Archive for the ‘filters’ Category

iZotope Ozone: Purchase (& Reasoning)

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Seems a little pricey, but worthwhile in my case because it addresses two requirements that have been nagging me (before I discovered that product):

  • Has intelligent compressor, maximizing loudness and minimising dependence on manual tweaking (eqials time in post).
  • Has good-quality reverb.

It’s a plugin (DirectX /DLL), no standalone application.  Hosts / plugin formats:

  • The manual refers (Page 119) to <<Pro Tools, VST, AU and MAS versions of Ozone … (and) DirectX version>>
  • The website
    • Plug-in formats:
      • Pro Tools 7.4+ (RTAS/AudioSuite), VST, MAS, Audio Unit, DirectX
    • Plug-in host compatibility:
      • Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, WaveLab, GarageBand, Logic, Audition, SONAR, ACID, REAPER, Sound Forge, Peak, Ableton Live, and many more
      • Does not mention:
        • Sony Vegas (even though I found it works in this)
        • Adobe CS5.5 Production Suite e.g. Premiere.  Can it work with this and its siblings?
  • c

Training: Den Lennie’s “Music Video” Experience

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

I attended, working on one of the camera units.  Had a great time, learnt lots, at all sorts of levels.  Even how to make good use of the Movie Slate application on my iPhone!  Link: http://www.fstopacademy.com/

XDCAM-EX in-camera compensation for Tiffen T1 “green tint”

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Great article:

  • http://marvelsfilm.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/all-new-sony-ex1-picture-profile-for-cinematic-look/
    • “(These are) picture-settings that are tailored to my personal taste, with post-processing in mind. I’ve been able to use shots right out of the camera without the need for CC, but it does ask for contrast adjustment to taste.”
    • “…the matrix corrections in the first profile are to compensate for the green hue the IR filter casts, even after taken a white balance. I use the fluorescent light matrix, simply because it does exactly two things to the picture (and in measurements) that this specific camera demands; it remove the “green Sony hue” and it is the lowest-noise matrix. It shifts the colour balance towards red/magenta, removing the green hues and preventing your cast from looking terminally ill.”
    • “I use Cine 1 gamma almost exclusively because it’s clearly the most lownoise gamma. I sometimes use Cine 4 indoors with low / existing light. …adjust Gamma on a per-scene basis.”

FCP Grading Filters – Desaturation & Levels (non-intuitive but useful)

Friday, February 19th, 2010

The real image manipulation happens with the desaturation and level filters. Desaturation affects the richness of colors and level (via a un-intutive set of controls) will adjust the black point, white point and distribution of brightness across the whole image. The settings of these filters will depend on the scene and the camera you have.Set Desaturate to -50. This will boost the colors just a tad. Adjust to taste. Set the level controls as follows: input = 0 input tolerance = 100 gamma = 1 output = 50 ouput tolerance = 80 Ken Stone agrees the Levels filter is non intuitive:[http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_image_control.html ] <<< The Levels filter is supposed to be a more advanced version of the Brightness/Contrast filter, offering separate controls over highlight, midtone and shadow areas. In addition this filter offers the choice of working the image in RGB mode or any one color channel independently, Red, Green or Blue.However this filter is poorly implemented and is clumsy at best. It has five slider controls; input, Input Tolerance are used to lighten the image. The Gamma slider controls the midtone areas and Output and Output Tolerance used to darken the image. What makes this filter so difficult to understand and use is the fact that the filter opens with the default settings of the Input Tolerance and Output Tolerances sliders set at 100. With these two settings at 100 neither the Input Slider nor Output sliders work. It is necessary to lower either the Input or Output Tolerance sliders then start adjusting the Input or Output sliders. The real problem is that the highlight and shadow areas have two sliders each for control. Photoshop has a Levels filter but it is a different animal. Levels in Photoshop also has a ‘Histogram’ which gives a graphic display of all the pixels in the image based on their brightness values. The ‘Histogram’ display is essential to setting levels but the Levels filter in FCP has no ‘Histogram’. To be honest the Levels filter in FCP does not work for me at all – I just don’t get it. The Proc Amp filter does basically the same thing and works well. If you want to play with this filter I suggest that you set either Input or Output to a setting of 20 then start lowering the Tolerance filter down from 100. As you lower the Tolerance settings more effect will be applied. If anyone can offer any insight into this filter I would love to hear about it. >>> 

FCP Grading Filters

Friday, February 19th, 2010

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/basic_image_control.html

List of FCP Filters/FX

Friday, February 19th, 2010

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24918