Fcp to Color workflow

I have 20 videos that I need to color correct, and am a neophyte in color... My questions are real simple, just trying to buckle down a workflow.
I have a sequence in fcp. Do I have to add in all transitions prior to sending to Color (does Color embed back in fcp as a single output sequence)?
I shot the footage with two cameras. Do, or should I, place A camera on one line, and B camera on another in fcp, and then send to Color to make anything easier?
I will be using some simple alpha animations to the video. Should I do this after color correction? Or should I place above the footage on the timeline and just highlight the clips I want to send to color?
Thanks in advance!

YOu need something more than a reply on a forum... you need a tutorial on how to use COLOR. Get this:
http://store.creativecow.net/p/66/stop_staring_and_start_grading_with_apple_colo r
- You send to Color when you have locked picture...meaning editing is done. All transitions should be in place. Color will remove them, then put them back when it renders out the video. Each clip is rendered individually, it isn't rendered out as one long piece.
Put all the footage on ONE track if you can. Two if you must. But one track makes things easier. And all the footage must match EXACTLY...meaning same codec, frame size, frame rate.
Remove all graphics from the timeline before you send to Color...including Alpha transitions. Add them back when you render out from Color.

Similar Messages

FCP - Color Workflow?

Ok, I'll try to be as descriptive as possible in my explanation of my workflow. I'm working on color grading a small independent film for a friend. Since we both of Apple computers, we are using FCP and Color. The directory is doing all the editing on her Macbook Pro. I'm doing all the color grading on my Mac Pro. We are both working on external 1Tb hard drives (1 for editing, 1 for grading).
She starts by editing the film. I already have a copy of her FCP project (and all media files) on my external hard drive. So when she tweaks and edits a sequence, I just copy her FCP project onto my external. I then open her project and export an XML from FCP to reconform with Color.
Color reconforms the XML fine. It was my knowledge that to get from my Color to her FCP, that I would just need to render my Color project, give her the XML that Color creates for her to import into FCP. Unfortunately that is not as smooth as I was hoping. As soon as she imports the XML into FCP, it is constantly trying to reconnect the media. No problem until I realize that the render in Color produced .movs on my external. I proceed to copy those onto her external and they are not able to link up. I keep getting the error that there is a difference in audio - video tracks.
I wish the workflow was easier between both programs when they are on different computers. It just seems that they are not meant to handle a project that is edited and graded on different machines. Does anybody have any suggestions to improve the workflow? I'm sure I could be doing something wrong, but I searched and read and could not find much info about working on different computers. Thanks for any help.

The issue that you are facing is that you did not realize that COLOR would render new media, and it is all video ONLY.
The workflow that succeeds for sharing projects is one in which the media moves with the project.
You do not need to move everything everytime. There is a strategy using "Media Manager". Your production partner should "Media Manage" the locked project to the transport drive. You would open that and create a target directory on that drive for COLOR. Render your graded COLOR version to it, do a Send To... FCP, where it will create a new (from COLOR) sequence in the original FCP project and return the whole shebang to the editor. Beware that there may be some panning issues with the XML -reconnected audio. In that case, copy the audio from the original FCP (for COLOR) into the new (from COLOR) sequence. Or bake it out from the original and drop it into the new graded sequence, or wait for the finished wav from the audio post house.... oh, wait a minute, you're probably not getting the audio mixed or sweetened, but whatever.
There is another, cumbersome, workflow and that has to do with creating a "Final Gather" Quicktime for export. Mostly that option is employed with dpx sequences, since you will by now have probably figured out that COLOR somewhat inconveniently renders each new QT into its own subfolder, which makes them a tiny bit inaccessible for most manual reconnection approaches. To be honest, I haven't used it for so long, that I'm not sure that it works for QT anymore. Worth looking up in the Manual.
Would you mind exploring that for me?
jPo

The Color doesn´t recognize the clips´time when I send from FCP to COLOR

I have a big problem. When I send from FCP to Color does not recognize the mounting clips. In each plane is everything and not the s 2 or 4 seconds it had in the assembly of the FCP.
I have worked with Color more times and have not had that problem.
Anyone can help me?. Can it be the codecs, the times of the FCP, the settings of COLOR?
Could you help me, please ?

