Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse 1.5 ?

GlennChan wrote on 2/26/2006, 4:40 PM

It doesn't integrate with Vegas, so that's probably a negative right there. You'd probably have to convert your .veg to an After Effects project (there's a 3rd party tool for this I believe) and then work with CF there. CF2 supposedly supports XML import, which would be better if it works (although effects and speed changes tend not to carry over, which might get to be a problem).

From what I've tried of Color Finesse:

PRO:
better still store
Some different color correction options
Can match colors for you. In Vegas, this is tedious.
32-bit floating point calculations

CON:
In AE, you can only work on still frames. The Color Finesse *interface* is a stand-alone program that can only get still frames in. The filter works in AE, but the interface part gets kicked into a stand-alone program.

The secondary color corrector is a bit more confusing. I believe it doesn't have the same degree of control as Vegas'.

Doesn't combine with other effects or masking. In Vegas, you can mask areas to apply corrections to just that area. To do this in AE would be aggravating, since it takes time to move between programs.

2- There may be subtle differences in output quality depending on how CF implements the math involved. I haven't looked into this to really know the differences. The color corrector in Vegas can be improved upon slightly, and the broadcast colors plug-in can definitely be improved.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't really improve over Vegas' toolset. Quality-wise, it might be slightly better in some areas.
Speed-wise, working in CF would likely slow you down a lot.

Grazie wrote on 2/26/2006, 11:53 PM

Thank you Glenn.

I've been having a conversation on another Forum - DVInfo - about how we could "automate" the CC options from input from "preferred" footage to that which we wanted to CC.

One suggestion was Finesse.

I did look at the reviews and the demo screen shots. Did really understand much of it and thought that maybe somebody around these parts had had an handle on it.

I did offer the "compare" option, copying a Snapshot to Clipboard technique, and then this software popped up as an option. The original enquirer realizing that there is an automated "audio" option from elsewhere, was wondering if there was a CC option, that is: Here is what I got in Video 1 > Now I want this Video 2 to look the same as Video 1 - and do it in an automated way.

So, your opinion, stay with Vegas?

I'm happy, and the "vast" ( lol ) quantity of CC I do presently will more than be covered by the Vegas tool-set.

Glenn, thanks again!

Grazie

Grazie wrote on 2/26/2006, 11:55 PM

Glenn . ..

Oh! One of your PROS . . How does it match colours for you? More to the point, and this is nothing like the manual way we do it Vegas? - g

GlennChan wrote on 2/27/2006, 3:45 AM

In Vegas, the only way I know of is to do it by eye. In some cases, doing it by eye is the best as it takes into account surround effects.
A webpage I threw up a while back:
http://tig.colorist.org/wiki2/index.php/Human_Perception_Quirks - see simultaneous contrast.
For real-world footage, going to that level of detail may be splitting hairs though. The colors (in what you want to match, and in the surround) will be different anyways... and the viewers eyes + memory will usually be forgiving about that. One source of different colors is specular reflections off a surface... i.e. walk around a mirror and its colors will change. A mirror is close to 100% specular reflections, so that's an extreme case... but you get the point.

2- CF, from what I remember, will make the colors match numerically. I forget which controls it adjusts... I think it's the rgb gamma controls. I can't remember if it did matching for the secondary color correctors... I think it can.

GlennChan wrote on 2/27/2006, 3:59 AM

Here's a quickie tutorial I wrote up on how to match colors in Vegas:

http://www.glennchan.info/matching/matching.htm

At the end of the day, two cameras may have different colors due to various factors, one being metamerism. It isn't something you can get rid of.
Google metamerism.
semi-relevant info:
see pages 15 - 17

Specular reflections I already mentioned. Again something you can't get rid of.

Ultimately, the way to do things is to use the secondary color corrector to make key colors match. You have some leeway in the audience's eyes + memory though, so you have to work in that boundary. Think of this way:
In real life, you experience metamerism and specular reflections. Yet it's not going to be an issue for you 99%... you're not going to walk around and notice color discontinuities.

The time when you really notice metamerism is under streetlights.

Marco. wrote on 2/27/2006, 6:09 AM

The way to use Color Finesse within Vegas is to use Boris FX as a kind "master plugin". Boris FX is the Vegas plugin then, Color Finesse the Boris FX filter.

Marco

RJ Fielder wrote on 2/27/2006, 6:33 AM

I use Boris Red, but for some reason I was never able to get CF to work in it even though it's on the supported list. Maybe I need an older version?