R3D clips in FCPX look dull compared to Red Player/RedCine-X Pro. Any suggestions?

[Danny Finneran]

Hey Everybody,

My R3D footage looks vastly different in FCPX (inside the app and after exporting) when compared to how the clips look in Red Player/RedCine-X Pro.

In FCPX they look washed out and dull, and in the Red Player they have good contrast and vibrant color.

This has happened on both of my laptops with files from both the Scarlet MX and Scarlet-W. It also happens with any footage I download from Red.com.

Was using Red Gamma4 and Red Color4 on the MX & Red Gamma4 and Dragon Color2 on the Scarlet-W.

I am attaching two screenshots below.

Any help is much appreciated!

My Best,

Danny Finneran

Email: DannyFinneran@gmail.com
Vimeo: https://www.vimeo.com/DannyFinneran
Insta: @DannyFinneran

 

[Dominic DeSantis]

I'm thinking you are looking at the RED footage in FCP without any gamma or color correction. Press the little magic wand button for a quick look.

 

[Danny Finneran]

I'm thinking you are looking at the RED footage in FCP without any gamma or color correction. Press the little magic wand button for a quick look.

When I click "Modify Red Raw Settings" in the clip inspector it shows Red Gamma 4 and Dragon Color 2 for the Scarlet-W and Red Gamma 4 and Red Color 4 for the Scarlet MX. So I don't think that is it unfortunately.

 

[Dominic DeSantis]

Hmm

 

[Scot Yount]

Danny, when you imported the files into FCPX, did you copy files to the new library or did you choose leave in place?

 

[Danny Finneran]

Danny, when you imported the files into FCPX, did you copy files to the new library or did you choose leave in place?

I have done both leave in place and copy files to library storage location and I have tried changing background rendering on/off. I have also tried changing the Rendering project settings to all the different codecs and it hasn't made a difference.....I have also tried exporting out to different codecs with FCPX and that hasn't worked.

The only thing I haven't changed is the color space within project settings which is set to Rec 709.....the only other two options are Rec 601 (NTSC) & Rec 601 (PAL).....so that wouldn't be it, unless there is supposed to be an option for Dragoncolor2 there and its not showing up


The only thing that gets it back close to where it was is by going to the Red Raw settings plug in and boosting saturation to around 1.2 and contrast up to 0.2

 

[Sage Humphries]

I am also one of the few that uses FCP X. I keep trying to make the switch to Premiere but I really like FCP. Anyways, I have not found the same issue. But, maybe is that I don't check that closely and just rely on the grade. I will try to check to see the difference between Red Cine-X and FCP tomorrow. As an aside, if you monitor supports it, you should see Rec2020 as a color space option.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I will say, that any rendered quicktime file out of FCPX and played back with quicktime player will look desaturated. the same video in VLC with look good.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I wouldn't try to judge anything in terms of color quality unless you have a color-managed output (outside the operating system) and a calibrated external display. Scopes can help as well.

How does the material look on the internal scopes available in FCPX? What happens if you render out a section of material in Redcine-X Pro and then compare that to the original within FCPX?

I frequently will look at the client's edited reference version of their project (with a temporary look they've added from Redcine or another program), and if I compare it to the usual RedGamma/DragonGamma 4 and Redcolor4/DragonColor settings, it looks 99% identical in Resolve. And that's on scopes and a calibrated display. I use this so when we start moving far away from this look, I can remind them "here's where you were -- here's where we are now."

One workaround for you would be to just do your initial scene selection and cutting with proxies, then reconform back to the camera files for the final render. The advantage is that you could whittle down the material to a very small drive, and you could also have a portable system capable of working anywhere, including while traveling. I've always questioned the need to cut high res files (particularly 4K/5K/6K+) when you're this early on in the decision-making process. If I were an editor, I'd much rather have a 500GB portable drive with proxies to deal with rather than (say) an 8TB RAID with original R3D files.

 

[Zachary Smith]

Danny, did you ever find a solution to this? I am having the very same problem.

Thanks

 

[Blair Thornton]

I have a similar issue, but perhaps a REDcineX bug. Using the latest REDcineX 50.2, but did not use IPP2 when filming.

Editing in FCPX 10.4 with project set to REC709.

Shots were DragonColor2 and LOG 3G10, but REDcineX does not give me the LOG 3G10 gamma option.

Any ideas?

 

[rand thompson]

Blair,


Unfortunately you have the wrong settings in your "image pipeline"

In Redcine-X go to "Edit" the "Preferences"

[/url]Screenshot (44) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]


I believe you may have these settings, which is "Legacy" Mode that I see you appear to be in.

