RatVega
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Dec 7, 2005, 12:52 PM
Post #3 of 7
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Re: [LarsCA] Boosting colors in FCP
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McGuyver's suggestion is solid. You should be using the color corrector on every production, both for literal color correction as well as enhancement. It is one of the areas in which FCP has an edge over many NLEs, so learn to use it.
If you do nothing more than white balance the clip, use the auto-contrast (this will also get you very close to broadcast legal with one button), and adjust the saturation you'll probably find a big improvement in your "look".
Good color starts in the camera, so if your camera typically records footage that you feel lacks "richness", then either adjust the camera or get a new one. It's a well known fact that Canon cameras generally produce a richer, more saturated image than the other brands - this doesn't make them "the best" since they're also known to have less low-light sensitivity, but it points out that different cameras have different capabilities. This is part of what you want to understand when selecting a camera.
Once in FCP, there are a couple of important things:
In order to be able to accurately judge and correct the color, you need to view it on a broadcast monitor or the closest thing to it you can afford. The display technology for a TV (where most DVDs are played) is different in several important ways from the computer monitors we use. The computer monitor will lie to you every time because it has higher resolution and isn't interlaced. It also has a tendancy to waqnder in color as time goes on. Even a regular TV will help, but most have color enhancement filters built in that mask the true color, so a broadcast monitor works better. Learn how to calibrate yours.
The key to good color is in the skin tones. It's where you start and end. When I correct, I start with white and black balancing, then try the auto-contrast. If the auto-contrast enhances the look, fine. If not, I undo the auto-contrast and make manual adjustments to get a "legal" image and one that is close for skin tone. If I'm syncing several cameras, my focus is in getting a basic correction for skin tone on all cams since different angles may change the background colors, etc. The mid-tones are a big actor in good overall balance. If one cam is overall darker, I can increase the brightness in the mids a little to compensate. This may also require a little more saturation to maintain color content.
I recently finished a sequence shot without lights inside a church with three cameras. Camera One was shooting towards the bright side of the church (with a couple of open doors), Camera Two towards the opposite direction, and the third off the balcony down the long axis of the church into a goldish-green wall. Cam One Shot most of the subhect close-ups and was the darkest. Camera Two was generally the best starting color and was used as the basis. I went after the subject's skin and cheek rouge on Camera one to get a close match to Two in both close and middle shots. Increasing mids on One got me to the place where I could add a little color to get the skin and rouge very close. The shots from Camera Three were well lit, but had a greenish cast even after the whites and blacks were correct. I altered mid color until the skin tones were also a close match. In the final pass, I decreased the mids on Two and dropped the saturation a bit to get the overall brilliance closer to the other cams and tweaked everything in. The sequence was shown to an attendee couple who were also videographers. Their first remark was that they'd never seen anything as close cam-to-cam given the lighting we'd been in, and did we have some super trick cameras to get it? In fact, it was shot with GL-2s, well known for "poor low light capabilities". Our edge was in the set-up, which was designed to capture as much color and as little grain as possible. From there, it was all in color correction.
I strongly encourage you to take the time to really learn color correction, it can change the perceived quality of your work a lot. Digital Film Tree released a good tutorial several years ago entitled "Color Correction in Final Cut Pro" (featuring Steve Martin) that is quite good. As event videographers, we seldom have the kind of control over lighting that "the big kids" have. More often we have to just take what we can get as things move from one lighting scenarios change. Learning good color correction is a start to leveling the playing field.
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Currently on a loaded 2.5GHz G5 dualie/5GB/1TB internal RAID/dual 19" monitors. Final Cut Studio, Adobe Suite, Boris RED. Shooting with Canon.
VU California Crew, Inland Empire Sub-Chapter (paragraph?)
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