Magic Bullet Colorista & Color correction w/o it

I can't seem to make Magic Bullet Colorista to install on my system and I've given up with it. I'm just curious, is there any way to do what it does with the AE supplied effects? Maybe some tutorial on it? Sorry, I haven't done much of the color correction before.
Thank you!

The 64 bit version of Colorista for CS4 and CS5 has only been out for a few days, I think. So unless you tried this brand new version, your test was not an accurate representation of what the software can do on your system.
The key about these types of after market plugins is that they claim to do things faster than you can do otherwise. You can certainly do great color correction with the included tools right in AE. But which is "easiest" and how often to do you need to do this is the question that one should consider to determine the worthyness of an external plug-in like this one.
I agree that Red Giant was a bit late to the game with their 64 bit compatible plug-ins. They should have seen this coming and got them working long before CS5 came out. They act like they are doing their customers a favor by releasing 64 bit system compatible plug-ins and charging for the upgrade in the process. I can see where they are loosing a lot of potential clients due to this.

Similar Messages

Magic Bullet Colorista II 64 bit After Effects CS5 crash

Red Giant Magic Bullet Colorista II 64 bit After Effects CS5 (windows 7) crash after apply to composition.
There are messages I get before After Effects are down.
Can I can fix anything?
Thanks!

Colorista uses OpenGL acceleration, so it's probably graphics related. Without knowing what card you have and what your settings are it will be impossible to advise, but of course look into the configuration, update the driver, work at a lower resolution and all the otehr usual first steps of tracking down the issues...
Mylenium

Red Giant Magic Bullet Colorista... FREE!

OK, so maybe that subject is a little misleading
Red Giant has made available a free version of Magic Bullet Colorista; it's stripped down in comparison to Colorista II (at least that's my understanding... I don't use Colorista) but still has some decent functionality. It works in both Premiere Pro and After Effects CS5, and previews quickly even on my older laptop with DVCPROHD. Regardless of functionality, free plug-ins are good plug-ins
Get it here: Red Giant Software: Free Products
(You can also get Knoll Unmult for CS5 there; unfortunately, this version doesn't work in Premiere Pro CS5, whereas the earlier version worked really well in CS3/CS4. It works well in AECS5, though.)

Make sure that Magic Bullet Looks and After Effects are both up to date. If your AE version is earlier than CS6 then make sure that you have the proper versions of AE and Looks installed.

CS6 Install of Magic Bullet Colorista Free

I'm considering installation of Colorista Free (C-Free) for use with CS6.
I've researched download and install steps, but they could be interpreted as being useless unless CS5.5 had already been installed on the target machine.
(The instructions are to dowload, install, then move items from a CS5.5 folder(s) to a CS6 folder(s).
My CS6 installation was done to a brand new, vendor-built computer, for which the vendor installed CS6, and the computer never had CS5.5 installed. Consequently, there are no CS5.5 folders for C-Free to be installed to, nor would there be CS5.5 folders to move from.
My fear is hosing my current CS6 installation, which is working very well for me.
Has anyone installed MB C-Free to a CS6-only installation? The correct steps to follow would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Colorista Free is not compatible with CS6 and causes crashes, so it's a moot point. They promised to fix it but they never did. For anything beyond that contact Red Giant/ check their forum and support.
Mylenium

Magic Bullet "V" FCP Color

Anyone use both? Whats your thoughts, which is better? Heard that color is pretty hard to use??

Here is my thought.
Are you a colorist? Then don't use COLOR. Color is a highly professional color correction application. It isn't as simple as the 3-way, it requires a pretty strict workflow and set of codecs. It has a lot of settings internally that you need to do right. CAN you pick it up? Yes...I have, because I had to. I have two tutorial DVDs and I had a week to play and figure things out. I even had people I could call and have them help me figure out the more trickier aspects. And I STILL only use the PRIMARY room.
Are you just an editor that wants to produce great looking color corrected footage? Look at Magic Bullet COLORISTA. It has a very familiar looking interface (looks like the 3-way), allows you better control over the colors and allows you to push them to the extremes more that the 3-way allows. And you can color correct in FCP. You can monitor your timeline the way you normally would if DV via firewire. But if you are working with HD then yes, you need an HD monitor and HD capture card to see how you are REALLY affecting the colors.
MB Looks? That is GRADING software to give your footage a certain look. It does not allow you to view this footage on an external monitor (from what I have heard) so you cannot really tell what it looks like. Plus you can only see one frame, not the whole clip, so if the shadows and highlights change throughout the shot, then you can't see that to adjust. But you can use that to get a basic look, then tweak with the 3-way or Colorista.
Bottom line...if you are not wanting to be a colorist, I say avoid COLOR. Use Colorista or the 3-way.
(NOTE...Colorista still clamps anything over 100IRE down to 100IRE, so you need to adjust it down with the ProcAmp or 3-wa before you add Colorista).
My Humble Opinion. Color isn't simple to use, and isn't for everyone.
Shane

Color Correction plugin for Premiere Pro CS3....

