First time for everything....

[fotoasylum]

Well I figured that it would be nice to put a stamp on a nice new forum.... and it would be nice to be the first at something in Video.... so here is the first thread in Video.... I use FCP and Motion not well but I use them.

[Tunda]

I like the website, you have some really good work. Do you plan on trying your hand at video or is the FCP just for fun?
Love Vegas, was there last year, right now I am in Fallon and Reno. Not with the Navy though, ....Army, sorry.

[fotoasylum]

Go Army.... I wouldn't mind getting more into FCP and Motion... just finding the time seems to be the primary killer. I need to get up to the Fallon area and do some shooting they have some really cool ghost town stuff from what I hear.

[The Repro Kid]

I was using after effects to put togther videos but due to constraints (man it's hard to pirate stuff these days, uh, I mean, boy those upgrade cost are killing me) I went ahead and bought Final cut express. And I'm loving it. Except one thing. I use it to put together underwater videos shot through my digiatl camera. Yes, each 15 second clip at a time. After effects gives you the advantage of being able to place keyframes for every possible thing imaginable, but at the same time, final cut is so streamlined that work gets done quickly and easlily.

But I need (miss) after effect's color correction tools. with underwater video this is critical because shooting underwater is like purposly maiking a bad scan. It needs to be adjusted to bring out some color and contrast. It's true that final cut has color corrction tools, most importantly it has RGB balance and levels (the hue, satch is wrothless to me). But, its RGB balance does not show you a histogram!!!!! How the h@ll can I make critical levels adjustments to poorly exposed underwater shots without being albe to reference a historgram???!!!

This is where apple's "professional" tools fall far short of adobe's. I can make an extremley educated gueses as to what I'm adjusting in final cut, but when comparing work done to the same clips in after effects, I can't get near the results with final cut as I can with after effects when adjusting the worst of my clips. This isn't an issue when using shots taken on dry land. There's plenty of color and it's simple to spruce them up a bit. It's a whole different story when dealing with sub-optimal exposures, such as ones you get when shooting underater.

Shame on you apple! Who would include levels controls without including a way to view your R, G, B and composite historgrams?

[fotoasylum]

The Repro Kid....

First and foremost you said you bought Final Cut Express..... That being said it is not really a pro edit software. I am not sure that Final Cut Pro has a histogram either as I have not to use it but I will be happy to find out. If you were using FCE and you still have After Effects you could just out put to AE and do your color correction there, and go back to FCE. Just a thought before you throw away a good software.

Good luck and I hope it works out for you....

[The Repro Kid]

Thanks for the feedback. We have Final Cut Pro where I work and the color correction features appear to be identical. I think FCP has additional production features but my little movies don't warrant that much power.

Optimum would be to correct the clips in After effects and do the editing in FCE. My after Effects is version 5 for macOs9 that I've been running in classic mode. I don't have classic on my new computer and purchasing after effects will be too darn costly at this point in time. I don't exactly own AfterEffects and I've been trying to be very good about doing all things leagal these days.