Motion Exports look dark in Color
by Kyle Peters
on
Oct 14, 2008 at 2:11:41 am
I am working on color grading a project with a lot of shots that were put in slow motion and exported in Motion.
The exported clips look fine when I bring them back into the FCP timeline, but when I load them in Color to do the color correction the blacks are way crushed! After further review, I also noticed that the levels in FCP were lower than the non-slow motion shots.
The FCP project uses ProRes 422 HQ, however, the settings for the exported the clips from Motion are Animation Codec, 1920x1080 Millions+ Colors.
Any ideas on why this is happening/how to fix it would be super appreciated!
Re: Motion Exports look dark in Color by walter biscardi on Oct 14, 2008 at 10:21:45 am
[Kyle Peters]"The FCP project uses ProRes 422 HQ, however, the settings for the exported the clips from Motion are Animation Codec, 1920x1080 Millions+ Colors. "
These should be the same codec before they go into Motion. Why did you use the Animation codec for the slo-mo's in Motion? They should have been rendered in the same ProRes 422HQ codec.
Color does not like multiple codecs in the same project.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Motion Exports look dark in Color by Wojtek Jezowski on Oct 15, 2008 at 11:08:37 am
Had a simmilar problem recently. When you load in to Color does it seem VERY inerlaced?
First off loose the Animation codec. Second check the project settings in Motion and play around with field order. My problem was that I accidently set it "upper fields first". When I changed to "none" and exported in ProRes everything was ok.
Re: Motion Exports look dark in Color by Kyle Peters on Oct 15, 2008 at 12:36:20 pm
Cool. Thanks, yeah I talked with another guy and he said the best way to do it is to not do a full export, just make a new timeline in FCP with the clips that need the slow motion effect, and send that timeline to Motion, that way it's all contained, and refers back to the original footage. Then I will send it from Motion back to FCP without rendering. Does that make sense?
Re: Motion Exports look dark in Color by Wojtek Jezowski on Oct 16, 2008 at 10:31:07 am
Im not sure it will work. You can import the motion project to FC of course but I dont think Color will read it off the timeline. Best way is to make a clip in Motion. Like we said ProRes, but you can play with the settings and see which codec most suits you.
Re: Motion Exports look dark in Color by Kyle Peters on Oct 28, 2008 at 1:04:09 am
okay, I exported them with the same preset, same codec, everything, but it still shows up with crushed blacks in Color.
So my fix was to simply color the troubled shots in FCP.
In hindsight, i could have colored the shots before i sent them to motion, and that may have solved it too. but it would have been two exports, which may lose some quality...
