Re: The price of making art

[Andrew Kimery] "Instead of lamenting about how much it's going to suck that powerful color correction tools are in the hands of the unwashed masses why not focus on the people who want to do good work but haven't had the luxury of learning under a professional Colorist?"

That wasn't my point at all - I think it's great that powerful tools that were once only available to those with big budgets are now more affordable and accessible. But Color is sold as software only, and it needs to be used with the right hardware in order to be useful. I think there are a lot of people who don't understand that, and who get perplexed or defensive when someone explains to them that they need to invest more money in the proper hardware in order to have a fully functional product.

[Andrew Kimery] "Should Sony be 'blamed' for releasing the VX2000? Should Ford be 'blamed' for the Model T? Should Gutenberg be 'blamed' for his moveable type printing press?"

Your Model T analogy would be more accurate if Ford had been selling model Ts without an engine.

Color is of little value if it's not used on a powerful system with the recommended graphics card, a proper broadcast monitor and an appropriate video I/O card like an AJA Kona. Apple doesn't include that stuff in the box. That's why Autodesk sells Flame, Smoke, etc. as turnkey systems, because without the proper hardware they could not guarantee adequate performance. Color might make more sense as a turnkey system than as just software.

If you're serious about color grading, Apple is only selling you half of the required tools when you buy Color. People who are knowledgeable about color grading understand that, but those who are not might have unrealistic expectations of what Color can do when used, for example, on a laptop with no video I/O or proper external monitor.

In the FCP forum, more experienced people are constantly telling newbies that you need to preview your work on a broadcast CRT if you want to have an accurate display of interlacing and color. I don't think it's elitist to explain the same thing to Color users who expect Color to do everything without the proper hardware to support it or without strict adherence to a specific workflow.