How to make color correction follow one clip only through transition

Hi!

I have encountered one problem which is probably easily solved.. Ok, so lets see if I can make this understandable..


Lets say I have two clips in the timeline and they are color corrected differently using an "adjustment layer" on top of them I want the transition between these clips to be "page curl". If I were to not have any transition between these clips, I would drag the adjustment layers to the end of the clips, and everything would be ok (fig. 1). But, the way I want to set it up with the "page curl" transition, both clips will be in the frame at the same time (e.g. half way through the transition). How can I have the adjustment layers only apply to their respective clips throughout a transition in which both opposing video clips is showing at the same time? In fig. 2 you can see that where the marker is, the adjustment layer to the left will be applied to both clips, and half way through the clip the next adjustment layer will apply its correction to the clips underneath.


I guess one way to fix this would be to apply the color correction / LUT directly on the clips rather than in an adjustment layer on top. But is there another way to fix this?


Q1: Is there a way to have the adjustment layers only apply to their respective clips throughout a transition in which both opposing video clips is showing at the same time (e.g. "page curl" transition)?


Q2: I like using adjustment layers to apply things like color correction or a letter box etc. as I can drag them over multiple clips. This is way faster for me than copying and pasting attributes to all the different clips. Is this the proper way of doing this? How do professionals do these things inside FCPX (not using external applications e.g. DaVinci Resolve)?


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Fig. 1. Adjustment Layers above "shines" down on their respective clips, A OK.

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Fig. 2. The leftward / first purple Adjustment layer (on the playhead) affects both clips during the "page curl" transition, which is weird. When the "page curl" effect is half way (leftward video on the right side of the screen, and the rightward video DJI_0016 coming in on the left side of the screen) the color correction for the next Adjustment Layer is applied, and a noticeable change can be seen during the transition.

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Fig. 3. At this point (playhead) the "page curl" transition is half way through and both clips are showing. Also at this point the color correction in the Adjustment Layers on top will change and give a noticable change in both clips showing.

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), nVidia 775m, 3.4GHz i5, 16GB RAM

Posted on Feb 21, 2018 12:22 PM

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Posted on Feb 21, 2018 2:10 PM

You could make each pair clip/adjustment layer into a compound clip and apply the transition between the two compounds.

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11 replies

Mar 2, 2018 8:55 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Tom Wolsky: I agree with you. Usually I make an Adjustment Layer for the entire "scene" (clips shot at the same time, same lighting and colors etc.) to which I apply the same color corrections / LUTs. Sometimes though, I later realize that there are minor differences in lighting etc., so I "blade" the Adjustment layer into smaller clips to do minor corrections. From now on I will make the color corrections/LUTs directly in the video clip on the primary storyline when I am dealing with transitions.


Luis Sequeira1: Great! That's what I was looking for, thanks!

Mar 2, 2018 10:55 AM in response to Anterialis

Adjustment layer is a great way to apply a look or LUT to multiple clips in a timeline. As soon as you start cutting it up you’re kind of defeating its purpose. I don’t think there any one way professionals do it. Copy paste to multiple clips is very quick. I think most apply camera LUTs to the clip in the browser before they even cut it in. I suspect the majority apply effects to individual clips and copy/paste to repeated shots.


When you use a single look either in paste attributes or an adjustment layer often a single clip won’t look quite right. The LUT or whatever has a slightly different effect and you want to tweak the underlying image. This is much simpler to do to the underlying clip, to make a small adjustment to it, than to cut up the adjustment layer.

Mar 2, 2018 6:03 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

This approach works most of the time, maybe all the time, but is there an easier way?

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Just so that everybody understands my problem:

The playhead (white line) is hovering over the transition in question. The adjustment layer above the compound clip "Buss_Kort" contains information about color correction which I want to apply to the compound clip "Buss_Kort". Between the black background/Custom solid ahead of it (where the red skimmer is hovering) and the "Buss_Kort" compound clip, I want a transition (in this case, the "Wipe" transition").


(Look at the pic. below)

As the wipe transition gradually introduces the "Buss_Kort" clip from the left (wiping/moving rightwards), I want the color correction in the Adjustment Layer to follow only the "Buss_Kort" clip being introduced from the left of the screen, and not apply color correction to the "Custom" solid before it (to the right of the screen in my edit). The reason for this is that I have a colorful title over the black solid screen, and I dont want to color correct that, at least not similar to the correction applied to the "Buss_Kort" clip.


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If I put the "Adjustment Layer" file containing the color correction information inside the "Buss_Kort" compound clip, I would have to open the compound clip to make changes to the color correction. I guess this isn't really a problem when I think about it..


Q1: But is there an easier way, or a different way? Or is this the way it should be done, and the way people are doing it? How do you color correct video clips through an transition having the color correction not apply to the entire screen (containing both clips in the middle of the transition) but only apply to each own video clip?


Q2: A new question came to mind when trying to add the "Adjustment layer" above into an existing compound clip. Now it seems FCPX creates a compound clip inside a compound clip, and that I have to first open the first "layer" of the compound clip, and click it a second time to enter the previously created compound clip. How can I add the Adjustment Layer into the original compound clip?


How it looks now:

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When I double click the "Buss_Kort" compound clip:

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Here you can see that the compound clip contains my Adjustment Layer and the previously created compound clip (with the same name...) "Buss_Kort". When I click this compound clip:


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The first compound clip is shown. How can I just add the "Adjustment Layer" to this compound clip so I dont have to have a compound clip with a compound clip inside?

Mar 2, 2018 9:27 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but it sounds a lot faster to just do one color correction / LUT on the Adjustment Layer and "apply" / drag it over several clips, than to do the color correction / LUT on one clip and copy-paste to the other clips? Especially since I usually make several changes as I go along... But I am looking for other ways of doing it, I cant really understand that there isnt a better way of doing it? I've asked this before, but how do the professionals do it? If they want to quickly apply the same look/correction to several clips? Do they really copy-paste attributes to all the clips within a scene every time they make changes?


And the same goes for "sharpening" and similar adjustments that you want to apply to the entire project, or at least bigger parts of the project? I doubt people add "sharpening" to each individual clip?? But again, it is weird that the "adjustment layer" doesn't come included in FCPX if this is the easies/best way of doing it...

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How to make color correction follow one clip only through transition

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