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Author Topic: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?  (Read 19990 times)

bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #20 on: August 19, 2013, 10:28:27 am »

Grey.

I have been playing in Resolve and I'm sure similar methodology is relevant to other suites - a click balance is almost not needed.

1) understand your waveform - a grey will display on it as white
2) tinkle your colour controls until this is true, your image is now balanced.

I did a screencast!



I get it and thanks Morgan, but he all grading suites work similar.

What is needed, especailly for non raw, h264 footage is a stand alone suite with click white balance, some simple sliders (see lightroom or C-1), the ability to make corrections in batch, fine tune quickly and produce one light dailies into pro rezz or dpx.

See RED cinex.  Cinex may be one to one in processing, but you can set a hundred files, hit the button and let it work overnight, with a dedicated render card.

Now most are software based, using open cl and different processing engines in 64 bit, but where's the dropper like in fcp 7 3 way corrector?, wheres the auto function like in apple color? 

Those will get you to batch status quick, though clumsily and don't really batch out easily, without a lot of manual work.

Just like in stills. First you have to send out galleries in base color in knocked down h264 for web.  Then using the same settings go to pro res or dpx in 422.   

Unless I'm missing something, where's the render cards, and the settings?

Come on adobe, or someone (I have no hope for Apple in this), where is a way to produce one light dailies, in batch, quickly and then later work in the edl and rather than round trip have an embedded true cc tool like divinci that runs off a render card.

It's not the abilty to do any of the above, I can do it all in fcp 7 and using compressor.  The problem is in fcp7 it's all manual to produce a clip that has the same time code, and file name as the original out of camera footage.

Maybe there is something else out there, or a way to do this, but if so someone enlighten me.

Thank,

IMO

BC

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fredjeang2

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #21 on: August 20, 2013, 03:39:32 am »

Avid can do that,

Well...sort of (of course...)

Dropper, auto wb in 3 wheels is accurate
Without the need of roundtripping

The bad news (of course 2...) Is when segundaries
Are involved.

In terms of batching dailies with CC involved
It really only works as it should with Red material,
And only with Red.
You can build your editorial in the bins, apply in batch
The corrections to a selection of clips that correspond
To a particular look based on datas you create.
For ex: Natacha-kitchen-midday
Without touching the timeline. The corrections
Are applyied immediatly in the timeline (or not) and you can rework at any stage
And fine tune in batch too.
With the relink habilities and taking care on the naming
You can change the medias involved in the timeline,
For example Got my timeline filled with h.264 versions
Of the Red files. Hit relink---choose your media to relink---
Bang: all clips are replaced with the raw Red material.
And of course, vice versa, relink from Red to whatever
Version of the media.

In Avid, the key point is organization. Once you get
Used to be as organized as the french state administration,
And once you create your own metadatas, it's a joy.
At the minimum desorganization, it's hell.
The relink to different versions needs those versions
To be into separate bins. If you got 200 clips of prores444
And 200 clips of the .h264 versions, they need to be
Organized, and with the sub-organization (scene) and
Sub-sub-organization: as scene1 can be Natacha-kitchen
But scene1 can also be Peter-kitchen-contrejour (with
A different CC involved).

The custom renaming to more comprehensive naning
For the edit does not affect the processes. For ex, got a
Source file that is A00123. In the edit it means nothing
So I rename it (in Avid ! Never in the source folder): Natacha-fire-gun. But for Avid,
It is still A00123. As when versionings are created, source
Name should be untouched. There is A00123 prores 444
And A00123 .h264. Etc...

The holy trick for short clips is this:
Red material? : work with Red media and forget the proxies (so power needed)
Others: work with intermediate like dnx and relink in the end to the highest
Possible media (that could also be dnx but of highres)
With Red media, if not enough power is disponible
To work the R3d in real time, the trick is: book the edit
With proxies with no CC involved, relink to the R3d,
Then work the primaries CC with RCX, send to the color app for
Segundaries. But...do NOT work the primaries in rcx and
Create proxies from there, because it's a one-way-ticket.
That's really really important because too many people
Tend to jump on RCX at the very roots and then, create
Medias in batch. But the result of such an approach is
That they are stucked with it because media out of Raw
Can not be reverted, it has to be recreated.

So, if your clients says: I'd like the night-shots more
Towards the blue: do a correction, refresh timeline -
Bang - all the night-shots are corrected immediatly
In the edit, whereever they are. the other clips remaining
Untouched.

That's why I think it works best with Red because
The way Red implemented their system.
RCX becomes the primary CC tool of Avid. Having
RCX open does not affect the editor's performance
And it's way more friendly user to use RCX to correct,
And all what has to be generated is a RMD file.
I got folder of RMDs generated in RCX: scene1-natacha-kitchen,
scene1-peter-kitchen etc...
Those are the primaries CC done in rcx. All I have to do is
To import the RMDs and bang...CC into the timeline.
No hassle.
With no Red material, there is not this possibility.