subpaper clips.
What is a "subpaper clip"?
By the way, all this nonsense about COLOR only supporting one layer of video... where is this coming from? This is utterly untrue... I am thinking of Stevie Wonder's song that states that when people believe in things they don't understand, that's superstition.
Rather than try to explain all the things that COLOR cannot do, maybe it would be easier to lay out the basic concept of what should be sent.
Very fundamentally, COLOR is a sequential-file (.dpx) color correction or grading application that has been modified to work with a few Quicktime codecs, and can accept a single sequence of independent media (discrete clips) from Final Cut. That sequence can have many layers, but it cannot have any nested sequences, and there still are a number of editing strategies within Final Cut that can be proxied, albeit inexactly, but occasionally not at all.
The safest sequence to send to COLOR from Final Cut consists of independent Quicktime Clips, all of the same resolution, codec, and frame rate, which should match the sequence settings of the Final Cut project. There is a naive assumption that anything that can be done in Final Cut can be replicated in COLOR and returned intact. This is absolutely untrue, and the evidence of that is everywhere in this, and other forums.
In this particular instance, "zotero"'s problem, while lamentable, is of his own creation by ignoring or proceeding without any preparation or investigation, and assuming that every editor's concept of what passes for the creative process has been anticipated and compensated for by the application developers.
To mark them manually now when already I have the definitive assembly is a labor of many hours.
Unfortunately, that may be your fate. Alternatively, you may consider the use of a "Media Manage" operation which will re-organize the independency of the source media. The Media Manager is covered extensively in the Final Cut manual. I'd advise doing a lot of back-ups before proceeding with anything else at this point, because it really looks like there is going to be a lot of trial-and-error in the near future... mostly error. Good luck with it all.
jPo

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.

Significant color shift between FCP and COLOR?

Hi there,
I get a significant color shift when sending footage - either adjusted or unadjusted/unmodified - from FCP to COLOR.
Before anyone asks, the color shift is visible both internally or on an external broadcast preview monitor.
From within COLOR, I 'send' back to FCP this sequence - which is still without any form of adjustment (apart from being sent to COLOR), the apparent color shift is now visible/added to the imported sequence (from Color).
I've tried this on three separate Macs:
1. The Mac above (6.0.6). (Leopard)
2. A Mac with the same version of FCP as above. (Snow Leopard)
3. FCP and on a third Mac with an earlier version of FCP. (Leopard)
Does everyone have the same problem?
If not, does anyone have a solution?
Cheers,
Dan
PS: I've tried:
FCP > Color ProRes contrast shift
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2150962&tstart=75

I had the same problem except that I am using version 1 of color and Final Cut Pro 6. I isolated just the video and double checked that I had no filters or if I did I turned them off. I had a smooth cam filter on one shot, but that didn't effect it. I was then able to send it to color without issue, once I had no sound or filters or transitions messing up the pass between final cut and color. Try doing the same, just duplicate or copy your timeline to a new timeline. I would have rendered your footage out to ProRes however as using the DVC Pro codec is probably not ideal. Color also only works with actual full raster files, not so good going from HDV or DVC Pro as they have an anamorphic frame size. This may be causing issues also.

FCP to Color previous post method?

I'm about to send a 50 min project into color for the first time (had a play around in it a few times before to familiarize myself with it a bit more)
Would the method at the bottom of the thread below be a good way to go about sending a project from fcp to color?
https://discussions.apple.com/message/8986453#8986453

Read the Color Manual section on Preparing your FCP project for Color.
Pay particular attention to the things that should not be included - eg retimed footage, mixed rate footage, still images, etc.
Also pay attention to native codecs (ie - what Color works with without transcoding) vs supported (what Color will ingest but have to transcode to work with and will export a different format).
The key thing is to get everything into ProRes at the same framerate and same size without filters, retiming, etc.
x
fwiw - in the linked thread, they went to a lot of trouble to send a sequence to Color but their monitoring solution was not supported. Monitoring Color requries a qualified export device (AJA, Decklink, Matrox) feeding a signal in the correct color space to a calibrated monitor via SDI, Component, or HDMI. Anything else is a guess as to what it really looks like.
good luck.

