Any After Effects CS3 users? Please Read

Got this from AE Guru Chris Meyer. Seems to be a real problem and was wondering if any of you using AE CS3 and FCP 6 can take a moment to confirm this "bug."

Capture a video file in FCP. Let's call that file #1.

Bring it into a composition in AE CS3, render it back out with no
modications to the same format. Call that file #2.

Go into AE's File > Project Settings and enable the Match Legacy
Gamma switch (defaults off for new projects). Render again; call it
file #3.

Compare the three files in QuickTime Player or FCP.

#2 - the default render from AE CS3 - will be darker. (Enabling and properly using
color management in AE CS3 will not cure it; just the legacy gamma
switch. At the cost of AE looking different on the Mac than on
Windows.)

Michael Horton
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Unless this is something new, I think it's to do with the fact that After Effects works in RGB and FCP used to apply a automatic gamma adjustment on import and export (pre 5.1.2)

Since 5.1.2 there has been the option to choose what happens when you import from a RGB application. I haven't had much of a play with it myself, but you can find the options in Final Cut Pro > User Preferences > Editing > Imported Still/Video Gamma.

Good point but I'd think AE/FCP users would know that. But...I'll see. Thanks for that.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Jude Cotter Wrote:
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> Unless this is something new

This is something new. According to Adobe, as of CS3, they are now correctly interpreting the gamma of QT video files to be 2.2, and are tagging the results as such when they write them. According to Adobe, Apple is not reading this tag in QT Player or FCP, instead treating them as being at the system gamma of 1.8. The result is they look darker than they "should" in QTP or FCP.

Adobe started doing this in AE because previously, they left gamma alone, defaulting to the platform gamma (1.8 on Mac, 2.5 on Windows), causing the two to look different. With Premiere et al now being cross platform, they want things to look the same on the two platforms. But now they're finding Apple is not reading the tags that Adobe was told to use. (According to Adobe. I'm a third party in all this.)

The workaround in AE CS3 is to check the "match legacy gamma" box in the project settings, but as this is _not_ the default, a lot of people are going to miss it, and get into trouble...

Now, there is a chance that the Imported Still/Video Gamma checkbox on AE will "fix" this for FCP, and I'd love to know if it does! (No, most AE users do not know about that switch in FCP, even if more advanced FCP users do.)

- Chris

Yeah I don't think that most people in general know about it, Chris, or really understand it. (I'm including myself in the last part of this statement)

The new import settings for gamma level let you choose between
Source
1.80
2.00
2.22
and Custom

If you choose custom you can insert your own value.

Windows default gamma setting is 2.2 and Macintosh is 1.8. I won't speculate on why Adobe chose 2.2 as their default gamma setting although I am sorely tempted.

solely or sorely?



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

What's about this?
[developer.apple.com]

Andreas

Andrew Stone Wrote:
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> I won't speculate on why Adobe chose 2.2
> as their default gamma setting

Because they believe it to be the gamma of DV. (And it is the gamma of sRGB, a web standard.) FWIW, they actually refer to the gamma of Windows to be 2.5 (even though Windows often defaults to using sRGB).

- Chris