ND Grad in Final Cut?

S

sweatshirtbrigade

Member
Hey guys,
I am relatively new to FCP and I am in the process of making my reel. I want to put some wider exteriors in it that really could have used an ND Grad while we were shooting. Is there any way to add/create an ND grad filter effect in FCP 5.1 HD?
 
Yes, here's one way of doing it:

In the Viewer window, click the films strip icon with the letter "A" (I can't remember what its called). It's bottom right in the viewer window. Select: Render -> Custom Gradient from the pop-menu, and superimpose it over the videoclip you want to grad. The gradient shape is linear in this case. Then Control-click the Custom gradient, and choose: Composite more -> Multiply, so you can actually see the effect on video when you're adjusting it's parameters.
You can change the gradient's color, width etc. in the controls tab.

Depending whether your skies are totally over blown white in the video, or there's some blue in there, basically I guess you'd want to create a basic neutral gradient ND, or one whose colors are from deep blue to white.
So you choose the upper color of the gradient as you wish, and the other color as white, so that it fades smootly to transparent. You can easily adjust the HSB values of the upper color too, and create smooth fades.

You can also experiment with the gradient's other composite modes to see their effect.

Hope this helps,

P
 
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