super saturate just one color fcp

[Michael Alexa]

hello,

trying to super saturate one particular color per clip. working with fcp 6.0.6.

not looking for the pleasantville effect where all of image is greyscale EXCEPT the chosen saturated color.

actually looking to keep the images as they were captured in full color, then super enhance (saturate) a particular color from the image. for instance, 3 actors on the beach, male actor in the middle wearing blue shirt, want to super saturate his blue shirt and leave everything else in clip as it appears in "actual" color from cam to fcp. so only the blue color of his tshirt pops compared to all of the other colors. hope this makes sense.

thanks for any help

[Aaron Fowler]

Hi Michael.

Add a new Color Correction or Color Corrector 3-Way video filter to your clip. With the clip selected in the Viewer click on the Color Correction tab, look down the bottom of the viewer window and it says Limit Effect. Expand it and there are controls that you can use to isolate a hue and saturation. Once you isolate your colour than you use the filter as normal and it will only effect the colour you've selected.

Having an actor in a blue shirt at the beach might cause a problem though. You might have to tweak the Limit Effect settings to try (if possible) to isolate the shirt from the blue in the water and the sky. Otherwise you might have try something fancier like roto or something that I don't know about.

Hope it works out well. Happy grading!

[Scott Anderson]

The problem with using the Limit Effect on the 3-way is you can only eyedropper a color, then tweak your H/S/L values from that. Also, you don't get any kind of graphical preview of where your "key" is actually falling.

This is one of those things that the Secondaries room (tab) in Color was made for. There's an eyedropper that allows you to drag ACROSS a range of values, then tweak your H/S/L to taste. Much quicker way to get there.

If you've been hesitant to try out Color - just jump in with both feet. You won't be disappointed. If you want to get up to speed quickly, I suggest Lynda.com

Everyone I've demoed Color to is absolutely blown away. So powerful, and really not that complicated once you get past the wonky looking interface.

[Jeremy Doyle]

Originally Posted by Scott Anderson

Also, you don't get any kind of graphical preview of where your "key" is actually falling.

If you hit the little key icon it most certainly does show the matte and where the key is actually falling.

Originally Posted by Scott Anderson

This is one of those things that the Secondaries room (tab) in Color was made for. There's an eyedropper that allows you to drag ACROSS a range of values, then tweak your H/S/L to taste. Much quicker way to get there.

Agreed, however, that Color is much quicker at this. Although it's still very easy to do with FCP's built in color corrector.

[Mike Petrucco]

Color is awesome, but, you have to prep your sequence for it. Any clips with motion tab adjustments need to be baked, and all of your transitions need to be in place. I just got reminded the hard way that only the part of the clip between in and out points makes the round trip, so if you want to a cross dissolve (for instance) after the return from color, you have nothing to work without after the outcoing clips out point and the incoming clips in point. There probably is a way to resend to color and back without re-applying grades and re-rendering, but I have not tested or researched it yet.

All that to say, that Color is so much nicer to work in than color correcting within FCP, but you have to plan your workflow carefully.

If I have drawn a wrong conclusion on this, PLEASE correct me. I would love to be wrong on this.

[Aaron Fowler]

I agree that Color will do this task a lot better than FCP could and I use Color for most of my grading. The original post asked how to achieve this effect in FCP so that's what I answered. I just assumed (stupid of me I know) that you didn't want to or couldn't for whatever reason use another program.

When I was learning Color I found the biggest learning curve was the interface, and once you understand how each room works it's just like grading in FCP only with more control. Color is an excellent tool to learn, whether it be for this project, the next or the one planned for mid next year.

Like Scott said, go to Lynda.com or I even found the videos on the Apple website useful.

If you already know Color then even better.

[Jeremy Doyle]

Originally Posted by Mike Petrucco

Color is awesome, but, you have to prep your sequence for it. Any clips with motion tab adjustments need to be baked, and all of your transitions need to be in place.

This has changed with the latest release. Color 1.5 now recognizes speed changes in the clips.

Originally Posted by Mike Petrucco

I just got reminded the hard way that only the part of the clip between in and out points makes the round trip, so if you want to a cross dissolve (for instance) after the return from color, you have nothing to work without after the outcoing clips out point and the incoming clips in point.

You can set Color to render handles. I usually have it render 2 seconds on either side to be sure. That gives me plenty if I have to make minor changes.

Color really should be the last step in the process, however. Picture should be locked.

[Michael Alexa]

thanks for all the help. these suggestions will get me started.