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Author Topic: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?  (Read 19988 times)

Chris L

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FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« on: July 29, 2013, 10:52:32 am »

hello. I am editing my BMCC pro res footage with FCP X and am hoping to find a plug in that will allow me to fix the green shift I am getting by clicking onto a grey card like I would with my Stills workflow in C1 Pro. Does anyone know of a plug in?

FYI, I have tried Resolve and other softwares, I am not interested in switching software at this point, I prefer editing in FCP X.
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Morgan_Moore

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2013, 04:18:15 pm »

Click grey balance seems to be foreign concept to video people

I rembrr getting a plug insight have been for fcpx which I no longer use

Adobe speed grade has it I think

Resolve is IMO great but does not have grey balance

I've mailed Peter chamberlain at bmd suggesting this I suggest others do the same..
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Sam Morgan Moore Bristol UK

bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2013, 08:31:01 pm »

Click grey balance seems to be foreign concept to video people

I rembrr getting a plug insight have been for fcpx which I no longer use

Adobe speed grade has it I think

Resolve is IMO great but does not have grey balance

I've mailed Peter chamberlain at bmd suggesting this I suggest others do the same..

FCP 7's three way color corrector has it.  small dropper next to each wheel (dark tones, midtones, highlights).

Also the three way color corrector has by the numbers, or the wheels, and auto fuctions for tone, and color.

FCP X . . . doesn't have anything except magnetic sequences, I mean projects, or is that timelines/projects, I forget.

IMO

BC
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JonRoemer

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2013, 02:58:02 pm »

hello. I am editing my BMCC pro res footage with FCP X and am hoping to find a plug in that will allow me to fix the green shift I am getting by clicking onto a grey card like I would with my Stills workflow in C1 Pro. Does anyone know of a plug in?

FYI, I have tried Resolve and other softwares, I am not interested in switching software at this point, I prefer editing in FCP X.

Haven't tried it but here's one Cineflare White-Balancer.
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Chris L

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2013, 03:10:03 pm »

thanks, that could work. It balances off a white card instead of grey, but I will give it a try.
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JonRoemer

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2013, 04:19:44 pm »

thanks, that could work. It balances off a white card instead of grey, but I will give it a try.

Stills or video -> with digital you really don't want to use an old school grey card especially if it's a Kodak grey card or similar.  Those are made for exposure only.  They are not manufactured to have consistent color, only to have a consistent shade of grey when seen as a b&w tone by an exposure meter.

Ideally, you'd use something equivalent to one chip down from pure white on an X-rite ColorChecker, the large full-page chip in a ColorChecker Passport, or a digital grey card.
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bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2013, 01:51:27 am »

Red Giant has new products.

Update of colorista that does the eye dropper, auto settings and wheels.

Set LUTs, your own look presets, de noise,  etc.

Kind of expensive, but works well.

Also Red Giant Bulletproof, only $99.

Does imports from cards, and corrects first light grading, also has wheels, auto settings, luts, set your own style looks and a color picker for grey balance.

You can also set it to send metadata to the file in fcp 7 and X.

IMO

BC
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fredjeang2

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2013, 04:56:46 am »

Ha!

See? This is the wild west.
This is what exactly is putting me on nerves.
We can't bloody have an editing software
In 2013 that features fully funccional CC
Capabilities.
That sucks!!
Or it's roundtripping to Resolve and Co,
Or is chasing plug-ins

This non-sense is exactly the same in camera
Design. We need to add a myriad of accesories
To make the circus works. (and help the chinese industry)
But nothing that goes
Out of factory is fully funccional by itself.
When it's not beta testings using the users on first
Releases as it happens many times: we release
Something that aint ready and we'll eventually
Fix things according to the customer's complains...

Now, the cine school want me to buy a full course
Training on the use of Hierro with Nuke...
Interesting indeed!


I stop to write because I feel the dark side
Of the force invading my self when I think
About it.

Ps: Avid DS was the solution, and the only real
All-in-one is smoke, unintuitive and weaker than
Resolve in CC.



The Russians might have known a thing or two on camera design for the field.







Sorry to be out-of topic
« Last Edit: July 31, 2013, 09:20:54 am by fredjeang2 »
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JonRoemer

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2013, 08:23:28 am »

See? This is the wild west. This is what exactly is putting me on nerves.
We can't bloody have an editing software
In 2013 that features fully funccional CC
Capabilities.

I wrote something similar in a thread in 2012 that we both were adding posts to.:  It just seems like the world of color management with HD video is the wild west and no one is providing a way out.

FWIW, some may find this helpful, Larry Jordan on color correcting in FCP X though it would apply to any NLE.  Takes as a given that most NLEs do not have a click white balance function:  http://youtu.be/jX45Yi1spY4 .


