and start the action of raising the gun. Then flash cut to the other agent sneaking up, then back the the first agent shooting, then back to the second guard being shot. Then all of a sudden you have a frenetic action scene. Right now the pacing feels slow and unrealistic.
The effects go off the rails a bit at the end. The muzzle flashes don't aim in the right direction, and the particle smoke becomes very obviously added in post. One shot in particular is a dude walking through a black smoke cloud from behind a van. Loose that smoke in the second to jump cuts. And if oyu're going to have a smoky enclosed space. you have to add atmosphere in other shots.
If you're not going to use practical effects for the gunshots, you need to cut away. Having a guy explode with particles and stock footage will always be "funny" without having some squibs on set. I know it makes it harder and more complicated, but you have to have the whole package, or it'll always just look like kids messing around and...
... oop, my render is done.

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.

Color Correction - FCE has me feeling blue

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