User manual APPLE COLOR 1.0

Color User Manual K Apple Inc. Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Your rights to the software are governed by the accompanying software license agreement. The owner or authorized user of a valid copy of Final Cut Studio software may reproduce this publication for the purpose of learning to use such software. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this publication or for providing paid for support services. The Apple logo is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Use of the "keyboard" Apple logo (Shift-Option-K) for commercial purposes without the prior written consent of Apple may constitute trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this manual is accurate. Apple is not responsible for printing or clerical errors. Note: Because Apple frequently releases new versions and updates to its system software, applications, and Internet sites, images shown in this book may be slightly different from what you see on your screen. Apple Inc. 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014­2084 408-996-1010 www.apple.com Apple, the Apple logo, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut, Final Cut Pro, FireWire, LiveType, Mac, Macintosh, Mac OS, QuickTime, and Shake are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Cinema Tools and Finder are trademarks of Apple Inc. Other company and product names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective companies. Mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. Apple assumes no responsibility with regard to the performance or use of these products. 1 Contents Preface 9 9 10 10 11 13 13 16 22 24 27 35 35 37 39 47 49 56 Color Documentation and Resources What Is Color? Using the Color Documentation Color Websites Apple Service and Support Website Color Correction Basics What Is Color Correction? When Does Color Correction Happen? Color Correction in Color Image Encoding Standards Basic Color and Imaging Concepts Color Correction Workflows An Overview of the Color Workflow Limitations in Color Video Finishing Workflows Using Final Cut Pro Importing Projects from Other Video Editing Applications Using Color in a Digital Intermediate Workflow Using EDLs, Timecode, and Frame Numbers to Conform Projects Using the Color Interface Setting Up a Control Surface Using the Onscreen Controls Organizational Browsers and Bins Using Color with One or Two Monitors Importing and Managing Projects and Media Creating and Opening Projects Saving Projects and Archives Moving Projects Between Final Cut Pro and Color Reconforming Projects Importing EDLs Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 59 60 60 64 70 71 72 72 75 79 80 Chapter 4 3 82 82 83 84 88 89 89 Chapter 5 91 91 92 97 98 102 102 111 111 113 115 120 121 122 123 125 126 126 128 129 131 132 133 141 141 144 145 163 163 166 168 179 Exporting EDLs Relinking QuickTime Media Importing Media Directly into The Timeline Compatible Media Formats Converting Cineon and DPX Image Sequences to QuickTime Importing Color Corrections Exporting JPEG Images Setup The File Browser The Shots Browser Grades Bin Project Settings Tab Messages Tab User Preferences Tab Monitoring The Scopes Window Monitoring Broadcast Video Output Using Display LUTs Monitoring the Still Store Timeline Playback, Navigation, and Editing Basic Timeline UI Elements Customizing the Timeline Interface Working with Tracks Selecting the Current Shot Timeline Playback Timeline Navigation Selecting Shots in the Timeline Working with Grades in the Timeline The Settings Tabs Editing Controls and Procedures Video Scopes What Scopes Are Available? Video Scope Options Analyzing Images Using the Video Scopes Primary In What Is the Primary In Room Used For? Using the Primary Contrast Controls Adjusting Contrast in the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights Using Color Balance Controls Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 4 Contents 183 189 201 204 206 Chapter 10 209 209 211 212 219 221 228 229 234 235 235 236 238 239 241 242 247 248 249 259 259 260 260 261 263 263 264 268 269 272 273 274 274 Understanding Shadow, Midtone, and Highlight Adjustments Curves Controls Basic Tab Advanced Tab Auto Balance Secondaries What Is the Secondaries Room Used For? Where to Start? Choosing a Region to Correct Using the HSL Qualifiers Previews Tab Isolating a Region Using the Vignette Controls Adjusting the Inside and Outside of the Selection Using the Secondary Curves Reset Controls Color FX The Color FX Interface How to Make Color FX Creating and Connecting Nodes Adjusting Node Parameters Bypassing Nodes Creating Effects in the Color FX Room Using Color FX with Interlaced Shots Saving Favorite Effects in the Color FX Bin Node Reference Guide Primary Out Using the Primary Out Room Making Extra Corrections Using the Primary In Room Understanding the Image Processing Pipeline Using the Ceiling Controls Managing Corrections and Grades The Difference Between Corrections and Grades Saving and Using Corrections and Grades Applying Saved Corrections and Grades to Shots Managing Grades in the Timeline Using the "Copy to" Buttons in the Primary Rooms Using the Copy Grade and Paste Grade Memory Banks Setting a Beauty Grade in the Timeline Disabling All Grades Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Contents 5 274 281 Managing Grades in the Shots Browser Using the Primary, Secondary, and Color FX Rooms Together to Manage Each Shot's Corrections Keyframing Why Keyframe an Effect? How Keyframing Works in Different Rooms Working with Keyframes in the Timeline Keyframe Interpolation Geometry Navigating Within the Image Preview The Pan & Scan Tab Shapes Tab Tracking Tab Still Store Saving Images to the Still Store Saving Still Store Images in Subdirectories Removing Images from the Still Store Recalling Images from the Still Store Customizing the Still Store View Controls in the Still Store Bin Render Queue About Rendering in Color Which Effects Does Color Render? The Render Queue Interface How to Render Shots in Your Project Rendering Multiple Grades for Each Shot Gather Rendered Media Calibrating Your Monitor About Color Bars Calibrating Video Monitors With Color Bars Keyboard Shortcuts Project Shortcuts Switching Rooms and Windows Playback and Navigation Grade Shortcuts Timeline Specific Shortcuts Editing Shortcuts Keyframing Shortcuts Chapter 14 285 285 286 288 290 293 293 294 298 306 315 315 317 317 318 318 319 321 321 322 323 324 326 328 329 329 329 333 333 334 334 335 335 335 336 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Appendix A Appendix B 6 Contents 336 336 337 337 Appendix C 339 339 344 346 351 353 Shortcuts in the Shots Browser Shortcuts in the Geometry Room Still Store Shortcuts Render Queue Shortcuts Setting Up a Control Surface JLCooper MCS-3000, MCS-Spectrum, MCS-3400, and MCS-3800 Control Surfaces Tangent Devices CP100 Control Surface Tangent Devices CP200 Series Control Surface Customizing Control Surface Sensitivity Index Contents 7 Color Documentation and Resources Welcome to the world of professional video and film grading and manipulation using Color. What Is Color? Color has been designed from the ground up as a feature-rich color correction environment that complements a wide variety of post-production workflows, whether your project is standard definition, high definition, or a 2K digital intermediate. If you've edited a program using Final Cut Pro, it's easy to send your program to Color for grading, and then send it back to Final Cut Pro for final output. However, it's also easy to reconform projects that originate as EDLs from other editing environments. Color has the tools that professional colorists demand, including:  Primary color correction using three-way color balance and contrast controls with individual shadow, midtone, and highlight control  Curve controls for detailed color and luma channel adjustments  Up to eight secondary color correction operations per shot with HSL qualifiers, vignettes, user shapes, and separate adjustments for the inside and outside of each secondary  Color FX node-based effects for creating custom color effects  Pan & Scan effects  Motion tracking that can be used to animate vignettes, user shapes, and other effects  Broadcast legal settings to guarantee adherence to quality control standards  Support for color-correction-specific control surfaces  And much, much more All of these tools are divided among eight individual "rooms" of the Color interface, logically arranged in an order that matches the workflow of most colorists. You'll use Color to correct, balance, and create stylized "looks" for each shot in your program as the last step in the post-production workflow, giving your programs a final polish previously available only to high-end facilities. Preface 9 Using the Color Documentation The documentation that accompanies Color consists of a printed setup Guide and an onscreen user manual. Color Setup Guide The Color Setup Guide provides excerpts from the onscreen user manual that are designed to show you how Color fits into each of a variety of post-production workflows, and help you to configure the project settings and user preferences in Color to best suit your needs. If you've just installed Color and want to figure out how to set up your system to work most efficiently, this is the place to start. Color Onscreen User Manual The Color User Manual, available from the Help menu, provides comprehensive information about the application, and is written for users of all levels of experience.  Editors and post-production professionals from other disciplines who are new to the color correction process will find information on how to get started, with detailed explanations of how all controls work, and why they function the way they do.  Colorists coming to Color from other grading environments can skip ahead to find detailed information about Color's inner workings, and exhaustive parameter-byparameter explanations for every room of the Color interface. Note: The onscreen user manual provides all of the information contained in the Color Setup Guide, in an easily searchable form with full-color illustrations. Tutorials A collection of onscreen video tutorials on DVD-ROM is available to help you quickly get started using Color. These tutorials walk you through every major area of the interface, and are a good way to get an overview of where everything is prior to diving into the user manual. Color Websites The following websites provide general information, updates, and support information about Color, as well as the latest news, resources, and training materials. For more information about Color, go to:  http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/color For more information on the Apple Pro Training Program, go to:  http://www.apple.com/software/pro/training To provide comments and feedback about Color, go to:  http://www.apple.com/feedback/color.html 10 Preface Color Documentation and Resources Apple Service and Support Website The Apple Service and Support website provides software updates and answers to the most frequently asked questions for all Apple products, including Color. You'll also have access to product specifications, reference documentation, and Apple product technical articles:  http://www.apple.com/support For support information that's specific to Color, go to:  http://www.apple.com/support/color Preface Color Documentation and Resources 11 1 Color Correction Basics 1 To better learn how Color works, it's important to understand the overall color correction process and how images work their way through post-production in SD, HD, and film workflows. If you're new to color correction, the first part of this chapter provides a background in color correction workflows to help you better understand why Color works the way it does. The second part goes on to explain important color and imaging concepts that are important to the operation of the Color interface. This chapter covers the following:      What Is Color Correction? (p. 13) When Does Color Correction Happen? (p. 16) Color Correction in Color (p. 22) Image Encoding Standards (p. 24) Basic Color and Imaging Concepts (p. 27) What Is Color Correction? In any post-production workflow, color correction is generally one of the last steps taken to finish an edited program. Color has been created to give you precise control over the look of every shot in your project by providing flexible tools and an efficient workspace with which to manipulate the contrast, color, and geometry of each shot in your program. The Goals of Color Correction? When color correcting a given program, you'll be called upon to perform many, if not all, of the tasks described in this section. Color gives you an extremely deep feature set with which to accomplish all this and more. While the deciding factor in determining how far you go in any color correction session is usually the amount of time you have in which to work, the dedicated color correction interface in Color allows you to work quickly and efficiently. 