I've been given 720 SD footage shot in 2007 to edit into a program. When I apply color corrections with Wheels or Color Boards. it visibly softens the sharpness. Is there a way around this?
I very much appreciate any help!
Duncan
Yes...
Final Cut does a fairly remarkable job of upscaling SD footage to HD. Unfortunately, adding Effects to the footage (not just Color Board) will actually turn off that upscaling.
There is a "built in" Sharpen effect in FCP, but it sucks.
Try this one instead:
https://fcpxtemplates.com/sdm_downloads/sc-ez-sharpen/
Install as an Effect (if you need help: https://fcpxtemplates.com/installing-plugins-for-fcpx/).
This is a barebones effect for sharpening, extremely lightweight. You can add it first or after other effects.
I recommend trying to NOT go over 50 unless absolutely necessary. Grab hold of the slider and watch the screen very carefully — you want to "just reach clarity" and don't go beyond it (it will start looking a bit harsh and although it might look clearer, it's not generally what you'll want.)
Hope it helps!
Yes...
Final Cut does a fairly remarkable job of upscaling SD footage to HD. Unfortunately, adding Effects to the footage (not just Color Board) will actually turn off that upscaling.
There is a "built in" Sharpen effect in FCP, but it sucks.
Try this one instead:
https://fcpxtemplates.com/sdm_downloads/sc-ez-sharpen/
Install as an Effect (if you need help: https://fcpxtemplates.com/installing-plugins-for-fcpx/).
This is a barebones effect for sharpening, extremely lightweight. You can add it first or after other effects.
I recommend trying to NOT go over 50 unless absolutely necessary. Grab hold of the slider and watch the screen very carefully — you want to "just reach clarity" and don't go beyond it (it will start looking a bit harsh and although it might look clearer, it's not generally what you'll want.)
Hope it helps!
fox_m wrote:
Final Cut does a fairly remarkable job of upscaling SD footage to HD. Unfortunately, adding Effects to the footage (not just Color Board) will actually turn off that upscaling.
Thanks for the info. Does it help if FCP is let to upscale the footage, and that is exported as ProRes, and that ProRes is imported back, and then Effects added?
The Viewer is set to Better Quality and not Better Performance?
For 720P footage, Fidelity Fuze is a new upscaler that works inside FCP that might be worth trying the free demo. fcp dot cafe has a short writeup about it and a case study.
Try this first: make the clip, without any effects, a Compound Clip, then apply the effects to the CC layer.
Just to confirm, the lack of sharpness persists after the clip with the color correction effect has been rendered?
MtD
Hi Meg, The reduction in sharpness now seems to be a function of applying a Color Wheels change. The lack of sharpness does persist after the color correction. However, if I use only one Color Board and no Color Wheel, the sharpness doesn't change. Thanks for asking!
The Viewer is indeed set to Better Quality, not Better Performance.
What I'm hoping to discover is how to edit this 720 footage using Color Wheels but without the Wheels causing the footage to visibly lose some focus. A tech person at FCP says this problem can happen when putting effects on old footage.
Thank you so much for telling me about Fidelity Fuze. I'll definitely try it. Then I'll see if Color Wheels causes the Fidelity Fuze footage to lose focus. Maybe not.
Thanks again, Terryb!
Matti, thank you. My very limited understanding of the FCP process is that once footage is exported the edit points are locked in. Then if the footage is reimported, the clips are not visually separate anymore and can't be easily edited separately with different effects. In any case, I also tried applying a Color Wheels edit to a compound clip made of this older 720 footage, and it still caused it to lose focus. So I'm just going to go forward using a Color Board for the rest of the edit. Thanks again, Matti.
Good luck! Please report back with your findings.
Is the 720 footage smaller than the project (vertical) size?
fox_m, please pardon my ignorance, but I don't think I understand how to answer your question. Final Cut says the footage is 720 X 486 and its Rec 601 (NTSC). Does that help? Thanks.
Foxm, once I finish this edit (60 minutes) I will give this a try. Thanks so much for letting me know about it!
Thank you terryb. I dowloaded the Fidelity Fuze user's manual and I will study it when I complete this edit, which is still some time away. If I have some success, I will report back! Thanks again.
Color corrections soften images in older 720 footage. How fix?
