Blog Archives

Changing the color of a gradient in Final Cut Pro X requires opening it in Motion and making changes. This article describes how.

A subscriber recounts the difficulties, and the workaround that fixed them, he experienced with Buzz lines cropping up in a project.

For those of you interested in a more technical look at the Broadcast Safe filter, Dennis Couzin, technical assistant to a video documentarian based in Germany, sent me the following article that he wrote.

What happens when you change Final Cut’s display background to any color except black? Much less than you think. Here’s why.

What’s the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit video and why should editors care? Well, if you are doing a lot of effects, you should care a lot and this article explains why.

Dealing with shifting color temperatures during shooting presents a raft of problems during editing. This article describes what you can do during shooting to compensate for color temperature changes, as well as how to “fix it in post.”

You know the drill. The client didn’t have the money for makeup when they were shooting the video, then is horrified to discover in post that their star/kid/sweetie has a humongous zit that spoils all the close-ups of the video they dumped in your lap to edit.

Understanding how to read the Waveform Monitor and Vectorscope are essential to getting the best possible pictures out of Final Cut Pro. This article gives you an overview of how to read them and what they mean.

Until version 5.1.2, the scopes in Final Cut were notorious for being almost, but not quite, accurate. That all changed with 5.1.2. and they’ve been enhanced in FCP 6. This article provides a more technical discussion on the quality of Final Cut Pro’s scopes, especially in regard to Color.

The video scopes in Final Cut, while accurate, don’t show the entire picture. If you use the scopes in your work, you need to read this warning.

Larry finally gets the chance to answer the question he’s been waiting for : What is the “Color Thingy”?

Apple just finished its event for NAB 2007 — where they announced Final Cut Server, Final Cut Studio 2 and Color! And I thought you might be interested in some more immediate observations.

One of the effects I wanted to create for my training was a reflection of a moving clip of video. This is what we are going to create in this technique.

Gamma settings control the gray-scale midpoint. The reason this is significant is that Macs, video, and Windows all use slightly different settings. This means that video that looks good on one system, may look washed out or too dark on others. Snow Leopard, however, has changed the rules. In this article, I explain what gamma is, how to use it, and where to set it.

This is a comprehensive look at how computer and video graphics are different and what you need to know to create great looking video text and graphics. This article can make your life a LOT easier!

This technique describes an interesting effect combining a traveling matte and a pond ripple filter which allows you to color an effect as it moves across the screen.

Folks that have worked with video for a long time are often confused about where to set the black level for digital video. This article explains what you need to know — and, relax, it isn’t that hard.

Video, generally, has two bit-depths: 8 and 10. In this short article, I provide an analogy that helps to understand what bit-depth is, why its important, and when you should consider working in 10-bit depth.