13 The Fundamentals Every program requires you to take, at the very least, the following steps. With practice, most of these can be accomplished using the primary color correction tools (for more information, see Chapter 9, "Primary In," on page 163).  Making sure that key elements in your program look the way they should: Every scene of your program has key elements that are the main focus of the viewer. In a narrative or documentary video, the focus is probably on the individuals within each shot. In a commercial, the key element is undoubtedly the product (for example the label of a bottle or the color of a car). Regardless of what these key elements are, chances are you or your audience will have certain expectations of what they should look like, and it's your job to make the colors in the program match what was originally shot. When working with shots of people, one of the guiding principles of color correction is to make sure that their skin tones in the program look the same as (or better than) in real life. Regardless of ethnicity or complexion, the hues of human skin tones, when measured objectively on a Vectorscope, fall along a fairly narrow range (although the saturation and brightness vary). Color gives you the tools to make whatever adjustments are necessary to ensure that the skin tones of people in your final edited piece look the way they should.  Correcting errors in color balance and exposure: Frequently, images that are acquired digitally (whether shot on analog or digital video, or transferred from film) don't have optimal exposure or color balance to begin with. For example, many camcorders and digital cinema cameras deliberately record blacks that aren't quite at 0 percent in order to avoid the inadvertent crushing of data unnecessarily. Furthermore, accidents can happen in any shoot. For example, the crew may not have had the correctly balanced film stock for the conditions in which they were shooting, or someone may have forgotten to white balance the video camera before shooting an interview in an office lit with fluorescent lights, resulting in footage with a greenish tinge. Color makes it easy to fix these kinds of mistakes.  Balancing all the shots in a scene to match: Most edited programs incorporate footage from a variety of sources, shot in multiple locations over the course of many days, weeks, or months of production. Even with the most skilled lighting and camera crews, differences in color and exposure are bound to occur, sometimes within shots meant to be combined into a single scene. When edited together, these changes in color and lighting can make individual shots stand out, making the editing appear uneven. With careful color correction, all the different shots that make up a scene can be balanced to match one another so that they all look as if they're happening at the same time and in the same place, with the same lighting. This is commonly referred to as scene-to-scene color correction. 14 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics  Creating contrast: Color correction can also be used to create contrast between two scenes for a more jarring effect. Imagine cutting from a lush, green jungle scene to a harsh desert landscape with many more reds and yellows. Using color correction, you can subtly accentuate these differences.  Achieving a "look": The process of color correction is not simply one of making all the video in your piece match some objective model of exposure. Color, like sound, is a property that, when subtly mixed, can result in an additional level of dramatic control over your program. With color correction, you can control whether your video has rich, saturated colors or a more muted look. You can make your shots look warmer by pushing their tones into the reds, or make them look cooler by bringing them into the blues. You can pull details out of the shadows, or crush them, increasing the picture's contrast for a starker look. Such subtle modifications alter the audience's perception of the scene being played, changing a program's mood. Once you pick a look for your piece, or even for an individual scene, you can use color correction to make sure that all the shots in the appropriate scenes match the same look, so that they cut together smoothly.  Adhering to guidelines for broadcast legality: If a program is destined for television broadcast, you are usually provided with a set of quality control (QC) guidelines that specific the "legal" limits for minimum black levels, maximum white levels, and minimum and maximum chroma saturation and composite RGB limits. Adherence to these guidelines is important to ensure that the program is accepted for broadcast, as "illegal" values may cause problems when the program is encoded for transmission. QC standards vary, so it's important to check what these guidelines are in advance. Color has built-in broadcast safe settings (sometimes referred to as a legalizer) that automatically prevent video levels from exceeding the specified limits. For more information, see "Broadcast Safe Settings" on page 100. Detail Work If you have the time, the Color toolset allows you to go even further to adjust the look of your program:  Adjusting specific elements separately: It's sometimes necessary to selectively target a narrow range of colors to alter or replace only those color values. A common example of this might be to turn a red car blue or to mute the excessive colors of an article of clothing.These sorts of tasks are accomplished with what's referred to as secondary color correction, and Color provides you with numerous tools with which to achieve such effects. For more information, see Chapter 10, "Secondaries," on page 209. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 15  Making digital lighting adjustments: Sometimes lighting setups that looked right during the shoot don't work as well in post. Changes in the director's vision, alterations to the tone of the scene as edited, or suggestions on the part of the director of photography (DoP) during post may necessitate alterations to the lighting within a scene beyond simple adjustments to the image's overall contrast. Color provides powerful controls for user-definable masking which, in combination with secondary color correction controls, allow you to isolate multiple regions within an image and fine-tune the lighting. This is sometimes referred to as digital relighting. For more information, see Chapter 10, "Secondaries," on page 209, and "Shapes Tab" on page 298.  Creating special effects: Sometimes a scene requires more extreme effects, such as manipulating colors and exposure intensively to achieve a day-for-night look, creating an altered state for a flashback or hallucination sequence, or just creating something bizarre for a music video. In the Color FX room, Color provides you with an extensible node-based toolset for creating such in-depth composites efficiently, in conjunction with the other primary and secondary tools at your disposal. For more information, see Chapter 11, "Color FX," on page 235. If that sounds like a lot to do, it is. Fortunately, the Color interface helps you to keep these tasks organized. When Does Color Correction Happen? A program's color fidelity shouldn't be neglected until the color correction stage of the post-production process. Ideally, every project is begun with a philosophy of color management that's applied during the shoot, is maintained through the various transfer and editing passes that occur during post-production, and concludes with the final color correction pass conducted in Color. This section elaborates on how film and video images have traditionally made their way through the post-production process. Color Management Starts During the Shoot Whether a program is shot using film, video, or high-resolution digital imaging of another means, it's important to remember that the process of determining a program's overall look begins when each scene is lit and shot during production. To obtain the maximum amount of control and flexibility over shots in post-production, you ideally should start out with footage that has been exposed with the end goals in mind right from the beginning. Color correction in post-production is no substitute for good lighting. Optimistically, the process of color correction can be seen as extending and enhancing the vision of the producer, director, and director of photography (DoP) as it was originally conceived. Often, the DoP gets personally involved during the color correction process to ensure that the look he or she was trying to achieve is perfected. 16 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics At other times, the director or producer may change his or her mind regarding how the finished piece should look. In these cases, color correction might be used to alter the overall look of the piece (for example, making footage that was shot to look cool look warmer, instead). While Color provides an exceptional degree of control over your footage, it's still important to start out with clean, properly exposed footage. Furthermore, choices made during preproduction and the shoot, including the film or video format and camera settings used, can have a profound effect on the amount of flexibility that's available during the eventual color correction process. Initial Color Correction When Transferring Film When a project has been shot on film, the camera negatives must first be transferred to the videotape or digital video format of choice prior to editing and digital post using a telecine or datacine machine. A telecine is a machine for transferring film to videotape, while a datacine is set up for transferring film directly to a digital format, usually an image sequence. Camera Negative Telecine Video Tapes Usually, the colorist running the film transfer session performs some level of color correction to ensure that the editor has the most appropriate picture to work with. The goals of color correction at this stage usually depend on both the length of the project and the post-production workflow that's been decided upon.  