[/url]Screenshot (78) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Screenshot (75) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]



When you need these settings, "IPP2" mode", which makes "RedwidegamutRGB" available for "Color Space"

and "Log 3G10" available for "Gamma Curve". However, in "IPP2" Mode, "DRAGONcolor2 will not be available

"RedwidegamutRGB" and "Log3G10" are the default and "can't" be changed.

[/url]Screenshot (76) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Screenshot (74) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]


You can change the gamma to either "2.2" which is more typical for videos that will be watched mostly on computers or "2.4" for HD dispalys


Also, Why use "Log3G10" as a "Gamma Curve"? Just use "REDgamma4" and let the "IPP2" mode transform that into "RedwidegamutRGB" and "Log3G10" and change the "Output Tone Map"(Contrast) and "Highlight Roll-Off" (Harsh to Less Harsh highlights) later.

[/url]Screenshot (54) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Blair Thornton]

Thanks Rand !

 

[rand thompson]

No Problem Blair!

 

[Zachary Smith]

Hi Blair,

I had a phone call with Red about this. Went through the helpful steps that Rand listed and I learned a lot.

Eventually, I discovered that Red does not support a perfect match between FCPX and CineX/Player.

Here's what we chose to do:
Our colorist adjusts the metadata within FCPX. This is good enough for many of our projects on final delivery and is suitable for all of our drafts.
On projects that have sufficient budget, we finish in Resolve.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Hi Blair,

I had a phone call with Red about this. Went through the helpful steps that Rand listed and I learned a lot, which definitely get you a lot closer.

Eventually, I discovered that Red does not support a perfect match between FCPX and CineX/Player.

Here's how we solved it:
Our colorist adjusts the metadata within FCPX. This is good enough for many lower budget projects and is suitable for our drafts.
On projects that have sufficient budget, we finish in Resolve.

Trying to figure out this statement. What is the importance of a close match between RCX and FCPX when it comes to finishing and the final output? Why do you suggest that the apparent lack of such a match means FCPX output is only good for lower end projects; necessitating a finish in Resolve? A lot of high end projects are finished in FCPX. I don't see where the logic comes in that it you can only get high end results from Resolve?

 

[Zachary Smith]

OK Terry. I've gone ahead and edited my statement- and since you've quoted the original, that should be good.

Blair,
It's worth noting that Red also has a selection of LUTs one of which I was told might work for this specific problem.
https://www.red.com/downloads?category=Other&release=final
Look for the IPP2 output presets.

We were instructed to apply one in FCPX. We tried with two different FCPX extensions (as FCPX does not have native LUT support), but we couldn't get a match.

Maybe somebody else has better luck figuring this out. If you do, please let me know. It would sure be nice to color files in redcine-X and have the colors transfer perfectly on import to FCPX. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but until then it may be best to think of this as a feature-request.

 

[rand thompson]

Zachary,


You can also make them manually. The link you provided above are to the Output transform from 09/08/2017. New Output Transforms that became available within "IPP2 Lut Creator" inside Redcine-X versions 50.1.0 to 50.2.0 included more options than the linked ones. Maybe you can get better results with the newer ones.


Here's how to make the Luts yourself. Info from excerpt from another thread.

After you download the IPP2 Luts from here

https://us.red.com/downloads/58de98eff77f300ebe00053f

[/url]Screenshot (127) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]



or make them manually,


https://www.red.com/downloads/5340c33e26465a4b46002ddc

[/url]Screenshot (235) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Screenshot (17) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]


Choose "Color Space" and "Gamma Curve"

[/url]Screenshot (96) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Screenshot (97) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]




Choose "Output Tone Map" and "Highlight Roll-Off"

[/url]Screenshot (98) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]Screenshot (99) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]



Then whatever "Cube Size" you what.

[/url]Screenshot (100) by rand thompson, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Terry VerHaar]

OK Terry. I've gone ahead and edited my statement- and since you've quoted the original, that should be good.

As near as I can tell, you changed maybe 3 words? Still not getting your point but... carry on. LOL

 

[Jacobo Martinez]

ok, so I just found this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7824178

basically premiere or RCX and other programs don't automatically manage color space with this new apple p3 displays ( I have the latest MacBook Pro 15 ), only final cut can do it ( FCPX is the most accurate because of this) . In resolve you would have to go manually and choose output colorspace to P3-DCI , input set to rec.709, only than could you see a correct color reproduction.