A new plugin...by me

Yes, I too have entered the PLUG-IN making arena. Well...kinda. This is a 3-way Color Correction preset that I made and turned into a plugin.

I had a look for my recreations that I really loved...a preset in Magic Bullet. But the render time was going to be NUTS...so I saw how close I could come using the 3-Way Color Correction tool. Well, I nailed it. I got it to look EXACTLY the same. At first it was completely RT...no rendering whatsoever. But I have to limit the Luma so that my whites stayed white while all the other colors were affected, so now it is a light green render. Still...what would have taken me 10 minutes to render now takes me under 1 min...that that is a HUGE bonus.

Here it is for you to enjoy:

[homepage.mac.com]

It is called SR Color Reversal (SR=Shane Ross). Color Reversal film stock is very colorful, but has a low "latitude"...difference between darks and brights, so the image "pops."

Unzip it and install it into your PLUGINS folder in the following path:
HARD DRIVE>LIBRARY>APPLICATION SUPPORT>FINAL CUT PRO SYSTEM SUPPORT>PLUGINS. It will appear in the Color Correction folder in the Effects tab. And it is completely modifyable...as it is a 3-way CC preset. The colors and saturation should be set, but depending on how your footage is lit, you need only adjust the LOWs and MIDs slider to brighten the image. But not too much. How I retain the rich color is by crushing the blacks.

Play with it and let me know how it works. Built with FCP 5.0.4.

Many thanks to Graeme Nattress for assistance in writing this. I did it while wearing my Nattress Logo shirt, as to get the 'Nattress Mojo' while coding.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Hey, Shane, that's great! I'm going to try it, maybe my Sony Z1 footage will look more like film :-)

It certainly helps DVCPRO HD. Lemme know how it does with HDV.

Too bad I can't simulate the grain. For that I use Misfire by Red Giant. But the render times are more than nuts.

Awesome Shane. I'll be sure to tell the world in the next lafcpug newsletter.

Michael Horton
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Just downloaded and it worked great. Very nice look with little or no render time on a powerbook. Congrats.

That was my aim. A great look and little render time. The Magic Bullet version is one of my favorite presets, but the render times, though vastly improved with v2 of the software, are still nuts, expecially when working with HD. Plus I like the control the color wheels provide.

I was absolutely GIDDY when I matched the look with the 3-way. Made my month.

Nice work Mr Ross!

An effect we used to use for grain on video (and for scratches and hairs) back in the day was to shoot ends of film reel on white (or black for scratches) and after telecine we'd overlay the grain stock using After Effects (couldn't do it in Avid).

Try this in FCP using layer Composite Modes.

My suggestions would be "Multiply" for Grain on White and "Subtract" for Grain on Black.

You may need to tweak the grain a bit to bring it out and whiten the majority of the grain overlay so that it doesn't darken your picture too much but you can apply a 3-way and use opacity to control the amount and saturation of grain you see.

I think you'll find the render is still be quicker than Misfire.


You can create some stock specific grain on black/white in After Effects using the Add Grain Filter on a white or black solid and export it for use in FCP.

It works very well. A few seconds can be looped easily so you dont need to render minutes of it.


For those of you who dont have access to After Effects you can create a simple dancing grain in Photoshop by creating say 50 to 100 frames and compiling them in FCP and exporting it as a file to use as mentioned above.

? You use the "Add Noise" filter and step change each frame you create in small increments (eg: 0.01%).

? To really get it looking good you can add a gaussian blur of 0.1 up to 0.6 to the grain layer and add an overlaying layer (of the same background colour - white for white, black for black) of 80% to 95% opacity.

? Output each frame as a TARGA and import into FCP

? Compile a sequence of frames and export a quicktime or several in the format(s) you use most often. Ready to import and use as described eariler.


If anyone wants me to, I'll create a simple tutorial for these (with pictures) soon.


Ben

OT: Mike I know you and Phillip were talking on DPB about doing a faux progressive look with 2 layers of blended upper & lower field tracks.

Have a look at the "Too Much Too Soon Filters" from Mattias Sandström. It has a very good blend fields filter that gives an excellent quality progressive look without the manual hassle.