Hi,
I'm looking for a plugin for color correction in Premier Pro CS3.
I checked out the Color Correction tools that ship with Premiere (which are nice) and I checked out Synthetic Aperture's Color Finesse 2 (which is great as well).
Are there any other recommendations ? ;)
Thanx for your help in advance !
Mike

I've not used it, but Magic Bullet Colorista is one option.

PS CS3 Color Correction plugin

Hi,
I've been doing a lot of color correction/adjustment lately in Photoshop CS3, Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3.
In Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3 I work with a plugin from Synthetic Aperture called 'Color Finesse' which is just so amazing to work with.
Unfortunately they don't offer that plugin for Photoshop.
I am looking for a Photoshop plugin that can provide the same depth and ease of use.
There are two things that I like especially in Color Finesse:
1. that u see the graph of each color channel (Master/Red/Green/Blue) aligned UNDER each other ALL the time
2. specific color channel correction/adjustment via RGB, CMY & YCbCr. Especially YCbCr is so powerful.
Is there a plugin for Photoshop that provides the same options ?
I worked with PS Curves, Curvemeister 3 & Power Retouche Pro but they don't provide the powerful controls and ease of use.
Thanx for your help in advance !
Mike

I've not used it, but Magic Bullet Colorista is one option.

Which Magic Bullet.

There seems to be a few magic Bullet editors on sale,
Red Giant Magic Bullet editors
Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite
Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite Unlimited Bundle
Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite Render Unlimited
Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite Upgrade
Red Giant Magic Bullet Bundle
The editors is chaper but I dont wanna buy that on eto find out that I have to spend more money on it going forward. Any ideas which one to get?
Daz

Editors is an add-on for Final Cut Pro, Premiere and a couple of others. Suite is for After Effects only, with a few extra tools for 24p conversion. I don't know about the others.
But Red Giant's site is not showing these any more. They are only offering Magic Bullet Looks and Magic Bullet Colorista. These are more advanced tools so it looks like the others might have been discontinued.

Film Convert Pro vs. Magic Bullet Color Suite

All,
I'm currently in the process of considering to purchase Magic Bullet Color Suite, but I also see their is a product that some Dslr filmmakers use call Film Convert Pro, it costs a bit, but I want to know if this is something that is needed, if you already have the Magic Bullet Color Suite.
Regards,
Jamaine Semple

I own and have used both FilmConvert Pro and the MB suite and frankly, I recommend both...sort of.
FilmConvert is used to turn your video camera footage into what it would look like had you actually shot on film. That's it's primary purpose and it works beautifully. It can also do color correction as a secondary function, and that also works quite well. I tested a problem clip with both FilmConvert and Colorista. Viewed on my calibrated Sony Trinitron CRT HDTV, I had a very hard time telling the difference between the clips, meaning the correction on both looked great. However, within the PP sequence, the FC corrected clips definitely ran smoother than the Colorista corrected clips.
Having said that, I notice that my SpeedGrade corrected clips run even better in PP than the FilmConvert clips. And SG is far more powerful than either FilmConvert or Colorista.
So my recommendation is to use FilmConvert to 'convert' your video into film, and then use SpeedGrade to do any color correction and grading. Where does that leave Magic Bullet?
I don't feel Colorista is necessary at this point, now that we can get any footage into SpeedGrade. However, MB Looks still offers plenty of 'effects' that you may find useful. Things like diffusion, vignettes, soft-focus, etc. These are things that might well be possible to duplicate in other ways, but not with the ease and simplicity that Looks offers. You may not need the full Suite, but I feel Looks is still worth having.

Black Magic Flat - Color Correction for FCP7

Does anyone have any recommendations of FREE color correct plug-ins for Final Cut 7 to apply to footage shot specifically on the Black Magic Cinema Camera. We shot it RAW in ProRes and my editor is cutting on the FCP7.
I just want an easy fix before sending a rough cut to the client.
We will later hand off the locked picture to a colorist for a proper color grading.
(I use FCPX myself, and have a free plugin for BMCC Flat on that system. Just not sure if something similar & generous exist for FCP7 users)
Thanks,
Marc

Probably the closest you'll come is the free DaVinci Resolve software Black Magic is offering, but that's not a simplistic solution. I understand that Resolve 9 has some support for RAW conversion that may work for your purposes.
Good luck

I just updated to new final cut pro x 10.1.1 and i am also on mavericks so but on my editing timeline i was trying to color grade using magic bullet looks but i am having problem with it. when it comes back to tcp x it's black.

I just updated to the new final cut pro x 10.1.1 and i am also on mavericks so but on my editing timeline i was trying to color grade using magic bullet looks but i am having problem with it. When i send a sample to MBL and color grade it , it comes back to final cut pro x all black even after render. By the way on the MBL i am using the GPU rendering, I used before like 4months ago and it was fine. And i don't like to use the CPU because it very slow.