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fredjeang2

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2013, 09:20:17 am »

I wrote something similar in a thread in 2012 that we both were adding posts to.:  It just seems like the world of color management with HD video is the wild west and no one is providing a way out.

FWIW, some may find this helpful, Larry Jordan on color correcting in FCP X though it would apply to any NLE.  Takes as a given that most NLEs do not have a click white balance function:  http://youtu.be/jX45Yi1spY4 .



Nice Link Jon. Thanks for sharing. Larry is knowledgable.
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bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #11 on: July 31, 2013, 01:43:37 pm »

When I started with video/motion/digital cinema (whatever you want to call it) 10 years ago, the editors I hired would not color . . . period, nada, nope, never.

Not even drop one color filter into a clip and I don't blame them. 

Editors like writers and directors are story tellers, not colorists or effects houses.

For color, the colorist I used was in Dallas and worked in a 4 story building full of colorists.

Today that 4 story building is 1/4 of a floor and one large, two small suites.

The editorial houses that were a full floor (small houses) or a full block (large houses) in LA are now working in trailers between sound stages.

Today, it's instant gratification.  Our recent and present shoot, has seen us work 18 hour days shooting and honestly, in the end of shooting in London, the client wanted a "quick" edit we shot with three RED's and needed it now.  That was three nights until 4:36, 5:64 and 6:15 am.  Every morning I went to bed with the sun up.

It's not the client's fault, they're into the instagram age where they don't understand why a cell phone still can be effected in 14 seconds.  You can explain that a medium run Hollywood feature takes 6 months to edit and color and that just goes nowhere. 

I've seen great instagram photos, even from amateurs and even then never seen 4 great instigram photos from the same person.  Shooting one photo or video clip that is interesting is not that difficult.  Doing a series of work, either still or motion that has cohesiveness is difficult and takes time.

You can explain it, talk about it, schedule it, diagram it, but it falls on deaf ears.

Today, it's deliver today and most client's think lightroom for stills is a retouching tool, they probably think there is a lightroom for color, which is and isn't true.

Last night downloaded Red giants Bulletproof that ingests and allows for first light coloring.  Did it on a powerbook as a test and apply some basic correction, nothing severe as it does nothing severe.  For 5 - 4 minute clips it took about 6 hours and finally crashed.  The 4 clips it finished had artifacts and some goofy blooming or something I can't describe.

Why is there Bulletproof?  Because client's of all stripes are asking for footage and want ALL the footage color corrected for delivery, prior to editing.

A few years ago, nobody dreamed of that, unless you were shooting news for FOX, or CBS and even then any program that wasn't real time went through some kind of adjustment and editing prior to air.

The thing is most desktop systems are not real time.  There was a reason a old generation Di-vinci suite costs $1,000,000 and even if you can work real time with dedicated render cards, 4 hours of footage in real time, is 4 hours of rendering, not including setting, primary, secondaries and output and even then once into the edit, probably need some tweaking, or major redo's to make a compelling visual piece.

Good work takes time.  More than good work takes a lot of time and it's very hard to explain that in a instagram world.

There is an article in todays NY times about slow down.  It shows some beautiful work that takes time, but as much as the NYT's takes the high road, I can promise you that article will sway no one in the commercial world.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/a-modernists-challenge-to-instant-gratification/?_r=2&

Actually if anyone wants fast, real time color correction the real answer is shoot and edit in black and white.

IMO

BC



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Morgan_Moore

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2013, 06:45:16 pm »

Coots - the man with 64 minutes in every hour
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Sam Morgan Moore Bristol UK

MrSmith

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #13 on: July 31, 2013, 06:56:01 pm »

So BC was in London? Was it you who bought the rain with you?
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bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #14 on: July 31, 2013, 07:47:35 pm »

So BC was in London? Was it you who bought the rain with you?

You must be a client.  I appreciate that anyone thinks I have enough juice to alter the weather patterns, but . . . no.

I can change 60 minutes into 64 though, ask Mr. MenM.

Actually up till when I left I only saw one cloudy day, though also had the pleasure to enjoy 92F heat (or 33.333C for you guys).

In fact I loved the weather so much, it reminded me of home, so I took a lease in Shoreditch.

Lovely name.

BC
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MrSmith

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2013, 05:19:27 am »

London isn't designed for 30° temps give me 25° and a cool breeze any day.
Shoreditch is full of wannabe hipsters trying too hard to look cool, I remember when it was full of artists, photographers and dancers wanting cheap space.
O.k. To work in but for an evening away from people who are desperate to feature in Vice or dazed and confused its soho or clerkenwell for me.