Short projects, commercials, spots, and very short videos may get a detailed color correction pass right away. The colorist will first calibrate the telecine's own color corrector to balance the whites, blacks, and color perfectly. Then the colorist, in consultation with the DoP, director, or producer, will work shot by shot to determine the look of each shot according to the needs of the project. As a result, the editor will be working with footage that has already been corrected.  Long-form projects such as feature-length films and longer television programs probably won't get a detailed color correction pass right away. Instead, the footage that is run through the telecine will be balanced to have reasonably ideal exposure and color for purposes of having a good image for editing, and left at that. Detailed color correction is then done at another stage. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 17  Projects of any length which are going through post-production as a digital intermediate are transferred with a color correction pass designed to retain the maximum amount of image data. Since a second (and final) digital color correction pass is intended to be performed at the end of the post-production process, it's critical that the image data is high-quality, preserving as much highlight and shadow detail as possible. Interestingly, since the goal is the preservation of image data, and not to create the final look of the program, the highest quality image for grading may not be the most visually appealing image. However the color correction is handled during the initial telecine or datacine transfer, once complete, the footage goes through the typical post-production processes of offline and online editorial. Color Correcting Film Versus Video Color has been designed to fit into both video and film digital intermediate workflows. Since all footage must first be transferred to a QuickTime or image sequence format to be imported into Color, film and video images are corrected using the same tools and methods. Three main attributes affect the quality of media used in a program, all of which were determined when the footage was originally captured or transferred prior to Color import:  The type and level of compression applied to the media  The bit depth at which it's encoded  The chroma subsampling ratio used For color correction, spatial and temporal compression should be minimized, since compression artifacts can compromise the quality of your adjustments. Also, media at higher bit depths is generally preferable (see "Bit Depth" on page 26). Most importantly of all, high chroma subsampling ratios, such as 4:4:4 or 4:2:2, are preferred to maximize the quality and flexibility of your corrections. There's nothing stopping you from working with 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 subsampled footage, but you may find that extreme contrast adjustments and smooth secondary selections are a bit more difficult to accomplish with highly compressed color spaces. For more information, see "Chroma Subsampling" on page 25. Traditional Means of Final Color Correction Once editing is complete and the picture is locked, it's time for color correction (referred to as color grading in the film world) to begin. Traditionally, this process was accomplished either via a Color Timing session for film or via a Tape-to-Tape color correction session for video. 18 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Color Timing for Film Programs being finished and color corrected on film traditionally undergo a negative conform process prior to color timing. When editorial is complete, the original camera negative is conformed to match the workprint or video cut of the edited program using a cut list or pull list (if the program was edited using Final Cut Pro, this can be derived using Cinema Tools), which lists each shot used in the edited program, and shows how each shot fits together. This is a time-consuming and detail oriented process, since mistakes made while cutting the negative are extremely expensive to correct. Once the camera negative has been conformed and the different shots physically glued together onto alternating A and B rolls, the negative can be color timed by being run through an optical printer designed for this process. These machines shine filtered light through the original negatives to expose an intermediate positive print, in the process creating a single reel of film that is the color-corrected print. The process of controlling the color of individual shots and doing scene-to-scene color correction is accomplished using just three controls to individually adjust the amount of red, green, and blue light that exposes the film, using a series of optical filters and shutters. Each of the red, green, and blue dials is adjusted in discrete increments called printer points (with each point being a fraction of an f-stop, the scale used to measure film exposure). Typically there's a total range of 50 points, where point 25 is the original neutral state for that color channel. Increasing or decreasing all three color channels together darkens or brightens the image, while making disproportionate adjustments to the three channels changes the color balance of the image relative to the adjustment. The machine settings used for each shot can be stored (at one time using paper tape technology) and recalled at any time, to ease subsequent retiming and adjustments, with the printing process being automated once the manual timing is complete. Once the intermediate print has been exposed, it can be developed and the final results projected. Camera Negative Conform Negative Optical Color Timing Final Film Print While this system of color correction may seem cumbersome compared to today's digital tools for image manipulation, it's an extremely effective means of primary color correction for those who've mastered it. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 19 Note: Color includes printer points controls for colorists who are familiar with this method of color correction. For more information, see "Advanced Tab" on page 204. Tape-to-Tape Color Correction With projects shot on videotape (and those shot on film that can't afford a second telecine pass), the color correction process fits into the traditional video offline/online workflow. Once the edit has been locked, the final master tape is assembled, either by being reconformed on the system originally used to do the offline or by taking the EDL and original source tapes to an online suite compatible with the source tape formats. If the online assembly is happening in a high-end online suite, then color correction can be performed either during the assembly of the master tape or after assembly by running the master tape through a color correction session. Video Tapes Telecine Offline Edit Tape Suite Final Master Tape Note: If the final master tape is color corrected, the colorist must carefully dissolve and wipe color correction operations to match video dissolves and wipes happening in the program. Either way, the video signal is run through dedicated video color correction hardware and software, and the colorist uses the tape's master timecode to set up and preserve color correction settings for every shot of every scene. While video color correction started with controls as humble as those used by film colorists, the evolution of the online color correction suite introduced many more tools to the process, including separate corrections for discrete tonal zones, secondary color correction of specific subjects via keying and shapes controls, and many, many other creative options previously unavailable to the film colorist. Color Correcting Via a Second Telecine Pass Programs shot on film that are destined for video mastering, such as for an episodic broadcast series, may end up back in the telecine suite for their final color correction pass. Once editing is complete and the picture is locked, a cut list or pull list (similar to that used for a negative conform) is created that matches the EDL of the edited program. 20 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Using the cut list, the post-production supervisor pulls only the film negative that was actually used in the edit. Since this is usually a minority of the footage that was originally shot, the colorist now has more time (depending on the show's budget, of course) to perform a more detailed color correction pass on the selected footage that will be assembled into the final video program during this final telecine pass. Although this process might seem redundant, performing color correction directly from the film negative has several distinct advantages. Since film has greater latitude from black to white than video has, a colorist working straight off the telecine potentially has a wider range of color and exposure from which to draw than when working only with video. In addition, the color correction equipment available to the telecine colorist has evolved to match (and is sometimes identical to) the tools available to online video colorists, with the added advantage that the colorist can work directly on the uncompressed images provided by the telecine. After the conclusion of the second color correction pass, the color-corrected selects are reassembled to match the original edit, and the project is mastered to tape. Inexpensive One-Light Telecine Pass Offline Edit Offline Media Camera Negative Best-Light Telecine Pass Reconform Final Master Incidentally, even if you don't intend to color correct your program in the telecine suite, you might consider retransferring specific shots to make changes that are easier or higher quality to make directly from the original camera negative. For example, after identifying shots you want to retransfer in your Final Cut Pro sequence, you can use Cinema Tools to create a selects list, for example, just for shots you want to optically enlarge, speeding the transfer process. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 21 Other Advantages to Telecine Transfers In addition to color correction, a colorist working with a telecine has many other options available, depending on what kinds of issues may have come up during the edit.  Using a telecine to pull the image straight off the film negative, the colorist can reposition the image to include parts of the film image that fall outside the action safe area of video.  With the telecine, the image can also be enlarged optically, potentially up to 50 percent without visible distortion.  