Is it time for me to master Color?
 

Images on my Apple Cinema Display look wonderful, but less than wonderful on my flat panel HDTV. Is this an encoding issue or is it time for me to buy a proofing monitor and learn how to work with Color?

For example, I recently shot a short film with a Canon HV20. White balance and everything looked fine at the time and the images were fine while editing. On my tv, darker skinned characters are completely "underexposed" for lack of a better term: the facial details are lost. There was no shortage of light in the rooms. Other colors, like yellows are more intense than they appeared on the edit screen.

I'm thinking this is either a calibration issue (either with the cinema display, tv or both) or some crazy encoding thing that I'm ignorant of. Yes, the FCS manual says to have a proofing monitor but I was hoping to avoid that if not completely necessary.

Can someone give me a quick overview of what's going on? Is this something I could fix in Color?

And if a proofing monitor is required,can I get by with a 9 or 10 incher to save money?

Thank you,
Bob

You can't judge you final image quality on your computer display nor you can't judge your final image quality on what you see in FCP's Canvas window. You don't necessarily need to jump into Color as FCP's built in color correction tools are good, but you do need to be looking at a more accurate display so you can see what you are doing.

The best bang-for-your-buck would be a Matrox MXO ($999) and a 23" Apple Cinema Display ($899 new but cheaper if you can find it refurbished from Apple). Shane Ross has a good review of the MXO and he was able to get it to nearly match his Sony HD CRT b'cast monitor.

Here is a link to his review.
http://library.creativecow.net/artic..._shane/MXO.php


-A

Thanks. I have the 23 ACD. I've seen Sony 9 inch broadcast CRTs at B&H for less than a grand, I think. Would that be suitable?

The next question is: So I see that the image is not what I think it should be. How do begin fixing it in FC?

Could you link to one of the monitors you looked at? You'd still need a way to get the signal out of FCP and into the monitor, though. W/DV it was pretty simple 'cause you could use a camera or a deck to act as a go-between, but unfortunately that's not the case w/HDV. The downside to going w/a monitor that small is that you won't be able to see the full 1920x1080 image at 1:1 to make sure everything looks as it should (nothing is just a bit off focus, the gfx look the way they should, no bit of unwanted boom or reflection is hiding anywhere, etc.,.).

Now that's a whole other ball of wax. ;)

If you hit google you'll be able to find a bunch of color correction tutorials using FCP's built in 3-way color correction. I'd start there first. If down the line you feel like you are being limited by the built in tools you can look at powerful yet still simple to use 3rd party apps like Colorista or Magic Bullet Looks from Red Giant software. If you really want to get "down in it" and tackle Color there are good Color training DVDs from Ripple Training, Noah Kadner, and Walter Biscardi.

Sorry I don't have time to grab all the actual links, but if you just google them you'll find the DVDs pretty quickly.


-A

Here's the monitor I looked at. I just realized that it's SD:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...93_9_SDTV.html

Naive question: must it be a HDTV monitor for color correction purposes. I imagine so but want to know for sure.

Yes, I see your point about having a full size monitor as it would be easy to miss something on the edges.

SD and HD operate in different color spaces so, yes, you'd want an HD monitor to work with.


-A