2009

Stage 3: Grading and Rendering Your Program
After you send your sequence to Color, you can use its dedicated tool set, in conjunction
with a control surface, a color-critical monitor, and an appropriately equipped system, to
grade your program. After you finish, you use the Color Render Queue to render a new,
color-corrected set of media files. Color renders one new file for each shot that appears
in the Timeline.
Stage 4: Sending Your Project Back to Final Cut Pro with a New Set of Media
The Send To Final Cut Pro command in Color uses XML to convert your Color project to
a new Final Cut Pro sequence in the original project file, with “(from Color)” appended to
its name. This sequence is automatically linked to the new media that Color rendered. At
this point, any effects that didn’t show up in Color reappear in Final Cut Pro, and you can
put the finishing touches on the sequence (such as making final adjustments to the titles
and credits and replacing the original program audio with the finished audio mix) before
outputting it.
Although there’s much more dedicated workflow information in the Color documentation,
here are some important highlights that you should keep in mind.
Preparing Your Sequence to Send to Color
Whether you’re working on your own project or preparing a client’s project in advance
of a Color grading session, you should take some time to prepare the Final Cut Pro
sequence you’ll be sending in order to ensure the best results and the smoothest workflow.
Here are some recommendations to keep in mind.
• All clips that aren’t being composited or superimposed should be moved to track V1.
• Color Corrector 3-way filters are automatically converted to Primary In room adjustments.
However, if more than one has been applied to a clip, only the last Color Corrector
3-way filter appearing in the Filters tab is converted; all others are ignored. Also, Color
Corrector 3-way filters with Limit Effects turned on are ignored. Because Final Cut Pro
is a Y′C
B
C
R
processing application and Color is an RGB processing application, Color
Corrector 3-way conversions are only approximations and will not precisely match the
original corrections made in Final Cut Pro.
• All unnecessary video filters should be removed. Video filters don’t appear in Color,
but they’ll reappear when your project is sent back to Final Cut Pro, so make sure to
keep the filters that are important and eliminate the filters that will be redundant after
you’ve graded the program in Color.
• Dividing long projects into shorter reels may provide better performance if your program
uses a high-bandwidth format like uncompressed HD, REDCODE, or DPX image
sequences.
87Chapter 5 Finishing