The ability to reframe shots in the telecine allows the director or producer to make significant changes to a scene, turning a medium shot into a close-up for dramatic effect, or moving the entire frame up to crop out a microphone that's inadvertently dropped into the shot. Color Correction in Color You've seen how color correction is done in other post-production environments. This section describes how Color fits into a typical film or video post-production process. Color provides many of the same high-end color correction tools on your desktop that were previously available in high-end tape-to-tape and telecine color correction suites. In addition, Color provides additional tools in the Color FX room that are more commonly found in dedicated compositing applications, which give you even more detailed control over the images in your program (for more information, see Chapter 11, "Color FX," on page 235). Color has been designed as a color correction environment for either film or video. It's resolution independent, supporting everything from standard definition video up to 2K film scans. It also supports multiple media formats and is compatible with image data using a variety of image sequence formats and QuickTime codecs. Color also has been designed to be incorporated into a digital intermediate workflow. Digital intermediate refers to a high-quality digital version of your program that can be edited, color corrected, and otherwise digitally manipulated using computer hardware and software, instead of tape machines or optical printers. Editors, effects artists, and colorists who finish video programs in a tapeless fashion have effectively been working with digital intermediates for years, but the term usually describes the process of scanning film frames digitally, for the purposes of doing all edit conforming, effects, and color correction digitally. It is then the digital image data which is printed directly to film or compiled as a file for digital projection. 22 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Finishing film or video programs digitally frees colorists from the limitations of film and tape transport mechanisms, speeding their work by letting them navigate through a project as quickly as in a nonlinear editing application. Furthermore, working with the digital image data provides a margin of safety, by eliminating the risk of scratching the negative or damaging the source tapes. When Does Color Correction in Color Happen? Color correction using Color usually happens at or near the conclusion of the online edit or project conform, often at the same time the final audio mix is being performed. Waiting until the picture is locked is always a good idea, but it's not essential, as Color provides tools for synchronizing projects that are still being edited via XML files or EDLs. Color has been designed to work hand-in-hand with editing applications like Final Cut Pro; Final Cut Pro takes care of input, editing, and output, and Color allows you to focus on color correction and related effects. About Importing Projects and Media into Color To work on a program in Color, you must be provided with two sets of files:  The edited project file (or files, if the program is in multiple reels) in a format that can be imported into Color. Compatible formats include Final Cut Pro XML files and EDL files from nearly any editing environment. Final Cut Pro sequence data can also be sent to Color directly if you have Final Cut Pro installed on the same computer, using the "Send to Color" command.  You must also be given high-quality digital versions of the original source media, in a compatible QuickTime or image sequence format. What Footage Does Color Work With? Color can work with film or video shots as either QuickTime files or image sequences, at a variety of resolutions and compression ratios. This means you have the option of working on anything from highly compressed QuickTime DV-25 shots, up through uncompressed 2K .tif image sequences, at 8- or 10-bit (linear or log)--whatever your clients provide. Project and media format flexibility means that Color can be incorporated into a wide variety of post-production workflows. For an overview of different color correction workflows using Color, see Chapter 2, "Color Correction Workflows," on page 35. About Exporting Projects from Color As mentioned above, Color doesn't handle video capture or output to tape on its own. Once you've finished color correcting your project in Color, you render every shot in the project to disk as an alternate set of color corrected media files, and you then send your Color project back to Final Cut Pro, or hand it off to another facility for tape layoff or film out. For more information, see Chapter 17, "Render Queue," on page 321. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 23 Image Encoding Standards The following section provides important information about the image encoding standards supported by Color. The image data you'll be color correcting is typically encoded either using an RGB or Y´CBCR (sometimes referred to as YUV) format. Color is extremely flexible and capable of working with image data of either type. The RGB Additive Color Model In the RGB color model, three color channels are used to store red, green, and blue values in varying amounts to represent each available color that can be reproduced. Adjusting the relative balance of values in these color channels adjusts the color being represented. When all three values are equal, the result is a neutral tone, from black through gray to white. More typically, you'll see these ratios expressed as digital percentages in the Color parade scope or histogram. For example, if all three color channels are 0%, the pixel is black. If all three color channels are 50%, the pixel is a neutral gray. If all three color channels are 100% (the maximum value), the pixel is white. While a few high-quality QuickTime codecs encode video using RGB (Animation is one of the most commonly used), RGB-encoded images are typically stored as uncompressed image sequences. The Y'CBCR Color Model Video is typically recorded using the Y´CBCR color model. Y´CBCR color coding also employs three channels, or components. A shot's image is divided into one luma component (luma is image luminance modified by gamma for broadcast) and two color difference components which encode the chroma (chrominance). Together, these three components make up the picture that you see when you play back your video.  The Y´ component represents the black-and-white portion of an image's tonal range. Because the eye has different sensitivities to the red, green, and blue portions of the spectrum, the image "lightness" that the Y´ component reproduces is derived from a weighted ratio of the (gamma-corrected) R, G, and B color channels. Viewed on its own, the Y' component is the monochrome image.  The two color difference components, CB and CR, are used to encode the color information in such a way as to fit three color channels of image data into two. A bit of math is used to take advantage of the fact that the Y' component also stores green information for the image. The actual math used to derive each color component is CB = B' ­ Y', while CR = R' ­ Y'. Note: This scheme was originally created so that older black-and-white televisions would be compatible with the newer color television transmissions. 24 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Chroma Subsampling In Y´CBCR encoded video, the color channels are typically sampled at a lower ratio than the luma channel. Because the human eye is more sensitive to differences in brightness than in color, this has been used as a way of reducing the video bandwidth (or data rate) requirements without perceptible loss to the image. The sampling ratio between the Y´, CB, and CR channels is notated as a three value ratio. Common chroma subsampling ratios are:  4:4:4 chroma subsampled video encodes completely uncompressed color, the highest quality possible, as the color difference channels are sampled at the same rate as the luma channel. 4:4:4 subsampled image data is typically obtained via telecine or datacine to a video mastering or image sequence format capable of containing it. RGB encoded images are always 4:4:4. Few video acquisition formats are capable of recording 4:4:4 video, but those that do include HDCAM SR and certain digital cinema cameras, including the Thompson Viper FilmStream camera and the Genesis digital camera system.  4:2:2 is a chroma subsampling ratio typical for high-quality video formats, including Beta SP, Digital Betacam, Beta SX, IMX, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD, and HDCAM.  4:1:1 is typical for consumer and prosumer video formats including DVCPRO 25 (NTSC and PAL), DV and DVCam (NTSC).  4:2:0 is another consumer-oriented subsampling rate, used by DV and DVCAM (PAL), HDV, XDCAM HD, and MPEG-2. Note: As their names imply, Apple Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2, Apple Uncompressed 10bit 4:2:2, Apple ProRes 422 (SQ), and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) all use 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. It's important to be aware of the advantages of higher chroma subsampling ratios in the color correction process. Whenever you're in a position to specify the transfer format with which a project will be finished, make sure you ask for the highest quality format your system can handle (for more information about high quality finishing codecs, see "A Tape-Based Workflow" on page 40). As you can probably guess, more color information is better when doing color correction. For example, when you make large contrast adjustments to 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 subsampled video, film grain or video noise in the image becomes exaggerated. This happens most often with underexposed footage. You'll find that you can make the same or greater adjustments to 4:2:2 subsampled video, and the resulting image will have much less grain and noise. Greater contrast with less noise provides for a richer image overall. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 25 Furthermore, it's common to use chroma keying operations to isolate specific areas of the picture for correction. This is done using the HSB qualifiers in the Secondaries room. These keying operations will have smoother and less noisy edges when you're working with 4:2:2 subsampled video. The chroma compression used by 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 subsampled video results in "blockiness" when you isolate the chroma, which affects the mattes that are created by the HSB qualifiers. However, it's important to bear in mind that it is definitely possible to aggressively correct highly compressed video. By paying attention to image noise as you stretch the contrast of poorly exposed footage, you can focus your corrections on the areas of the picture where noise is minimized. When doing secondary color correction to make targeted corrections to specific parts of the image, you may find it a bit more time consuming to pull smooth secondary keys. However; with care and patience, you can still achieve beautiful results. Film Versus Video and Chroma Subsampling In general, film footage is usually transferred with the maximum amount of image data possible, especially when transferred as a completely uncompressed image sequence (4:4:4) as part of a carefully managed digital intermediate workflow. This is one reason for the higher quality of the average film workflow. Standard and high definition video, on the other hand, is usually recorded with lower chroma subsampling ratios (4:2:2 is typical even with higher quality video formats, and 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 are common with prosumer formats) and higher compression ratios, depending entirely upon the recording and video capture formats used. Since the selected video format determines compression quality at the time of the shoot, there's nothing you can do about the lost image data, other then to make the best of what you have. That said, with a bit of care you can color correct nearly any compressed video or image sequence format with excellent results, and Color gives you the flexibility to use highly compressed source formats including DV, HDV, and DVCPRO HD. Bit Depth Another factor that affects the quality of video images, and can have an affect on the quality of your image adjustments, is the bit depth of the source media you're working with. With both RGB and Y´CBCR encoded media, the higher the bit depth, the more image data is available, and the smoother both the image and your corrections will be. The bit depth of your source media depends largely on how that media was originally acquired. 