By the way: the generated RMDs can be mailed.
And any system that can read them will work, like
PP for example.

Then the story is to send QT references to Squeeze so
The editor is not doing the transcodes if needed but
A dedicated app. The QT references differ in the sense
That it's only a link to the source and not a transcode
So creating a QT reference of your edit (included CC)
Only takes a few seconds and can be used and reused
By the trancoder software in batch during the night.
When the tasks are finished, it sends you an email.

So you can set different output in batch of the same
QT reference: for example: 1 output in Prores 444, and
1 output in h.264.
Nota: that works best for outputting.
To imput medias and transcode to.... Whatever,
It's not as well implemented as it should.

BUT...(of course 3...)
Avid is not resolution independant so if you want
To output more than HD, you need Resolve involved.
And, as Avid is only good in primary CC, a dedicated
Color app will be needed yes or yes at some point.
Because it's indeed possible to do complex CC within
Avid, tracking masks, layers blending etc etc...it's just
A pain in the ass.
« Last Edit: August 22, 2013, 08:28:26 am by fredjeang2 »
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bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #22 on: August 20, 2013, 10:06:09 am »

RED workflow is a combination of old think and new think.

They treat the Raw as a negative, Cinex X as one light dailies so you can get to pleasing , somewhat matching color per session, so at least when you set down to do editorial your not 20% of per clip, you matched up, even though your going to finish later.

Cinex only real omission is the ability to track and to do some basic single color channel effects.

All other precooked looks in h264 and even prorezz cameras consider what comes out of camera to be the first light dailies, though they know if you shoot h264 or some other codec you'll have to transcode into a higher bit rate codec.

Cinex could obviously be better, but it's not awful, at least it gets the basics done and does it within the same file name and structure, or allows you to change the file name to organize your scenes.

The ONE big upside is you can set all of your color from a shoot, then batch overnight automatically.

I know no other way to do this with any other suite. 

Yes I know with avid you can go from a sequence a rename, but your orignal file is lost back there in the shuffle.

Maybe not too bad, but not too good either when searching for the master.

You can do the same with apple color and it's a good suite, tracks, has predefined looks and will render a sequence out overnight.  It's just to make single clips that match your original you need a lot of hand work.

With apple color you can use the render files as new one light masters, but they have a different naming convention.

Think of this.  If lightroom or C-1 took all of your raws and would only process out in a sequence of jpegs, or tiffs, all with a different name.  File number 001.cr2 would become 001.jpg, 002, jpg etc.

That's fine if you organize per shot and never want to go back to the original, but who doesn't go back to the original footage, especially in 4k where you want to crop or change aspect ratio in an edit.

Workflow in digital video is old think.

IMO

BC

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fredjeang2

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #23 on: August 20, 2013, 11:24:01 am »

With Avid, you never loose the reference to the
Source file.
Whatever the naming.
Because you decide what to display or not
In the bins but within the timeline itself.
In bins, I display columns that gives me the infos Ineed,
And in the timeline I generally display the media on a relink
As it gives me instant viewing of the resolution involved but the custom name during the editing

You can save bins display configs according to what you want to see. See the source file displayed here.
While the naming has been done unproperly



now naming as been done well (but source file will remains intact)



Go back to the original is instantaneous at any stage
Without even having to touch the timeline.



And it's not passive, but active. You can actualy isolate and sort clips according to the parameters
you want and affect them.



So, whatever media is created from the R3d, Avid will
Never loose the source file target at the condition
That those medias were created in Avid (or no mess have been done outside).
So yes, if it was resolution independant, you could
Just grap a portion of prores material, revert to the
R3d and crop...but...naaaaaa, no cropping possible.

And that's why it's particulary stupid and frustrating
Because as it's hd, it does not allow the 4k cropping.
So for one side, extremely well implemented media
Management in Avid, and stupudly limited by the resolution
Of HD...again and again, things that work the half way.

yeah, all that is old think.

Ps: about batching colors, yes. As the editor only Link the R3D, if any of the R3D metadata changed,
the changes are applied in the timeline but the timeline needs a refresh.
Is batch color from 1 shot possible within Avid without going RCX? yes, but with Red files and not
using the CC tools but the file settings tools wich only affect the raw datas, as RCX does.
Not possible to do that with AVCHD for ex.
With other media, the only possibility would be to color 1 clip, save the color to a name of your choice,
then grab manually all the clips you want this CC to be applied and drop the CC in the timeline. Not really automatized.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2013, 07:05:44 am by fredjeang2 »
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