FCE 4 Automatic Color Corrections

I imported some old VHS tapes (originally on 16 MM video camera, converted to VHS) via my ADVC-300. I am new to MAC and FCE so forgive my basic question, searches did not result in any hits. Anyone have suggestions on cleaning up the video? Can the filters be applied with automatic settings as best as FCE can predict? I'm not a pro by any means so am looking for some "automatic" help from FCE.
Thanks in advance,
Larry

I read the manual for the ADVC-300 and have used it numerous times when importing and converting video, it does a great job. The manual for FCE is OK but not great, sometimes it's hard to follow. I was looking for tips from more experienced users.
Thanks for the tip on the magic wand.
Larry

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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?

Automatic color adjustment on different monitors ?

Hi there,
I have a new setup with three monitors, and I see a strange behavior when I move lightroom from one monitor to the other : there seems to be an automatic color adjustment made in the photos. On my center monitor they are warmer, and switch to a colder color on my other monitor. I have attached screen shots at the bottom.
Here is a detailed explanation of what I do :
- I have Lightroom opened on my center monitor. My photos have a kind of warm color cast (my screen is not very well calibrated). Lets call this color "Color A"
- I start to drag the Lightroom window on my other monitor.
- When I drag the window on my right (or left) monitor, I still see color A in my lightroom photos even if my window is now on my right monitor.
- Only when I drop the Lightroom window does the color of the images switch to the colder color cast B.
I don't see how this could be related to the monitors because the color doesn't change when the window cross from one monitor to the other, but only when I drop it (release the mouse button).
Here is my setup :
- Left and right monitors : Samsung XL2370 (DVI)
- Center monitor : AOC Q2770 (Display Port)
All these are plugged in 2 Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X (Crossfire).
When I had only tow monitors (both using a DVI connection), I noticed no color change when I switched monitors... Could this be because of the DisplayPort connection ? Why is it only noticeable in Lightroom (and only in the photo part, the color of the application (buttons and such) doesn't change... Is there somewhere an option for an automatic color correction depending on the monitor into which Lightroom is visible ?
I have tried to search on forums and support sites, but honestly, I don't really know what to search for ! Any help would be really appreciated.
The screen shots :
On my center monitor, and on my right monitor when I drag the window (and still hold the mouse button) :
On my right monitor, when I drop the window (release the mouse button) :
Thanks,
R. Giskard

Hello R_Giskard, did you find a solution?
I have the same problem and I did a lot of research to solve it with no success.
I recently bought a Dell U2713HM Monitor and plugged it on my Dell Studio XPS M1640 (Mid 2010) laptop, which runs on Windows 7 64 bits. This laptop has a RGBled screen.
I calibrated both screens (laptop and external) using a Spyder 3 elite device.
Strangely, when I look at photo open in Adobe Lightroom 5 or Photoshop CS6 and I move it between the two screens, it appears way more saturated on the U2713HM Monitor. For example, the skin tone on a person is overly orange.
What is striking, is that when I move the LightRoom window from a screen to another, the color saturation only changes when I drop the window, i.e. if I move if from the laptop screen (where colors are paler) to the U2713HM Monitor, the colors remain pale on the external monitor until I let go of the mouse.
It's as if a different color profile was applied to the picture as soon as it "lands" on the other screen.
The change occurs similarly one way or another.
best regards,
NC

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.

Color-correcting a stage production

I have a video of a stage production that I am going to start editing soon. It was shot on a run-of-the-mill camcorder about 10 years ago, and it was in auto mode, so the contrast and color are not great. Because it is a stage production, it was taped in a dark theater with stage lighting, so there is a lot of black around the main action.
I don't know a lot about color correction but want to learn. Any suggestions on where to start? Mostly what should be blacks look pretty gray, and I know I can't work miracles on it, but I'd like to improve it as much as possible as it is an archive of a performance from my youth.

FCEs colour corrector is in Browser>Effects>Video Filters>Color Corection>Color Corrector.
Run the filter over the Sequence after all editing is done.
You will have to fiddle with the parameters yourself.
Or, there is a Magic Wand in there that you can use on a known white object and it corrects automatically.
Al

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

Best way to go from Final Cut to DVD preserving Color Corrections

What is the best way to take my video project from Final Cut and burn it on a DVD (using DVD Studio), I need to preserve the color corrections I have made (used an external video monitor)? Also my camera shoots at black level IRE 0 and I have edited it that way, but as we all know NTSC TVs use IRE 7.5 is there anyway DVD Studio or FCP can convert the IRE so it matches?

from FC; export to compressor
In compressor, choose appropriate preset (i.e. best quality, >90 minutes, 16x9)
encode the sound as dolby 2 (if you choose "all" you'll get an extra aif file)
take the 2 files (video and audio) into dvd studio to encode.
Not sure about your IRE 7.5 question, I always assumed it was automatically converted but now you have me thinking...

Color correction technique

After editing my project and publishing to a DVD , I've been a liitle disappointed in the color saturation of my final project when viewed on my TV. The video just appears a little flat.
Can someone guide me through a good color correction process that might help with this.
What role do the color bars play in calibration ?
Just as an FYI I don't have a broadcast monitor..I guess I could use a TV ?

It is possible that there could be nothing wrong with your FCE produced DVD.
Could it be that the colour settings on your TV are poor compared with your computer monitor?
Have you tried the DVD on other (possibly better) TVs?
How does your DVD compare with the normal TV programmes? It should be of a similar quality. If it is not then maybe there is some fault in your technique, either in the filming or post production stage etc.
Ian.
PS. Have you tried boosting the Contrast and Saturation on your TV?

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.

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 Correcting In CC - Making Whites Actually White

Okay so my main question is,
Are there any functions or plugins where I can look at the clip, and then click on a spot that I know should be white (But its not because the camera wasn't white balanced 100%), and have After effects automatically adjust so it is white.
Kind of like how you set white balance on a camera, where you hold up a white card or other completely white object, click the white balance, and the camera automatically adjust to make it white.
Except I want to be able to just click on a point in the footage and have it adjust everything.
If this is not an option, then are there any good tips for white balancing the footage?
IE: I film a subject against a white wall, the camera wasn't white balanced so the background appears to be light beige. I want to click the background in AE and have it color correct and make it white.
Thanks

Finding perfect white is always a challenge and it may foul up other things in your shot because white walls are reflective and if someone is wearing a blue shirt against a white wall, white may not be white. Setting white may get you in the ball park, but it is usually only the first step in color grading. You usually want to push highlights to one hue and shadows to another.
The procedure and the tools used to color grade a shot depend entirely on the shot. For most of my work Colorists II is my preferred tool. Some shots require more than one instance of colorist to get to where I want to go. Color finesse is also good, but for some work, and this depends entirely on the shot, Auto Color is all that I need. No matter what technique you use to grade your shots you need some kind of scope or histogram that you understand so you can know where you are pushing the levels in the shot. I'm always checking areas of a shot with the Info Panel to make sure I know what I've done to the color values. Most of all, good color grading takes time to learn and a very thorough knowledge of color.

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.

Color correction for PrE 10 ?

Are there any plugins available for PrE 10 to do proper color correction ?
By default there is a 3-way color corrector but it is quite limited (no range definition for midtones, no secondaries). There is a "Color Fixer" in NewBlue Video Essentials but it appears to be mostly automatic. Basically what I am looking for is something similar to Colorista or Color Finesse that is compatible with PrE.

As Premiere is not a Color Managed Workspace, the calibrated computer monitor will not be 100% correct. To do advanced CC, I think that you will find Adobe After Effects (a Color Managed Workspace) to be more what you are looking for. PrPro adds many CC Effects, but is still not a Color Managed Workspace, so one needs to output to a calibrated broadcast monitor for critical CC work.
Also, as Video is likely displayed on myriad devices, from computer monitors to a plethora of TV sets (of various levels of calibration), one can only CC to broadcast standards, and then hope for the best with the viewer's equipment. PrE is designed for consumer output, where PrPro includes broadcast capabilities and After Effects is designed around broadcast. The difference between PrE and PrPro is similar to a comparison of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, in that Photoshop offers CMYK output for commercial printing, where PSElements does not.
Until fairly recently, PrE offered scant few Effects to manually CC footage. The addition of the Three-way CC Effect is a big bonus, but as you have found out, for broadcast work, it is lacking.
I do not know of any CC plug-ins, that will function better in PrE, but places to look would be the NewBlue FX portfolio, and the Red Giant portfolio. Also, make sure that when checking out host applications for their plug-ins, you see Premiere Elements, as most will work in Premiere Pro, but fewer in Premiere Elements, due to differences between those programs.
Good luck,
Hunt

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 correction filter and keyframes

After lots of projects in FCE, I should know this!
I have a clip with a color correction filter and keyframes at either end of the clip.
Question: If I break the clip in two, am I correct that the color correction filter and keyframes are no longer shared by the two clips? Changes made to one clip's keyframes no longer effect the other clip's color correction settings?

That's correct.

FCE 4 Automatic Color Corrections

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