26 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Most of the media you'll receive falls into one of the following bit depths, all of which Color supports:  8-bit: Most standard and high definition consumer and professional digital video formats capture 8-bit image data, including DV and DVCPRO-25, DVCPRO 50, HDV, DVCPRO HD, HDCAM, and so on.  10-bit: Many video capture interfaces allow the uncompressed capture of analog and digital video at 10-bit resolution.  10-bit log: By storing data logarithmically, rather then linearly, a wider contrast ratio (such as that of film) can be fit into a 10-bit data space. 10-bit log files are often recorded from datacine scans using the Cineon and DPX image sequence formats.  16-bit: It takes 16 bits of linear data to match the contrast ratio that can be stored with 10-bit log. Since linear data is easier for computers to process, this is another data space that's available in some image formats. Higher bit depths accommodate more image data by using a greater range of numbers to represent the tonal range that's available. This is apparent when looking at the numeric ranges used by the two bit depths most commonly associated with video.  8-bit images use a full range of 0­255 to store each color channel (Y´CBCR video uses a narrower range of 16­235 to accommodate super-black and super-white). 255 isn't a lot of values, and the result can be subtly visible "stairstepping" in areas of the picture with narrow gradients (such as skies).  10-bit images, on the other hand, use a full range of 0 to 1023 to store each color channel (again, Y´CBCR video uses a narrower range of 64­940 to accommodate super-black and super-white). The additional numeric range allows for smoother gradients, and virtually eliminates bit-depth related artifacts. Fortunately, while you can't always control the bit depth of your source media, you can control the bit depth at which you work in Color independently. That means that even if the source media is at a lower bit depth, you can work at a higher bit depth to make sure that the quality of your corrections is as high as possible. In particular, many effects and secondary corrections look significantly better when Color is set to render at higher bit depths. For more information, see "Playback, Processing, and Output Settings" on page 106. Basic Color and Imaging Concepts Color correction involves controlling both an image's contrast and its color (exercising separate control over its hue and saturation). This section explains these important imaging concepts so that you can better understand how the Color tools let you alter the image. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 27 Contrast Contrast adjustments are the most fundamental, and generally the first, adjustments made. Contrast is a way of describing an image's tonality. If you eliminate all color from an image, reducing it to a series of grayscale tones, the contrast of the picture is seen by the distribution of dark, medium, and light tones in the image. Controlling contrast involves adjustments to three aspects of an image's tonality:  The black point is the darkest pixel in the image.  The white point is the brightest pixel in the image.  The midtones are the distribution of all tonal values in between the black and white points. Black White Mids 28 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics An image's contrast ratio is the difference between the darkest and brightest tonal values within that image. Typically, a higher contrast ratio, where the difference between the two is greater, is preferable to a lower one. Unless you're specifically going for a low-contrast look, higher contrast ratios generally provide a clearer, crisper image. The following two images, with their accompanying histograms which show a graph of the distribution of shadows, midtone, and highlights from left to right, illustrate this. Furthermore, maximizing the contrast ratio of an image aids further color correction operations by more evenly distributing that image's color throughout the three tonal zones that are adjusted with the three color balance controls in the Primary In, Secondaries, and Primary Out rooms. This makes it easier to perform individual corrections to the shadows, midtones, and highlights. For more information about adjusting image contrast, see "Using the Primary Contrast Controls" on page 166. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 29 What Is Setup Beginning colorists sometimes confuse the black level of digital video with setup. Setup refers to the black level of an analog video signal and is only an issue with analog video. If you are outputting to an analog tape format using a third-party analog video interface, you should check the documentation that came with that video interface to determine how to configure the video interface for the North American standard for setup (7.5 IRE) or the Japanese standard (0 IRE). Most vendors of analog video interfaces include a software control panel that allows you to select which black level to use. Most vendors label this as "7.5 Setup" versus "0 Setup," or in some cases "NTSC" versus "NTSC-J." Video sent digitally via SDI has no setup. The Y´CBCR black level simply remains at the appropriate digital value corresponding to the bit depth of the video signal (represented by 0 percent on a video scope). Luma Luma (which technically speaking is gamma-corrected luminance) describes the exposure (lightness) of a video shot, from absolute black, through the distribution of gray tones, all the way up to the brightest white. Luma can be separated from the color of an image. In fact, if you desaturate an image completely, the grayscale image that remains is the luma. Luma is measured by Color as a digital percentage from 0 to 100, where 0 represents absolute black and 100 represents absolute white. Color also supports super-white levels (levels from 101 to 109 percent) if they exist in your shot. While super-white video levels are not considered to be safe for broadcast, many cameras record video at these levels anyway. 0% luminance 100% 109% Superwhite Black White Note: Unadjusted super-white levels will be clamped by the Broadcast Safe settings if they're turned on with their default settings, such that pixels in the image with luma above 100 percent will be set to 100 percent. 30 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Gamma Gamma refers to two different concepts. In a video signal, gamma refers to the nonlinear representation of luminance in a picture displayed on a broadcast or computer monitor. Since the eye has a nonlinear response to light (mentioned in "The Y'CBCR Color Model" on page 24), applying a gamma adjustment while recording an image maximizes the perceptible recorded detail in video signals with limited bandwidth. Upon playback, a television or monitor applies an inverted gamma function to return the image to its "original" state. You want to avoid unplanned gamma adjustments when sending media from Final Cut Pro to Color. It's important to keep track of any possible gamma adjustments that occur when exporting or importing clips in Final Cut Pro during the editing process, so that these adjustments are accounted for and avoided during the Final Cut Pro to Color round trip. For more information on gamma handling in Final Cut Pro, see the Final Cut Pro User Manual. Gamma is also used to describe a nonlinear adjustment made to the distribution of midtones in an image. For example, a gamma adjustment leaves the black point and the white point of an image alone, but either brightens or darkens the midtones according to the type of adjustment being made. For more information on gamma and midtones adjustments, see Chapter 9, "Primary In," on page 163. Chroma (Chrominance) Chroma (also referred to as chrominance) describes the color channels in your shots, ranging from the absence of color to the maximum levels of color that can be represented. Specific chroma values can be described using two properties, hue and saturation. Hue Hue describes the actual color itself, whether it's red or green or yellow. Hue is measured as an angle on a color wheel. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 31 Saturation Saturation describes the intensity of that color, whether it's a bright red or a pale red. An image that is completely desaturated has no color at all and is a grayscale image. Saturation is also measured on a color wheel, but as the distance from the center of the wheel to the edge. As you look at the color wheel, notice that it is a mix of the red, green, and blue primary colors that make up video. In between these are the yellow, cyan, and magenta secondary colors, which are equal mixes of the primary colors. Color Relationships Understanding color wheel interactions will help you to see how the Color controls actually affect colors in an image. Primary Colors In any additive color model, the primary colors are red, green, and blue. These are the three purest colors that can be represented, by setting a single color channel to 100 percent and the other two color channels to 0 percent. Secondary Colors Adding any two primary colors produces a secondary color. In other words, you create a secondary color by setting any two color channels to 100 percent while setting the third to 0 percent.  Red + green = yellow  Green + blue = cyan  Blue + red = magenta One other aspect of the additive color model:  Red + green + blue = white All of these combinations can be seen in the illustration of three colored circles below. Where any two primaries overlap, the secondary appears, and where all three overlap, white appears. 32 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics Complementary Colors Two colors that appear 180 degrees opposite one another on the wheel are referred to as complementary colors. Adding two complementary colors of equal saturation to one another neutralizes the saturation, resulting in a grayscale tone. This can be seen in the two overlapping color wheels in the illustration below. Where red and cyan precisely overlap, both colors become neutralized. Understanding the relationship of colors to their complementaries is essential to learning how to eliminate or introduce color casts in an image using the Color Primary or Secondary color correction controls. For example, to eliminate a bluish cast in the highlights of unbalanced daylight, you add a bit of orange to bring all of the colors to a more neutral state. This is covered in more detail in Chapter 9, "Primary In," on page 163. The HSL Color Space Model The HSL color space model is another method for representing color, typically used for user interface controls that let you choose or adjust colors. HSL stands for hue, saturation, and lightness (roughly equivalent to luminance) and provides a way of visualizing the relationships among luminance, hue, and saturation. Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 33 The HSL color space model can be graphically illustrated as a three dimensional cone. Hue is represented by an angle around the base of the cone, as seen below, while saturation is represented by a color's distance from the center of the cone to the edge, with the center being completely desaturated and the edge being saturated to maximum intensity. A color's brightness, then, can be represented by its distance from the base to the peak of the cone. Color actually provides a three-dimensional video scope that's capable of displaying the colors of an image within an extruded HSL space, for purposes of image analysis. For more information, see "3D Color Space Scope" on page 157. 34 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics 2 Color Correction Workflows 2 Taking maximum advantage of Color requires careful workflow management. This chapter outlines where Color fits into your post-production workflow. Color has been designed to work hand in hand with editing applications like Final Cut Pro via XML and QuickTime media support, or with other editorial environments via EDL and image sequence support. While video and film input and editing are taken care of elsewhere, Color gives you a dedicated environment with which to focus on color correction and related effects. This chapter gives you a quick overview of how to guide your project through a workflow that includes using Color for color correction. Information is provided about both standard and high definition broadcast video workflows, as well as 2K digital intermediate workflows. This chapter covers the following:       An Overview of the Color Workflow (p. 35) Limitations in Color (p. 37) Video Finishing Workflows Using Final Cut Pro (p. 39) Importing Projects from Other Video Editing Applications (p. 47) Using Color in a Digital Intermediate Workflow (p. 49) Using EDLs, Timecode, and Frame Numbers to Conform Projects (p. 56) An Overview of the Color Workflow The Color controls are divided into eight tabbed rooms, each of which corresponds to a different stage in a typical color-correction workflow. Each room that you select remaps the buttons, dials, and trackballs of your control surface (if you have one) to correspond to the controls in that room. 35 Each room gathers all the controls pertaining to that particular step of the colorcorrection process onto a single screen. The rooms are organized in the order of a typical color-correction workflow, so you can work your way across from the Primary controls, to the Secondary controls, Color FX, Primary Out, and finally Geometry as you work on each shot in your project.  Setup: All projects begin in the Setup room. This is where you import and manage the shots in your program. The grade bin, project settings, and application preferences are also all found within the Setup room. For video colorists, the project settings area of the Setup room is where you find the Broadcast Safe controls, which allow you to apply gamut restrictions to the entire program.  Primary In: Primary color corrections affect the entire image, so this room is where you make overall adjustments to the color and contrast of each shot. Color balance and curve controls let you adjust colors in the shadows, midtones, and highlights of the image. The lift, gamma, and gain controls let you make detailed contrast adjustments, which affect the brightness of different areas of the picture. There are also controls for overall, highlight, and shadow saturation, and printer point (or printer light) controls for colorists used to color timing for film.  Secondaries: Secondary color corrections are targeted adjustments made to specific areas of the image. This room provides numerous methods for isolating, or qualifying, which parts of the image you want to correct. Controls are provided with which to isolate a region using shape masks. Additional controls let you isolate areas of the picture using a chroma keyed matte with individual qualifications for hue, saturation, and luminance. Each shot can have up to eight secondary operations. Furthermore, special-purpose secondary curves let you make adjustments to hue, saturation, and luma within specific portions of the spectrum.  Color FX: The Color FX room lets you create your own custom effects via a nodebased interface more commonly found in high-end compositing applications, similar to Shake. These individual effects nodes can be linked together in thousands of combinations, providing a fast way to create many different types of color effects. Your custom effects can be saved in the Color FX bin for future use, letting you apply your look to future projects.  Primary Out: The Primary Out room is identical to the Primary In room except that its color corrections are applied to shots after they have been processed by all the other color grading rooms. This provides a way to post-process your images after all other operations have been performed. 36 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows  Geometry: The Geometry room lets you pan and scan, rotate, flip, and flop shots as necessary. The Geometry room also provides tools for creating custom masks and for applying and managing motion tracking analyses. How Geometry is handled depends on your workflow:  For projects being round-tripped from Final Cut Pro, Geometry room transformations are not rendered by Color when outputting the corrected project media. Instead, all the geometric transformations you create in Color are translated into Final Cut Pro Motion settings when the project is sent back to Final Cut Pro. You'll then have the option to further customize those effects in Final Cut Pro prior to rendering and output.  For 2K digital intermediates, Geometry room transformations are processed by Color when rendering the output media. Note: When you send a project from Final Cut Pro to Color, compatible Motion tab effects are translated into Geometry room settings, which lets you preview and adjust these transformations as you color-correct. For more information, see Chapter 15, "Geometry," on page 293.  Still Store: You can save frames from anywhere in the Timeline using the Still Store, creating a reference library of stills from your program from which you can recall images to compare to other shots you're trying to match. You can load one image from the Still Store at a time into memory, toggling between it and the current frame at the position of the Playhead using the controls in the Still Store menu. The Still Store also provides controls for creating and customizing split screens you can use to balance one shot to another. All Still Store comparisons are sent to the preview and broadcast monitor outputs.  Render Queue: When you've finished grading your program in Color, you'll use the Render Queue to manage the rendering of the shots in your project. Limitations in Color Color has been designed to work hand in hand with editing applications like Final Cut Pro; Final Cut Pro takes care of input, editing, and output, and Color allows you to focus on color correction and related effects. However, as feature rich as Color is, there are specific things it does not do:  Recording: it's incapable of either scanning or capturing film or video footage. This means that you need to import projects and media into Color from another application.  Editing: Color is not intended to be an editing application. The editing tools that are provided are primarily for colorists working in 2K workflows where the Color project is the final version that will become the digital master. By default, the tracks of imported XML project files are locked to prevent new edits from introducing errors when the project moves back to Final Cut Pro. Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 37 To accommodate editorial changes, reconforming tools are provided to synchronize an EDL or Final Cut Pro sequence with the version of that project being graded in Color. For more information, see "Reconforming Projects" on page 79.  Filters: Final Cut Pro FXScript or FxPlug filters are neither previewed nor rendered by Color. However, their presence in your project is maintained, and they show up again once the project is sent back to Final Cut Pro. Note: It's not generally a good idea to allow color-correction filters to remain in your Final Cut Pro project when you send it to Color. Even though they have no effect as you work in Color, their sudden reappearance when the project is sent back to Final Cut Pro may produce unexpected results.  Transitions: Color preserves transition data that might be present in an imported EDL or XML file, but does not play the transitions during previews. How they're rendered depends on how the project is being handled:  For projects being round-tripped from Final Cut Pro, transitions are not rendered in Color during output. Instead, after the project's return, Final Cut Pro is relied upon to render those effects.  For 2K digital intermediates, all video transitions are ignored.  Superimpositions: Superimposed shots are displayed in the Timeline, but compositing operations involving opacity are neither displayed nor rendered.  Speed effects: Color doesn't provide an interface for adding speed effects, instead relying on the editing application that originated the project to do so. Linear and variable speed effects that are already present in your project, such as those added in Final Cut Pro, are previewed during playback, but they are not rendered in Color during output. Instead, Final Cut Pro is relied upon to render those effects in roundtrip workflows.  Final Cut Pro generators, and Motion or LiveType project shots: Final Cut Pro generators, Motion projects, and LiveType projects are completely ignored by Color. How you handle these types of effects also depends on your workflow:  If you're round-tripping a project between Final Cut Pro and Color, and you want to grade these effects in Color, you should render these effects as self-contained QuickTime .mov files. Then, edit the new .mov files into your sequence to replace the original effects shots prior to sending your project to Color.  If you're round-tripping a project between Final Cut Pro and Color, and there's no need to grade these effects, you don't need to do anything. Even though these effects aren't displayed in Color, their position in the Timeline is preserved, and these effects will reappear in Final Cut Pro when you send the project back. Titles are a good example of effects that don't usually need to be graded.  If you're working on a 2K digital intermediate, you'll need to use a compositing application like Shake or Motion to composite any effects using the image sequence data. 38 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows Important: When you send frames of media to a compositing application, it's vital that you maintain the frame number in the filenames of new image sequence media that you generate. Each image file's frame number identifies its position in that program's Timeline, so any effects being created as part of a 2K digital intermediate workflow require careful file management.  Freeze Frame clips and Still image files: Still frames used in Final Cut Pro projects, including .tiff, .jpg, or Final Cut Pro created Freeze Frame clips, are also ignored by Color. If you want to grade still frames in Color, you need to render them as selfcontained QuickTime .mov files, and edit them back into your Final Cut Pro sequence to replace the original shot prior to sending the project to Color.  