Color workflow validation

Hi all. First time post here.
Being self-taught sometimes means having to unlearn bad habits learned from various forums and the good ol' internet, right?
I need some help "validating" my current color workflow, to see whether I'm actually wasting too much time and energy on the wrong habits (probably am!), after having recently seen a colleague of mine use something utterly different as workflow.
Got my screen and printer calibrated right now, and my color settings in Illustrator and Photoshop matching. Basic so far.
Now when I start a new project in Illustrator, I go through my swatch book (4-color process guide book) to pick out a CMYK build I like and apply that to my design. The color up on the screen doesn't really match at all my swatch book (I know, different gamut), but I'm basing myself on the swatch book so I know what I'm aiming for... (& let me make it clear; I do not actually use any spot colors in my final layout, just a small square of it somewhere for referencing purposes only).
Finally, I go to Photoshop once the designing is done and use the color picker to find the closest Pantone match (for solid coated).
So then I return to AI, and apply that Pantone color off my artboard for my printer to have as reference, if needed. The breakdown of that PMS color is never really spot-on the CMYK build I initially started with - it's usually off by 5-10%. Normal I imagine.
For instance, I chose CMYK build 100/70/0/0 in my guide book. That gives me PMS 2945 in PS. When I click "OK" in PS, PMS 2945 becomes 100/70/17/3 in its equivalency as CMYK. Pretty close but not perfect.
When I go back to AI and apply swatch 2945 and click "Convert to CMYK", the breakdown suddenly gives me 100/45/0/14. A little too far off for my tastes, but hey...
Reason I do all these steps is because the colors I pick out in the swatch books to begin with never match what I see on screen, so my clients always freak out when they receive soft proofs and then see the finished printed results. The colors always look a wee bit lighter on screen than on print.
I'm aware that screen representation is pretty much useless even with proper calibration (for lack of better wording), but can I fully trust and base myself on my swatch books - considering that the stock I'm printing on is different, etc, etc? Especially because I'm dealing with blues right now...
Would you(s) say this is a somewhat correct workflow or utterly ridiculous workflow? (And please be gentle if going the ridiculous route ).
And if so, how would you(s) start a project from scratch??
Thanks guys!

First I think you have badly calibrated system. With properly calibrated system what you see on your monitor should give a very good representation of your final colors, although for offset print you should always have a print proof accepted from your print shop. I use print proof not because I don't trust my monitor but because it requires client approval and the print shop can guaranty the color match. Obviously there is a difference between colors produced by emitting light vs reflecting but the eye has a good adaptive system of recognizing the same colors produced differently and proper color management takes this into account. If your standards are very high a proper calibration and viewing environment should give you a very good screen representation of the final result. Many Artists and designers create colors successfully referring entirly to monitors.
type_uk wrote:
Finally, I go to Photoshop once the designing is done and use the color picker to find the closest Pantone match (for solid coated).
So then I return to AI, and apply that Pantone color off my artboard for my printer to have as reference, if needed. The breakdown of that PMS color is never really spot-on the CMYK build I initially started with - it's usually off by 5-10%. Normal I imagine.
For instance, I chose CMYK build 100/70/0/0 in my guide book. That gives me PMS 2945 in PS. When I click "OK" in PS, PMS 2945 becomes 100/70/17/3 in its equivalency as CMYK. Pretty close but not perfect.
When I go back to AI and apply swatch 2945 and click "Convert to CMYK", the breakdown suddenly gives me 100/45/0/14. A little too far off for my tastes, but hey...
Reason I do all these steps is because the colors I pick out in the swatch books to begin with never match what I see on screen, so my clients always freak out when they receive soft proofs and then see the finished printed results. The colors always look a wee bit lighter on screen than on print...
I'm not sure why you are even using Photoshop for that but , Illustrator is much more accurate than Photoshop when matching RGB and CMYK to Pantone colors. Also have in mind that the Pantone match depends on your color settings. The color managed program you are using for matching Pantone color will use the display color space of your image, in combination with your monitor profile to figure out the best Pantone color match based on the assumption of how the color is displayed on the monitor and seen by the user. So the Pantone match may be different for each user if the color settings are set differently. Photoshop will choose Pantone 2945 C for your CMYK color if the image is assumed to be displayed in U.S.Web Coated (SWAP) v2 color space. Change that to something else and the Pantone match will be different. Interestingly though, Illustrator with the same settings picks Pantone 2728 C which is much more closer to the original color. I'm not sure as to why Photoshop is that much off - ask the Photoshop programmers, but this is why I always use Illustrator for color conversions.