Sorry for the thread hijack but I'm interested in a good grading solution for X too. It's crude and could be a lot better, they have dropped the price of colourista recently. There is also the bloom20 code which might still work for more off.

This looks interesting:  http://filmconvert.com/default.aspx
« Last Edit: August 01, 2013, 05:54:32 am by MrSmith »
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bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2013, 08:48:42 am »

London isn't designed for 30° temps give me 25° and a cool breeze any day.
Shoreditch is full of wannabe hipsters trying too hard to look cool, I remember when it was full of artists, photographers and dancers wanting cheap space.
O.k. To work in but for an evening away from people who are desperate to feature in Vice or dazed and confused its soho or clerkenwell for me.

Sorry for the thread hijack but I'm interested in a good grading solution for X too. It's crude and could be a lot better, they have dropped the price of colourista recently. There is also the bloom20 code which might still work for more off.

This looks interesting:  http://filmconvert.com/default.aspx

I hate to see it, but most neighborhoods in most large cities are full of wannabes.  What use to be Hell's kitchen is full of lofts, studios and editorial interns.

I'm in New York this week and was on a rooftop bar the other night, everyone was wearing $400 shoes, holding $500 phones and drinking $25 mojhitos.  The thought that the old artist neighboorhood's are still thriving with small studios, is kind of gone.

Heck even our Dallas studio which was slumming when we bought it has $65,000,000 worth of retail and loft development going in 1/2 block away.

It's the way of the world.

I'm amazed at the number of 25 year olds that live in manhattan in $4,000 a month apartments.   The stock market is up, the dividends to the trust funds are back and the kids are smiling.

Shoreditch had a  nice place, good price, perfect for production.   Knew nothing about the area, but I like the place.
____________________________


In regards to color, there is no "magic bullet".  Sorry for the pun.  Actually colorista really doesn't do anything that Apple's 3 way color corrector does and not 1/10th of what apples color does and colorista is 10x's slower.

FCP X might be the way the world is going (don't know), but it's not elegant  and not close to full featured in NLE and all forms of post production.

Due to speed, I want fcp x to work, but honestly I think it's so far off right now for professional editing, I don't know if the time savings is worth it.

Maybe Apple will surprise us, but as I dig deeper into X I'm flattened at how difficult it is to find simple tools like color correction, setting key frames for most functions, the one preview window which I find insanely difficult and the ability to run multiple sequences in one easy to work, control, save and backup project.

This thread is about a simple dropper and fcp 7's color corrector has had that for years and it was free.

I still don't understand Apple's thought process, other than they are going for the 1 million customer market rather than the 70,000 customer market.

IMO

BC
« Last Edit: August 01, 2013, 09:23:58 am by bcooter »
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JonRoemer

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #17 on: August 01, 2013, 10:20:08 am »

BC - thanks for link on Metzker.  Great point and brings back lots of memories.  I curated a show of his in '85, got to spend a day with him.  Nice to see his work standing the test of time.

I'm happy with FCP X, works for me.  I used for FCP 7 for about a year and found it frustrating, counterintuitive and very buggy. Going back and forth to Color was never smooth.  Reopening FCP 7 sometimes edits & titles would disappear.

I'm not doing multicam or Red, things that FCP X dropped the ball on from the get-go (but all since added.)  FCP X has gotten up to speed quickly.  FWIW, it does have dual windows now and has since last October.  Came with v10.0.6.  Color Correction is always in upper right and I've been able to easily create masks, set key frames, etc.  It also has some of the functionality copied by BulletProof built in.
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bcooter

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #18 on: August 01, 2013, 03:43:59 pm »

Jon thanks.

U might be right

X might  be better than I think

I've done 10 years on 7 and previous versions and find them rock solid not that slow (could be faster if 64 bit) but with a proper workflow it's fine and I can do  anything with 7.

I guess I'll give x another shot though I really think its nuts, changing all the basic naming and I still think there should be a rethink in Cupertino.

Speed, progress, a better image, faster workflow, I'm there, but changing the name of funcitons like sequences to projects, the ability to dive into a clip and see the adjustments inside, rather than from another window pane, just turns the nle world backwards.

For people that want to basic edit quick, X is fine, but I've talked to about everyone I know that really edits for a living and they just shake their head when you mention X.

I'm going to give it one more shot, under pressure and see how it works out, but if I can't do what I did before, I dunno. . . plan b.

IMO

BC

« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 04:06:17 am by bcooter »
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Morgan_Moore

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Re: FCP X Plugin for grey dropper / color correction tool?
« Reply #19 on: August 18, 2013, 05:54:39 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!

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Sam Morgan Moore Bristol UK
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