Video or film output: While Color provides broadcast output of your project's playback for preview purposes, this is not intended to be used to output your program to tape. This means that when you finish color correcting your project in Color, the rendered output needs to be moved to Final Cut Pro for output to tape or to another environment for film output. Video Finishing Workflows Using Final Cut Pro If a program has been edited using Final Cut Pro, the process of moving it into Color is fairly straightforward. After editing the program in Final Cut Pro, you must reconform the program, if necessary, to use the original source media at its highest available quality. Once that has been accomplished, you can send the project data and files into Color for color correction. Upon completion of the color-correction pass, you'll need to render the result and send the project back to Final Cut Pro for final output, either to tape or as a QuickTime file. Source Media Final Cut Pro Edit Color Online Media XML Color Correction Render New Color Corrected Media XML Final Cut Pro Final Effects and Output Output Final Master Send to Color Media Data Send to Final Cut Pro Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 39 Exactly how you conform your source media in Final Cut Pro depends on the type of media that's used. A Tape-Based Workflow For a traditional offline/online tape-based workflow, the process is simple. The tapes are captured into Final Cut Pro, possibly at a lower quality offline resolution to ease the initial editing process by using media that takes less hard drive space, and is easier to work with using a wider range of computers. After the offline edit is complete, the media used by the edited program must be recaptured from the source tapes at maximum quality. The resulting online media is what will be used for the Final Cut Pro to Color round trip. Source Media Offline Duplicates Final Cut Pro Offline Edit Online Reconform Color Online Media XML Color Correction Render New Color Corrected Media XML Final Cut Pro Final Effects and Output Output Final Master Send to Color Media Data Send to Final Cut Pro The following steps break this process down more explicitly. Step 1: Capture the source media at offline or online resolution How you approach capturing your media prior to editing depends on its format. Compressed formats, including DV, DVCPRO-50, DVCPRO HD, and HDV, can be captured at their highest quality without requiring enormous storage resources. If this is the case, then capturing and editing your media using its native resolution and codec lets you eliminate the time-consuming step of recapturing (sometimes called conforming) your media later on. 40 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows Uncompressed video formats, or projects where there are many, many reels of source media, may benefit from being captured at a lower resolution or with a more highly compressed codec. This will save drive space and also enable you to edit using less expensive equipment. Later, you'll have to recapture the media prior to color correction. Step 2: Edit the program in Final Cut Pro Edit your program in Final Cut Pro, as you would any other project. If you're planning on an extensive use of effects in your program during editorial, familiarize yourself with the topics covered in "Limitations in Color" on page 37. Step 3: Recapture the source media at online resolution if necessary If you originally captured your source media using an offline format, you'll need to recapture the media used in your project at the highest available quality prior to sending it to Color.  If your media was originally recorded using a compressed format (such as DV, DVCPRO-50, DVCPRO HD, or HDV), then recapturing it using the original source codec and resolution is fine; Color can work with compressed media, and automatically promotes the image data to higher uncompressed bit depths for higher quality imaging when monitoring and rendering.  If you're capturing a higher bandwidth video format (such as Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, HDCAM, and HDCAM SR) and require high quality but need to use a compressed format to save hard drive space and increase performance on your particular computer, then you can recapture using the Apple ProRes 422 codec, or the higher quality Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) codec.  If you're capturing high-bandwidth video and require the highest quality uncompressed video data available, regardless of the storage requirements, you should recapture your media using Apple Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2 or Apple Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2. You may also want to take the opportunity to use the Final Cut Pro Media Manager to delete unused media prior to recapturing in order to save valuable disk space, especially when recapturing uncompressed media. For more information, see the Final Cut Pro documentation. Note: Some codecs, such as HDV, can be more processor intensive to work with than others. In this case, capturing or recompressing the media with a less processorintensive codec, such as Apple ProRes 422 or Apple ProRes 422 (HQ), will improve your performance while you work in Color, while maintaining high quality and low storage requirements. Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 41 Step 4: Pre-render any still images or effects you want to grade in Color Color can't display or process still images, certain motion settings, FXScript or FxPlug filters, Final Cut Pro generators (including titles), Motion project files, or LiveType project files. If you want to grade clips using these effects in Color, you need to render those shots in Final Cut Pro as self-contained QuickTime .mov files, and edit them back into your Final Cut Pro sequence to replace the original clips prior to sending the project to Color. For more information about effects and features that aren't compatible with Color, see "Limitations in Color" on page 37. Step 5: Prepare your Final Cut Pro sequence To prepare your edited sequence for an efficient workflow in Color, follow the steps outlined in "Before You Export Your Final Cut Pro Project" on page 75. Step 6: Send the sequence to Color, or export an XML file When you've finished prepping your edited sequence, there are two ways you can send it to Color.  If Color is installed on the same computer as Final Cut Pro, you can use the "Send to Color" command to move an entire edited sequence to Color, automatically creating a new project file.  If you're handing the project off to another facility, you may want to export the edited sequence as an XML file for eventual import into Color. In this case, you'll also want to use the Final Cut Pro Media Manager to copy the project's media to a single, transportable hard drive volume for easy handoff. Step 7: Grade your program in Color Use Color to grade your program. When working on a round trip from Final Cut Pro, it's crucial to avoid unlocking tracks or reediting shots in the Timeline. Doing so can compromise your ability to send the project back to Final Cut Pro. If the client needs a reedit after you've started grading, you should instead perform the edit back in Final Cut Pro, and export an XML version of the updated sequence which you can use to quickly update the Color project in progress using the Reconform command. For more information, see "Reconforming Projects" on page 79. Step 8: Render new source media, and send the updated project to Final Cut Pro When you've finished grading, you'll use the Color Render Queue to render all the shots in the project as a new, separate set of graded media files. Afterward, you'll need to send the updated project to Final Cut Pro using one of the two following methods:  If Color is installed on the same computer as Final Cut Pro, you can use the "Send to Final Cut Pro" command.  If you're handing the color-corrected project back to the originating facility, you need to export the Color project as an XML file for later import into Final Cut Pro. 42 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows Important: Some parameters in the Project Settings tab of the Setup room affect how the media rendered by Color is rendered. These settings include the Deinterlace Renders, QuickTime Export Codec, Broadcast Safe, and Handles settings. Be sure to verify these and other settings prior to rendering your final output. Step 9: Adjust transitions, superimpositions, and titles in Final Cut Pro To output your project, you need to import the XML project data back into Final Cut Pro. This happens automatically if you use the "Send to Final Cut Pro" command. At this point, you can add or adjust other effects that you had applied previously in Final Cut Pro, before creating the program's final master. Things you may want to consider while prepping the program at this stage include:  Do you need to produce a "textless" master of the program, or one with the titles rendered along with the image?  Are there any remaining effects clips that you need to import and color-correct within Final Cut Pro? Step 10: Output the final video master to tape, or render a master QuickTime file Once you've completed making any last adjustments in Final Cut Pro, you can go ahead and use the Print to Video, Edit to Tape, or Export QuickTime Movie commands to create the final version of your program. Reconforming Online Media in a Tapeless Digital Video Workflow If a program uses a tapeless video format, the steps are similar to those described above; however, they likely involve multiple sets of QuickTime files: the original media at online resolution, and perhaps a second set of media files that have been downconverted to an offline resolution for ease of editing. After the offline edit, the online conform involves relinking to the original source media, prior to going through the Final Cut Pro to Color round trip. Source Media Offline Duplicates Color Online Media Offline Edit Online Reconform XML Color Correction Render New Color Corrected Media XML Final Cut Pro Final Effects and Output Output Final Master Final Cut Pro Send to Color Send to Final Cut Pro Media Data Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 43 Here's a more detailed explanation of the offline-to-online portion of this workflow. Step 1: Shoot and back up all source media Shoot the project using whichever tapeless format you've chosen. As you shoot, make sure that you're keeping backups of all your media, in case anything happens to your primary media storage device. Step 2: Create offline resolution duplicates, and archive original resolution media If necessary, create offline resolution duplicates of the source media in whatever format is most suitable for your system. Then, archive the original source media as safely as possible. Important: When you create offline duplicates of tapeless media, it's vital that you duplicate and maintain the original filenames and timecode that the source files were created with. This is critical to guaranteeing that you'll be able to easily relink to the original high-resolution source files once the offline edit is complete. Step 3: Edit the program in Final Cut Pro Edit your program in Final Cut Pro, as you would any other project. If you're planning on an extensive use of effects in your program during editorial, familiarize yourself with the topics covered in "Limitations in Color" on page 37. Step 4: Relink your edited sequence to the original source media Once your offline edit is complete, you'll need to restore the original online quality source media, and relink your project to the high-resolution files. Step 5: Pre-render effects, send the sequence to Color, and grade At this point, the workflow is identical step 7 in "A Tape-Based Workflow" on page 40. 