Proper color workflow with CMYK inkjet printer

Hi, I work in an academic science group that has a networked HP DesignJet 800ps printer (postscript RIP). Unlike many inkjets, it appears to be a true CMYK printer - that is, our i1 Match software recognizes it as a CMYK device. We do all our printing in house - we don't have to worry about commercial printing or publishing, and our color management needs are basically confined to trying to have the printer's output match what we see on our monitors when we print photos in Photoshop or posters in Illustrator.
Having previously worked only with RGB printers and in Photoshop, I am pretty much lost now as to how to set up our color management workflow. (And don't even ask about my colleagues. :-)) I've never had to worry about either CMYK workspaces or printers before. I want to keep things as simple as possible for the staff here, given that none, including myself, are graphics specialists.
I've looked at the "Color Workflows for Adobe Creative Suite 3" document published by Adobe, and although it is very meticulous, none of the examples seem to match our situation. Specifically, all the info regarding CMYK printing involves working with commercial presses, which is not relevant to us.
I would like to avoid making my colleagues work in different color spaces depending on whether they are working in Illustrator or Photoshop - ideally, I would like it if we could stay in RGB at all times. First question: Is this unrealistic given that we have a CMYK printer?
No doubt I will have more questions, but I want to start simple for now. Thanks for helping me out - this is not my area of expertise.

> profile them as RGB devices" (to quote the book). The printers that I've profiled in the past with i1 worked this way.
As Peter points out in his post, it is most likely that your RIP is a CMYK RIP (most RIP's are.) If that is the case, you'll be profiling a CMYK device, not an RGB device (as you have in the past.) It is a totally different exercise to profile a CMYK device - ink limits and Kgen are variables that must be dealt with.
> Yes, details would be very helpful. Thanks.
Color management is all about moving from one device/color space to another device/color space while maintaining color appearance as closely as possible.
1) Based on the description of your workflow, step one is to create your original art in a well-behaved RGB color space (like Adobe98) while viewing it on a well-calibrated monitor.
2) If your final output is to be on the HP 800ps, step two would be to preview that art on your monitor as it would look on the HP. This is called soft-proofing - a process by which the art is viewed through the HP profile on-screeen so you can see what happens to all those beautiful, rich RGB colors when they're squeezed into the smaller gamut of the HP profile.
To do this, you go to View > Proof Set-Up > Custom, and choose the HP 800ps profile from the pop-up of all the profiles on your system. You can also choose from among 4 rendering intents - Relative Colorimetric, Perceptual, Absolute Colorimetric, and Saturation. Choosing the correct rendering intent is key - this willl determine how Photoshop deals with the out-of-gamut colors. Without getting into an explanation of what each RI does, the important thing is to choose the one that LOOKS the best on screen. There's no magic to it. In general, for photographic images, you'll be choosing from Relative or Perceptual. For vector graphics (which it sounds like you're doing), throw Saturation into the mix as well. Just try them and see which looks best.
Additionally, be sure to check "Black Point Compensation."
This will give you a good idea of what the final printed version will look like. While you're in soft-proof mode, you can edit the RGB file to alter the way out-of-gamut colors appear. In fact, there's no reason why you couldn't create your art from the beginning while in soft-proof mode. Using a well-built profile and a good calibrated monitor, you should be able to get an extremely close match between monitor and print.
3) When you print, be sure to choose the same profile/rendering intent that you used in Proof Setup.
Again, it all starts with a good profile. Good luck.

