in previous videos I've shown you how to correct C log from scratch without any plugins or let's
but today let me show you the plugin that i do use to make the entire process easier I'm Rafael
and welcome to the channel I am like most of you I want to get the best image as easily as possible
with the least amount of friction it's the reason why I choose one camera system over another this
piece of software over that but to get to that point you have to try a lot of different things
to see what fits best and when you do find something that makes the creative process
easier you lean into it you embrace it full-on today I'm gonna be doing a review of color finale
tube full disclosure the guys reached out to me to see if I would be interested in doing a review
of the plugin for a free copy of it I said that I already bought the plugin and I've been using it
since version 1 but I said I would do a review if I can give away a few copies to you guys so
they were nice enough to agree to offer three copies for me to give to you guys all you have
to do for a chance to win is to like and comment on this video and I'll do a random draw in two
weeks like comment and good luck just to be very clear these are my thoughts on the plugin and how
I use it in final cut I've shown you how to color correct without any plugins or Luntz but today
let's use that plug-in and see how much better it is so let's jump into the computer so I can
show you this plugin Apple has improved its color management over the years by adding better color
controls they're more in line with the industry standards but it still lacks the industry standard
features found in DaVinci Resolve say the which is the gold standard for independent color grading
all these tools are very useful and you can use them in almost any scenario but I'm gonna show you
all the great things that color finale adds that is still sorely missing in Final Cut so let's jump
into that right now so this clip is from the Canon EOS R it is C log select your clip double click
the plug-in to add it to the clip open up your inspector if it's not open go to color management
click on show and right now it's set to assume video but because I know this is log footage I'm
gonna go to assume log and we're done thank you very much I'll talk to you guys soon my name is
Rafa I'm just kidding if your footage is exposed properly and your white balance in camera is close
this gets log footage looking great really fast let's just take a look at what has happened here
with that one click it has done all the steps that I did in the know let's and no plugins tutorial
on how to color corrects a log footage it has brought the blacks down to about five percent
and the highlights to about 95 percent the skin tones they're between 40 and 70 percent let's
see what the skin tone color is I'm gonna add in the crop and it's a little bit to the yellow side
so we want to add some more red but we can just shift the tint and bring it in the right place so
as you can see I cropped into the cheek so this is the skin tone and it's between 1570 I re so it's
nearly perfect and all I had to do is slightly adjust the tint to make sure that the skin fell
on the skintone indicator so I'm going to turn off the crop so this image right off the bat
is corrected and is usable I can now go and add any creative coloring that I want to do so that's
working with log footage but what if you're not working with log footage and you have something
straight out of the camera so this is a neutral color profile that I have on the OSR so let's just
add the plugin I'm gonna double click again and because this isn't logged this is actual video I'm
going to leave it to assume video so in this case I'm just gonna click the auto white balance button
or if you have a great card you can actually go in and select it but I'm just gonna leave it on
auto and let's just check where everything is thus far the exposure is a bit too bright so I'm gonna
bring down the highlights so I'm gonna bring down the exposure just a little bit I'm gonna
bring bring down the contrast because I want the roll off from the lights to the shadows to be a
little bit smoother and I turn on the crop to see the skin tone and I'm gonna shift the tint just
to bring some of that skintones in the right place and I'm going to increase the saturation so if you
can actually see that the skintone indicator is in the right place I may want to boost up
the exposure again so that the skin is exposed correctly I'm going to turn off the crop just
the auto white balance tool is fantastic and being able to use the skin to fine-tune it to make sure
that the skin is the proper color is amazing so let's go back to some log footage I want to
show you how powerful this plugin actually is so beyond those simple automation tools another one
specifically so I'm just gonna reset this plugin and add it again the process that I actually use
is I go to use ASIS it just stands for Academy color encoding system it's a global standard for
interchanging digital image files managing color workflows and creative masters for delivery and
archiving if this is something that you're able to get into sooner than later then that would
be fantastic so I'm going to add use ASIS and two more options come in the input space in the output
space a lot of different options if you're using a sony camera or using a Canon camera or if you know
the profile that you shot with the gamut then you just select that or very close one and then you
choose your output space and because Final Cut loves to work in rec 709 at 100 nits I'm just
gonna add that and already those two steps have made this image into a very into what I think
is a very pleasant starting point I love using aces versus the assumed log because the Roloffs
from the highlights to the darks it looks really really good this is the color space that I work
in and when I use the Vinci resolve the workflow is almost identical in my thinking when I start
working with this and because I know that the image was exposed properly and the white balance
was set properly in camera the image is gonna look good right away but if it doesn't you can always
go in and use the next amazing thing that color finale adds and that is the image analysis tools
which are fantastic so we're just going to open that up and you have false color and isolate which
these they're so good okay let's talk through one at a time false-color in final cut yes thank you
the only thing that I wish that this had right now is the ability to display a false color chart
so you can quickly reference what each of these values mean if there was just a little chart that
popped up right here that would be ideal so I know that the skin even here is almost overexposed so
you can just drop this down so just bring down the exposure just a bit so the next tool is isolate
right here so you can add a rectangle ellipse or horizontal line I'm gonna go through these one by
one so first a rectangle and it's very similar to what I was doing before just adding a little crop
but this by itself this gives you a reference right on the vectorscope and on the luma scope
just by clicking it you can change the different places and see what the value is this like yes
please like oh my god I've wanted something like this in Final Cut for the longest time and I've
been using the crop tool before but this is just it isolates it very quickly and it's fantastic
the only thing that I wish is that he was able to you're able to lock it in so you can make color
adjustments based on this isolation that's the only thing that's missing at this point so you
have the rectangle you have the ellipse which is just exactly what it says an ellipse you
can still make adjustments so I can see that the skin tone is a little bit to the red side so I can
just I can shift the tint away from the red and they just double-check it I wish there was a way
just to lock it in place and it remembered the size because every time you turn it off it just
goes away and you have to start from the beginning again so horizontal line is like I wish that final
cut had this like this is so this is this isolates just a one horizontal line and you can scan and
actually see all the way through the image what your image is so if you want to go to this section
right here and see how bright that is you know that that light is correspondent to the luma scope
and how bright it is or if you wanted to check this part here you can see right on the line or
if you want to see how the face is exposed knowing that it's right in the center this is such a handy
tool to be very precise in your color grading and color color correcting I don't even know what to
say this is just the image analysis tools are one of my favorite features in this because I can use
all the color correcting tools right in Final Cut and just use these as your image analysis tools
which are amazing and not only that you also get the get your isolate averages right on the screen
I always turn those off but I love being able to see that so if it just retained that and was able
to hold it in so you can see in the luma that the skin is exposed nicely and it is the proper color
and I haven't even done anything with the coloring tools so let's jump into that right now now let's
talk about the color tools that are built into color finale color wheels you have your curves
you have your six vector and you have your SL H curves so you have your lift gamma and gain and
this is something that if you ever used color rista or DaVinci color wheels are probably one
of the best ways to quickly get around and adjust colors for the shadows and the highlights and the
mid-tones so in this case I if you if I wanted to add a little bit of teal to the background
maybe a little bit more Orange this is where the image analysis tools become really handy again
you can just double-check to make sure that you haven't done anything too crazy like I have here
and always come back and adjust it accordingly you can add saturation
it's really simple to use just like you expect allows you to reset just
by hovering over it the one thing I would love is if you're able to click on
like on the numbers and drag up that would be a nice added feature we can add that they'll
be fantastic if you want to use sliders you can do that as well for your reds greens and blues
you can quickly turn it on and off I just like leaving the image analysis tool there
quickly check that your skin tones are exposed and correct you can also add in your curves
that in a little bit of contrast and as always with any kind of color correcting that you do
and color grading you never want to go too far with anything I personally don't use the six
vectors this is closer to a Lightroom kind of tool if you're more familiar with this this is
this tool is available for you but it does have the hue for hue the hue versus saturation the
hue versus luma the saturation versus luma so all those tools are there and if you wanted to
you can then group that whole segment and then just keep adding so if I want to do a general
color correction for the entire image but then I wanted to add just a mask or the face and I
love this feature that you can then you can track the mask right on the footage this is something
that I always wanted in Final Cut and now it's available so you can track the mask so once you
have your mask tracked you can adjust as you see fit one of the things that I've learned is that
if you want to add a mask to your color grade it's best to do it in a group that way you can
add and subtract different things right into the group so if you wanted to add a mask to the face
make the feather a little bit bigger and then you can you can just go nuts and do whatever