44 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows Reconforming Online Media in a Film-to-Tape Workflow If you're working on a project that was shot on film, but will be mastered on video, it must be transferred from film to tape using a telecine (telecined) prior to being captured and edited in Final Cut Pro. At that point, the rest of the offline and online edit is identical to any other tape-based format. Camera Negative Telecine Transferred Video Media Final Cut Pro Offline and Online Edits Color Online Media XML Color Correction Render XML New Color Corrected Media Final Cut Pro Final Effects and Output Output Final Master Media Data Send to Color Send to Final Cut Pro Here's a more detailed explanation of the offline-to-online portion of this workflow. Step 1: Shoot your film Shoot the project as you would any other film project. Step 2: Telecine the dailies After the film has been shot, process and telecine the dailies to a video format appropriate for your workflow. Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 45  Some productions prefer to save money up front by doing an inexpensive "one-light" transfer of all the footage to an inexpensive offline video format for the initial offline edit (a one-light transfer refers to the process of using a single color-correction setting to transfer whole scenes of footage). This can save time and money up front, but may necessitate a second telecine session to retransfer only the footage used in the edit at a higher level of visual quality.  Other productions choose to transfer all the dailies (or at least just the director's selected takes) via a "best-light" transfer, where the color-correction settings are individually adjusted for every shot that's telecined, optimizing the color and exposure for each clip. The footage is transferred to a high-quality video format capable of preserving as much image data as possible. This can be significantly more expensive up front, but saves money later since a second telecine session is not necessary. Step 3: Capture the source media at offline or online resolution How you capture your media prior to editing depends on your workflow. If you telecined offline-quality media, then you might as well capture using an offline quality codec. If you instead telecined online-quality media, then you have the choice of either pursuing an "offline/online" workflow, or capturing via an online codec, and working at online quality throughout the entire program. Step 4: Edit the program in Final Cut Pro Edit your program in Final Cut Pro, as you would any other project. If you're planning on the extensive use of effects in your program during editorial, familiarize yourself with the topics covered in "Limitations in Color" on page 37. Step 5: Recapture or retransfer the media at online resolution (if necessary) How you conform your offline project to online-quality media depends on how you handled the initial video transfer.  If you originally did a high-quality telecine pass to an online video format, but you captured your source media using an offline format for editing, you'll need to recapture the media from the original telecine source tapes using the highest quality uncompressed QuickTime format that you can accommodate on your computer (such as Apple ProRes 422, or Apple Uncompressed), and relink the new media to your project.  If you did an inexpensive one-light telecine pass to an offline video format, you'll want to do another telecine pass where you transfer only the media you used in the program at high quality. Using Cinema Tools, you can generate a pull list, which you then use to carefully retransfer the necessary footage to an online-quality video format. Then, you'll need to recapture the new online transfer of this media using the highest quality uncompressed QuickTime format that you can accommodate on your computer. 46 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows Important: Do not use the Media Manager to either rename or delete unused media in your project when working with offline media that refers to camera negative. If you do, you'll lose the ability to create accurate pull lists in Cinema Tools. Step 6: Pre-render effects, send the sequence to Color, and grade At this point, the workflow is identical to step 7 in "A Tape-Based Workflow" on page 40. Importing Projects from Other Video Editing Applications Color is also capable of importing projects from other editing environments, by importing Edit Decision Lists (EDLs). An EDL is an event-based list of all the edits and transitions that make up a program. Once you've imported your project file into Color, and copied the program media onto a storage device with the appropriate performance, you can then link the shots on the Color Timeline with their corresponding media. Importing EDLs in a Final Cut Pro to Color Round Trip If you've been provided with an EDL of the edited program and a box of source media, you can import the EDL into Final Cut Pro to capture the project's media and prepare the project for sending to Color. In addition to being able to recapture the footage, Final Cut Pro is compatible with more EDL formats than is Color. Also, Final Cut Pro is capable of reading superimpositions and audio edits, in addition to the video edits. Note: Although capable of importing EDLs directly, Color only reads the video portion of edits in track V1. Video transitions, audio, and superimpositions are ignored. Source Media and EDL file Final Cut Pro Import EDL to Create Project Recapture Media Color Online Media XML Color Correction Render New Color Corrected Media XML Final Cut Pro Final Effects and Output Output Final Master Media Data Send to Color Send to Final Cut Pro Step 1: Import the project into Final Cut Pro Import the EDL of the edited project into Final Cut Pro. Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 47 Step 2: Capture media at online resolution You'll need to recapture the sequence created when importing the EDL using the highest quality QuickTime format that you can accommodate on your computer (such as Apple ProRes 422 or Apple Uncompressed). Step 3: Pre-render effects, send the sequence to Color, and grade At this point, the workflow is identical to step 7 in "A Tape-Based Workflow" on page 40. Importing and Notching Preedited Program Masters Another common way of obtaining a program for color correction is to be provided with an edited master, either on tape or as a QuickTime movie or image sequence, and an accompanying EDL. You can use the EDL to automatically add edits to the master media file in Color (called "notching" the media), to make it easier to grade each shot in the program individually. Tape Master Capture Entire Program Create Color Online Project from EDL Media to "Notch" Online Media Color New Color Corrected Media Render XML Final Cut Pro Final Effects and Output Output Final Master Color Correction Final Cut Pro Send to Final Cut Pro Media Data Step 1: Import the project into Final Cut Pro Import the EDL of the edited project into Final Cut Pro. Step 2: Capture the program master (if necessary) If you were given the program master on tape, you'll need to capture the entire program using the highest quality QuickTime format that you can accommodate on your computer (such as Apple ProRes 422 or Apple Uncompressed). If you're being given the program master as a QuickTime file, you should request the same from whomever is providing you with the media. For this process to work correctly, it's good if the timecode of the first frame of media matches the first frame of timecode in the EDL. Step 3: Import the EDL into Color, and relink to the master media file Either select the EDL from the Projects dialog that appears when you first open Color, or use the File > Import > EDL command. When the EDL Import Settings dialog appears, choose the EDL format, project, EDL, and source media frame rates. 48 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows To properly "notch" the master media file, you need to be sure to turn on "Use as Cut List," and then choose the master media file that you captured or were given. For more information, see "Importing EDLs" on page 80. Step 4: Grade your program in Color Use Color to grade your program. Step 5: Render new source media, and send the updated project to Final Cut Pro When you're finished grading, you'll use the Color Render Queue to render all the shots in the project as a new, separate set of graded media files. Afterward, you'll need to send the updated project to Final Cut Pro using one of the two following methods:  If Color is installed on the same computer as Final Cut Pro, you can use the "Send to Final Cut Pro" command.  If you're handing the color-corrected project back to the originating facility, you need to export the Color project as an XML file for later import into Final Cut Pro. Note: When you send a project to Final Cut Pro that was originally imported into Color, you're only sending the shots that are available in Color, which are usually restricted to those on track V1. Color doesn't support audio tracks or superimposed effects. Step 6: Adjust transitions, superimpositions, and titles in Final Cut Pro To output your project, you need to import the XML project data back into Final Cut Pro. This happens automatically if you use the "Send to Final Cut Pro" command. At this point, you can add other effects in Final Cut Pro, before creating the program's final master. Step 7: Output the final video master to tape, or render a master QuickTime file Once you've completed making any last adjustments in Final Cut Pro, you can go ahead and use the Print to Video, Edit to Tape, or Export QuickTime Movie commands to create the final version of your program. Using Color in a Digital Intermediate Workflow Color supports grading for 2K digital intermediate workflows. Simply put, the term digital intermediate describes the process of performing all effects and color correction using high-resolution digital versions of the original camera negative. Color can work with the 2K 10-bit log image sequences produced by datacine scanners, processing the image data with extremely high quality, and rendering the result as an image sequence suitable for film output. The following sections describe different 2K workflows that you can follow, and shows you how to keep track of your image data from step to step. Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows 49 A Tapeless DI Workflow Using Online/Offline Digital Duplicates The easiest digital intermediate workflow is one where you scan all footage necessary for the offline edit and then create a duplicate set of offline media to edit your project with. Upon completion of the offline edit, you then relink the program to the original 2K source frames in Color. Deriving the offline media from the original digital media keeps your workflow simple and eliminates the need to retransfer the source film later on. The only disadvantage to this method is that it can require an enormous amount of storage space, depending on the length and shooting ratio of the project. Camera Negative 2K Resolution DPX Image Sequence Offline QuickTime Conversion Datacine Transfers Conform Offline Edit Final Cut Pro Color Correction Render Gather Rendered Media Color Media Data Final Output Sequence Film Recorder Film Print 50 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows