Where you color correct

B

banksie312

Well-known member
i have heard the discussions about how to color correct and i know how well curves is able to color correct. I currently use FCP 5.0 and have Adobe AE CS3. I was wondering how you all did it. Do you cut your video then send clips to AE or just do it all within FCP? If you send the clips to AE do you export them one at a time color correct then send them back to FCP for the final job because that sounds like a lot of exporting and render time.
I ask this mainly because i want to see and try a few different methods without making myself to a lot of extra unneeded work (and i am thinking about getting magic bullet and would ahve to choose for which program i would get it). thanks guys!

PS i didnt know where to put this so i figured this part of the forum would make sense, as opposed to 2 posts one in AE and one in FCP.
 
well depends what your def. of color correcting is. I tend to color correct to get proper white balances when they are messed up....and that just takes FCP. If you want that highly stylized look like music videos and some films, my friends call it color f&*% up'ing because technically you arent not color "correcting" it anymore.

I do all my basic color correcting in FCP using the 3-way color corrector and if I want to do anything crazy with it, I send it over to After Effects where I do have magic bullet. I have been using Magic Bullet a lot less because it takes forever to render and you can achieve the same effect using color balance, curves...and all those color effects.
 
Here is my workflow:

Capture in Avid > Sort out all my clips > edit (sometime multiple cuts) each scene as a separate sequences > adjust any white balance that might be off > export video mix down to TIFF or TGA > Import into Combustion (or sometimes I still use AE) to do all my CG/VFX and compositing > color correct, usually still in combustion > MOV or AVI out of compustion for final mix with Audio wich i edit in either soundbooth or audition. Then the A/V masters get synced up again in Encore.
 
wes - yeah i had done color correction in FCP like you but i do want to mess with some colors to try and give effect and all that.

dory - i will have to try that method soon
 
if you use Magic Bullet and use the presets, you will notice that you can change all the settings that give it that look. It uses the basic gamma,contrast,levels, color balance controls.....but just as a third party plugin. Learn how it uses these features within AE to do it yourself to get your own custom looks. Like I said, Magic Bullet if very rendery so I have learned to mess with the basics to get images warmer or cooler or "bleached" and so forth. It will save lots of time in the end to learn how these filters use the built-in color tweakers and make you a better editor in the end.
 
banksie312 said:
wes - yeah i had done color correction in FCP like you but i do want to mess with some colors to try and give effect and all that.

dory - i will have to try that method soon
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Yup, Its actually finally to a point where I am comfortable with it. Just replace whatever tools names with the ones you use and you should be good to go. TIFF is your friend, it remains uncompressed and its easy to convert back to video (just make sure your framerates are EXACTLY the same all the way through).
 
dory_breaux said:
Yup, Its actually finally to a point where I am comfortable with it. Just replace whatever tools names with the ones you use and you should be good to go. TIFF is your friend, it remains uncompressed and its easy to convert back to video (just make sure your framerates are EXACTLY the same all the way through).
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ok, i have never worked with video this way and will definitely begin experimenting. hope you dont mind if i message you if i run into major problems i cant figure out haha. thanks for the help guys
 
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