Where XML and related file belong when send from FCP to Color?

Hi(Bonjour)!
Where XML and related file belong when send from FCP to Color?
I want to start a fresh project and delete all previous tests.
Michel Boissonneault

Hi(Bonjour)!
I messed up with preference for home directory.
Thank you.
Michel Boissonneault

Adobe's Color Finesse vs FCP's Color -mask tracking capability

I just came back from the HD expo in NYC and one of the speakers/presenters there was a colorist. He showed a commercial that he had colored using FCP's Color Application. I came home to check out Adobe's Color Finesse for comparison and noticed that it did not have some of the features of FCP's Color, i.e. the ability to create a mask for the purpose of doing secondary color correction and to be able to track that mask to the object being corrected. Is there a way to do this within Color Finesse or outside of Finesse even. If not, what would be a Color Correction Application that you could recommend that is as robust or better than FCP's Color.
Thank You

One of the advantages of Color Finesse being a plug-in inside of After Effects is that you get to combine all of After Effects' features with Color Finesse's color correction capabilities.
You can create whatever masks you want as an AE mask, and track those masks using AE'a built-in motion tracker, or use Mocha. Or you can hand animate the motion.
When creating masks and tracking them, it's easiest to adjust the color correction parameters using Color Finesse's Simplified UI in the Effects Control Window, rather than the CF Full UI, although that is still available, of course. You may need to twirl open the Simplified UI in the ECW to see the controls. And you may want to twirl closed some of the slider groups so that you see only the controls you want to use.
Bob Currier
Synthetic Aperture

Roundtrip between FCP and Color

Having much trouble doing a round trip from FCP to color. Sent my sequence to color rendered and saved and tried to send back to FCP but the new sequence from color says all the media offline. I made a new sequence and deleted all the effects, etc and sent to color again but the same problem occurs. All the media is offline. Tried exporting the XML file from color and importing directly into FCP but I get this error:
Mon, Jul 21, 2008, 5:03 PM - Errors Found Importing GTF.xml
<xmeml>: Unknown element <sourceprojecturl> encountered.( line 4 )
Any ideas on what the problem is? The sequence I sent to color has several multiclips and these seem to be the only media offline when I roundtrip back to FCP.
Thanks,
Brittany

The error message you received can be safely ignored.
RE: Multiclip
Please do a forum search on the keyword "multiclip". You'll find plenty of recent discussion on it.
- pi

FCP and Color not talking in Leopard

Hi all,
We have just installed Leopard in our Mac Pro. I sent my sequence from FCP to Color but apparently I don't see my sequence in Color.
I tried doing the same procedure in Tiger OS and it worked.
Any help would be very much appreciated

You may need to re-install COLOR as there is a good possibility that you have corrupted the COLOR/FCP hand-off.
There may also be an issue with your prior User Preferences being ignored, as that path may be broken.
jPo

FCP to Color sequence clips do not match up.

Hello,
I edited my video with multiclips and sending from FCP to Color. Problem I have is the video from my FCP sequence is not what is coming out in Color, in fact it's way off. Can't figure out what I am doing wrong, and Color manual does not have any trouble shooting instructions in it's manual. Please help.
Thanks

There are known issues that affect sequences containing multiclips.
http://www.apple.com/support/releasenotes/en/Color1.0rn/
Since this particular issue has been discussed here before, it would be wise to take a look at what has already been posted.
Multiclips & Color

FCP - Color Workflow Question

I have DVCPRO HD sequences in FCP that I have applied Smoothcam filter to in many instances (one 10 minute sequence probably has Smoothcam applied to at least 15 of the clips). With over 4 hours of footage and Smoothcam applied often it would seem very labor intensive to have to create individual Quicktime movies for each of the clips where Smoothcam is applied and then drop those into the FCP timeline before sending to Color (especially as I will likely have to tweak the Color settings multiple times before getting the perfect outcome).
My sense is that I may be able to minimize the workload by:
1) creating one Quicktime movie of say an entire sequence with multiple instances of the Smoothcam fliter applied (instead of creating individual Quicktime movies of each clip where Smoothcam is applied)
2) sending that Quicktime movie to Color for grading
My question under the scenario directly above is how do you then split the Quicktime movie into the individual clips in Color so that each clip can be graded individually?
The only other alternative I can see is to:
1) remove all of the Smoothcam filters (and sharpening filters) in the FCP timeline
2) send sequence to Color for grading
3) roundtrip to FCP
4) apply Smoothcam filter (and sharpening filters) to all of the individual clips again after color grading is totally complete
I am a little daunted by the thought of this with over 4 hours of DVCPRO HD footage. Your suggestions regarding the best and most efficient workflow would be greatly appreciated.

Not quite six of one and half a case of the other, but you are in for some effort either way. Thomas Edison had an observation about "opportunity" arriving dressed in coveralls, but most people take a pass on it because it looks like "too much work".
If you elect the "bake out one big QT file" workflow, there is some efficiency to bringing the new QT onto a copy of the originating timeline and using that as a cutting guide to "razor in" the event boundaries, and then send that to COLOR. It will save a significant amount of re-rendering time.
If you remove the Smoothcam and other filters and send the raw source media to COLOR, that would be a normal workflow. I'd imagine there will be a significant amount of "attribute" copying after the fact, and of course all the smoothcams will have to go through "re-analysis". (I'd send a duplicate sequence, so the original filtered sequence can act as a source.)
The smoothcam filter will probably yield a different rendition on the COLOR-graded media, since the Boolean re-scaling (to keep the image within the active picture area) may not exhibit the same behaviour -- since you will only be dealing with the selected footage, rather than the entire source clip.
Sending the clips with an attached Smoothcam filter would probably result in massive render times, since FCP requires the entire intact source media to compute the stabilizing script, similar to sending a clip with a speed adjustment.
jPo

Workflow FCP - AE - Color ??

Hi all,
I'm working on a post-production of a music video and I'm bit confused about the best post-production workflow. The film has been shot with Nikon D90 camera, and I've converted the files to ProRes422 for editing in FinalCutPro. Arter editing, I will need to do some effects in After Effects and I would like to do the color-correction in Color.
So the questing is, what would be the best order to do things? In AE I have lot of keying and compositing to do. I can move the files from FCP to AE with XML-script, but after AE it will be one rendered clip which is bad for Color. But if I do Color before AE, my compositions and effects won't get the look.. So how would you do this so that the quality stays best and it's easiest to handle?
Thank you in advance,

Thank you David for your answer,
I've done many productions with ProRes and It's working great. Nowadays I do most everything with it. I think I won't have problems with the audio. It's a music video, so no sound-editing.
I naturally won't NEED XML for moving to AE, but it makes things a lot easier. I just export the XML from FCP, and import it to AE by using script from Popcorn Island (http://www.popcornisland.com/category/after-effects/) (It's kinda same as Automatic Duck, but free..) So this way I get everything to AE on separate tracks without rendering and can do all the transitions and fx stuff there. I often do some rough compositions and movements in FCP, and the keyframes transit as well, so I can tweak them in AE. It's really nice way to work.
I don't really use lowrez, my machine works fast enough with full quality clips.
Usually I finish the whole thing in AE and just render it out, but the actual questiong is combining Color to this thing. This time I would like to finish in Color. I haven't used Color before, so this triangle of programs is a new situation for me.
Actually when writing this my friend suggested of using EDL like this:
So maybe like:
FCP -> XML to AE
Render AE -> to FCP
FCP -> EDL of the original file to Color,
and finally Color -> back to FCP and to Compressor...
I haven't tried it yet but I will tomorrow and let you know if it works.
Still I would love to hear better ways to do this. I'm sure there are people who are doing this everyday, so good hints are appreciated..
Thanks in advance, and sorry for bad grammar..

Fcp to Color workflow

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