Re: COW Tutorials: Apple Color Preparing Your Sequences to Go From FCP to Color

Even less prep work need be done using Color version 1.02.

From the Color 1.02 release notes: "Motion templates, Motion projects, and LiveType projects all appear as offline shots in the Color timeline, instead of as gaps as in previous versions of Color. These media types, although unsupported in Color, reappear when your sequence is sent back to Final Cut Pro." No problem there. Also, no need to remove GFX, generators or unsupported media from the FCP sequence. Apple fixed that up in v 1.02.

Using some track management in FCP, its easy to organize elements that Color doesn't support like lower 3rds etc. This way you can hide these tracks in Color and focus on the shots you need to grade. Saving the need to copy-paste back into your (from Color) sequence.

Also, you can choose to not grade or render certain clips in Color. If you render only the shots you've graded in Color, Color tells us it will point to original source files as it sees no rendered clip from Color. Simply load and render the shots you need to the Render Queue, save after rendering and send to FCP. And your in business.

As far as speed-efx go, I agree on "baking". Motion is good there with Optical Flow, sometimes I see Twixtor used there. It's a good idea to keep an eye on how FCP does its frame blending. Some times it is ....yuk. Filters I don't have much trouble with. And pictures that need to be graded into self-contained movies is spot on.

Good tutorial Walter. But, quit giving away all the secrets to success. ;-)




Michael Sandness - Colorist
Splice Here, Minneapolis MN USA