you want it to do so if you find that you want to make a local adjustments this is one of the
best ways to do it I love that color finale brings this feature to Final Cut mask tracking so let's
go to another shot if you do have the xride color checker passport this has a color chart tool built
right into it choose it and then make your points around and just adjust it to make sure that it's
in the right place I found that when I switch it to assume log the color shift and when I try to
match the chart it it does some funky stuff so I always leave it on assume video I choose my chart
points
place it in
click match chart and this is the only time that I find that it works correctly without changing
the color profile to assume log or anything else I always found that kind of weird because I got so
used to doing assume log or setting it into ASIS but I don't use this feature too often because
I do find that the colors are still a little bit off compared to what I expect them to be
like this feature gets it to about 90% of the way there but I still feel that it's still lacking and
it doesn't there's just something off like like this one right here I don't understand why that
one is off where everything else seems to line up nicely it's one of those ones that it just feels
like a hit or miss but if you know that you've exposed your image correctly and you have your
white balance in a really good place then you won't need to have the color chart but if you
do use the gray card you can always click choose your middle gray and that brings the image into a
great place but if you take this step then you do have to add some extra to make sure that you bring
your your blacks down and your whites and balance the image a little bit better it's a handy tool
but it's not something that I use too often but I'm really glad that it is there because I know
that there are scenarios where I have used it and it has saved my but with the color so say you have
set your color grade and you think it's fantastic you go up to the preferences you hit export as LUT
you've created your own that you can then apply to every piece of footage or choose to sell it
or do whatever you want but it's all done within Final Cut so if your main editor is Final Cut this
is a great tool to create your own looks sell your looks make your LUT packages do whatever you want
it's built right in so you don't have to learn a whole nother piece of software just to do exactly
this one aspect so when you've built your own light you can import your own let here and when
you have a lot you can mix the intensity of it choose the workspace that you're working in and
you can still make all the color Corrections down below you also have preferences so you can go and
add your Luntz here and they have a great feedback tool so if you want to have and you kind of help
request enhancement requests or bug reports this is the place that you would want to do that so
the other thing that I love about this plug-in is that I also use it as a skin softening tool and
it's using sharpness in the negative so I would just do a color mask I would highlight just the
skin tones I would make sure it's nice and soft and then I would go to sharpness and just dial it
back and it smooths out the skin which is a nice little hidden bonus feature the sharpening tool
actually works really well in this feels natural it feels really good so I tend to bump it up to
about 20 just to add that little bit of sharpness to the overall image so that's before and you can
bump it up you can crank it up pretty high and it still looks nice so one thing that I don't use too
much is the film emulation but if you want to add grain to your shots by all means this is a great
little tool one thing that I would like to see in the future is have presets that you can buy
or that are built into the app where it matches film grain from other cameras from other actual
film stocks that would be a very good useful tool otherwise it's a hit miss and you're just playing
around and you're just having fun and being creative with it a lot of people tend to push it
too far if there was already good set of presets so you could use this would be a great way to just
check it in and then dial it in you can boost it or reduce it if it's too strong one of the biggest
advantages that I love about this plug-in is I no longer have to do any kind of round tripping
I used to export an XML from Final Cut and grade in DaVinci Resolve but round-tripping is never
100% perfect especially if you have graphics and titles that are built in Final Cut you always have
to make some kind of compromise somewhere along the path and if you have to make a tweak later
on you have to do it all over again there used to be random crashes that would happen but not
too often nothing too crazy and Final Cut is very good at auto saving it was just more annoying but
definitely with the latest version of 2.1 it's a lot more stable so that's great one really good
thing about color finale and Final Cut Pro is that they both use Apple's color management natively
limiting a lot of the issues color finale feels like all the huge things that should be native
in Final Cut and we're missing for me to remain exclusively in final cut I love that I can start
and finish in final cut on many of my personal projects it's a great addition to my toolkit and
feels very intuitive and if you're familiar with any color grading workflow it's gonna be a great
fit again as I mentioned earlier like comment for your chance to win a free copy let me know what
your thoughts are on this plugin big thank you to color finale for wanting to help you guys out
if you want to learn more about the plugin or if you are the own version one they have an upgrade
package that you may be interested in check out the links in the notes that's it as always thanks
for watching give this video a big thumbs up I'm Raphael I'll talk to you soon bye for now