What is the frame rate of the project? At what frame rate was the media recorded? What frame size?
What are the audio settings?
What are the specs of the machine, in particular how much RAM, how is the hard drive connected, etc.?
If possible, post screenshots of the inspector for the project.
It could be related to the audio frequency?

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.

Scopes / Color-Correction Question

When I apply a color-correction effect - RGB Curves for instance - before I make a single adjustment the scopes jump to new values, as if I had made an adjustment. When I click the eyeball to turn the effect off the scopes all go back to their original values.
The Composite Video doesn't change until I actually make an adjustment, but the scopes all register some change - before I make a change.
What is going on here? It seems so basic I must be missing something simple.
Any help would be appreciated - Thank You!
[edit: btw the changes in the scopes are not small or barely noticeable - they're huge and obvious. Thanks again.]

We made tests raw video files from various camcorders: Sony EX1, Panasonic AG-AC160, Panasonic TM900. In all this tests the pixels shift and even more: changes the tones of the video (particularly in the midtones) just when we apply (without change anything) any tool of Color Correction tab. The "All Scopes" show this clearly. The same problem when we use Colorista II or Magic Bullet Looks. For us this video is the proof of the situation, please watch in 720p:
I remember perfectly that when I was talking about this issue, someone replied: "go to a different NLE!", with plenty of irony, of course. But the problem is not me, canoli99, Ann Bens or others who have seen this problem. The problem is in Premiere and somehow we received this confirmation from Steve Hoeg/Adobe "It can be fixed but we cannot commit to any timeframe. Fixing and testing changes can often take months".
Only one detail that could help solve this bug: if we apply any tool of Color Correction tab on a AVCHD [4:2:0/8 bit] in the timeline, the problem occurs and the scopes jumped. BUT if we convert the same AVCHD to Cineform [4:2:2 or 4:4:4, 10 bit], put this new file Cineform in the timeline and then apply the same tool of Color Correction tab, the problem disappears and the scopes don't jumped.

Magic Bullet Looks is fixed...

For those of you who use Magic Bullet Looks, you may have noticed that it didn't work so well with CS4 - no preview image. Well, Red Giant released an update today. So far, it works great. I did catch one little bug in that you need to have the play head over the clip you select to edit in Looks, otherwise the preview image will be where ever the play head is.
If you're like me, this is good news...I've really grown to depend on Looks.

Yeah I beta tested it Looks when it came out and they were pretty adamant about not being able to move the preview around. Evryone in the beta asked for it but they layed down the law and said: Basically, it's not gonna happen so stop asking. Guess it's in the coding or something.
Micah from Red Giant and Stu have said over and over that Colorista is for matching all your clips's color for a scene then Looks is meant to be applied as an over all correction for a scene. This would work better if Premiere had adjustment layers. It was never meant to be a single clip corrector, even though I find myself using the Lens effects (like the awesome swing/tilt, edge softness and grad) for single clips.
They did say that scrubbing in looksbuider might happen for version 2.0 but it's not in google color correction beta group right now. So I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
Eric, are you saying that it picks a random frame from the clip for your preview. That's not the way it's supposed to work. In fact doesn't that kinda negate the reason for keyframing looks?
It's always pulled up the frame the CTI is over. If the CTI isn't over the clip then it pulls up the first frame. Works the same way in AE. If it doesn't work that way for you there's some sort of problem. I'm looking at it right now on Premiere CS4 and it's working for me.

Promising color correction tool from Technicolor

I'm not associated with Technicolor, but thought this would be interesting to the group:
There is a new plug-in for CS6 that looks very cool. It seems like it occupies the space that the Magic Bullet Looks goes after, but it has a very slick way of making a virtual dynamic link with the Premiere timeline.
https://www.technicolorcinestyle.com
I have done some limited testing with the demo (which does not allow for the non-destructive linking) and it is quite promising. You can apply some good presets, and then do your tweaking...having curves adjustments, real-time scopes and a keyer are pretty pro features. It doesn't go as far as Colorista - no secondaries for example - but the workflow looks super smooth.
Check out the video on the page for a quick demo. Could fill a good place in the color workflow.

I bought the full product and have access to the roundtrip workflow...and I've messed around with it for a few days.
My first impressions are that it is a really great tool. It is fast, powerful, and the roundtripping works beautifully. I especially love having access to 9 looks that you build in the app right in Pr that you can click on and off. And even though I am getting a red bar, I can play back in real-time at full res...even on H.264 footage. Never been able to do that with Colorista.
The few drawbacks are that you miss some of the useful color correction tools like Secondaries - no ability to create vignettes or power windows - and there is no output to a production monitor to do a precise grade until you switch back to Premiere. There are built in scopes, so at least that can be a guide.
I think it fits a good niche in certain workflows...maybe usful when you don't need to do a time consuming, precise grade with either Colorista, Resolve or SpeedGrade...and still gets you a long way to a beautiful image.

Magic Bullet Colorista & Color correction w/o it

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