[mattias.nu]

Best of all they are free.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Nice look! Shane, can you put some information on that page so that if someone were to Google the filter, they'd be able to find it without knowing about this forum link? I'm assuming that you're happy to share the filter? Right now, Googling "SR Color Reversal" takes me to Eastman Kodak, for some reason.


www.derekmok.com

Derek, Google takes a while before it catalogues your page and indexes it and makes it searchable. Something like 3 months if I recall correctly. But it will get there.

And Ben, it would be very cool to find alternative ways to making grain that don't involve actual footage that you composite, so that you can share it with others. I have done the white film composited, but not for a while. I have used Cineons Cinelook (Looooooong renders) and Misfire (loooooong renders), and also CGM LE (decent renders)...and what I like about CGM LE is that it is free. Can't recall the link right now.

But if you have a neat way to make nice subtle grain, I am sure everyone would love a tutorial. Video tutorials are very handy and people love them.

Cool - will try to do one soon.

The photoshop way is extremely easy to control the level of the grain, although it takes longer in the first place to create all the frames.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

> Google takes a while before it catalogues your page and indexes it and makes it searchable.

Oh, really? I could've sworn my own webpage became searchable about two months or so. I'm a complete doofus when it comes to the internet.

What about putting a link to it on LAFCPUG somewhere? Mike, what do you think?


www.derekmok.com

If you want I can put it in the lafcpug store as a free item. That gets lots of traffic.

Michael Horton
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Oh, and I can link to your site Shane if you want traffic to go there. Or lafcpug can host it. Might be a better business decision to get it off your dot mac page and host it over on LFHD. If lafcpug host it it looks like a lafcpug plug-in.

Michael Horton
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Lemme get iWeb and make a better LFHD.net page and then I'll have you link to it.

Cool.

Great work Shane! We'll make a code guru out of you yet!!!

Graeme

[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Hey, Shane, I followed the path you suggested to install the plugin, but the plugin window won't allow me to place the plugin there. It says "you can't modify plugin..."

Hey i can't downlaod it, comes up with a 404, can't find the homepage

> I followed the path you suggested to install the plugin, but the plugin window won't allow me
> to place the plugin there. It says "you can't modify plugin..."

Are you the System Administrator? If not, you may be locked out of modifying the Library folder in the system disk. Shane's plugin popped right up on my system, no problem, despite the fact that (I'm fairly sure) he's using FCP5 and I'm using FCP4.


www.derekmok.com

It worked with FCP 4? That is pretty cool...

Aaron, I fixed the link. I had it on my personal pages and not my professional ones. The link is fixed now.

thanks Shane. it worked great (i have 4.5), and better yet, it looked great! what a time saver

Rebecca

I'm the system administrator, so what am I suppose to do to include the plugin in my plugins folder?

Open the Hard Drive, then LIBRARY>APPLICATION SUPPORT>FINAL CUT PRO SYSTEM SUPPORT>PLUGINS. Drop it in the Plugins Folder.

What happens when you try this?

Man, Shane, I don't know much about things, but this looks great!

Thanks Shane,

Just did a quick test . Looks terrific.

Dave

It says, "you can't change plugin settings" or something like that.

OK...in that box there should be a button that says AUTHORIZE. Click it.

I finally remembered my administrative password :-)

Okay, the filter is working now. Wow! What a filter!

Why can't all FCP filters work like this?

This will come in very handy when I'm color correcting...

It's really very valuable. Shane, you should be commended for this filter. I think Apple should give you an award or something. Maybe they should use you as a consultant in the future. This was a great idea you came up with, and you implemented it. It was also awful nice of Nattress to help out.

Keep on designing filters, Shane!

Thanks!

Vic

filmman Wrote:
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> Why can't all FCP filters work like this?
>
Well, this is just a 3-way color correction preset..not a true filter/plugin. Just a look I achieved and wanted to share.

People have to know how powerful the 3-way color corrector is...

But it's so sluggish. I have to drag and drag. One day my mouse will expire under my thumb pressure. LOL

Your filter has the bars. I slide them this way and that and voila! I get the film look all the way back from the silent B & W days to my San Francisco psychedelic days look :-)