Perfect Color Calibration in Final Cut Pro w/ X-Rite ColorChecker Video (Manual vs. ColorFinale 2.0)

White balancing only does so much to correct the color in your videos. To achieve perfect color calibration you need to use a color calibration chart such as the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport. In this video I explain how to use the Vector Scope and Hue-Saturation Curves in Final Cut Pro to get that perfect color reproduction. I also talk about ColorFinale 2.0 which is supposed to automate this process.

[@PatrickRambles]

Brian, I've watched a good number of these. Yours was by far the easiest to understand.

[@velvetsound]

Out of all the videos I’ve watched since getting my ColorChecker Video Passport, this is the best and easiest to follow by a wide margin.

[@MrsCap2]

Thanks ! If I was you I will first correct exposure and then correct hue and saturation because as photographer, one thing I know is playing with exposure after color grading can just change all your previous. In your case the skin is more red/orange because you reduce low light which gave more saturation of you skin if it’s falling into shadow.

[@geekcrossing7862]

This is sooooo good. I come back to this video whenever I need to do color correction in FCPX. Thank you.

[@peterkesten7386]

Great Tutorial! One addition which might be helpful: To avoid the "eyeballing" and guesswork you mentioned at around 7:35 for bringing saturation of each color to 50% on the vectorscope, (which has no 50% markings): Change the display to "Waveform / Chroma" and then bring the colors in a much more precise way to a chroma IRE measuring of about 25 (for yellow, cyan, red, blue) or 30 (green, magenta).

[@tonylord6782]

Hi. I tried this with the waveform / chroma and it looked a little too intense to my eye. Is each colour supposed to be at 50% saturation in an image for it to be "correct"?

[@TylerAdamsMedia]

Incredibly useful tutorial, Brian! Ordered my color checker the second your video was over haha. Thanks!

[@evtyler]

I can't thank you enough for this tutorial. I've watched a couple videos on this process and no one explains it as well as you!

[@BillTheTechnoGypsy]

What a great tutorial! Now I understand how to really use my Color Checker. Thank you!

[@rayrapphaelbisnar]

Thank you for this video Brian. This is what i was looking for, an in depth explanation on what things are, why they are, how to go about things. I tend to understand concepts much better when I know the "why's" vs the "how's" but you explain them both thoroughly. Thanks!

[@mrnessss]

Thank you! Finally, someone clearly and thoroughly explains this process. I get it now :) Also, I'm really enjoying your style of tutorials. Keep it up!

[@SteveAtkinsonFineArt]

Thanks for this tutorial Brian. I use the Color Checker Passport for my photos in Lightroom, now I can use it in FCPX. Good explanation of what can be a complicated process.

[@BaeumlerFilm]

Thank you for sharing! Great tutorial! Btw, I got the same issue with Color Finale (1)

[@BrianGreenstone]

Thanks! Glad I’m not the only one.

[@graymatters7584]

I love that this video which actually UN-SELLS Color Finale has an ad FOR Color Finale.

[@mygiguser]

Great tutorial. Thanks for doing this!

[@itsdjbuddha]

Fantastic tutorial, thank you, just what I needed!

[@robinmetzler]

Great tutorial Brian. Thank you for your time explaining the process. Helped me a great deal.

[@BlackLensesProject]

Excellent job, Brian. Cheers from the Azores Islands.

[@EugenBrinzoiu]

I don't use Color Finale anymore....I guess it was the hype and of course, the missing"tools" in FCP. Now we have anything we need inside Final Cut...even Cinema grade is useless for me, today. Wonderful tutorial and you have a new subscriber. Happy New Year

[@BraamCompton]

Thank you for the info. I had the same issue with Colorfinale and their support was very aggressive and not useful. However, I did notice when I change the Color Management/ Color profile inside ColorFinale to ACES or LUT the Color Chart actually works perfectly. It's important to de-select the auto LUT on the info tab, as FCP allocates an S-log profile automatically. I do film in S-log 3 so it might be different for other users.

[@gillescollin3357]

Merci, so clear , so perfect teaching ... i am very grateful to you !!!! Blessing to you and your family !

[@fabimesizae]

very explanatory and valuable tutorial. Thanks so much

[@robwood65]

Really good clear explanation thanks.

[@DavidKfilmmaker]

Nice. Only suggestion would be setting exposure before color.

[@MilSF1]

Yeh. Exp -> WB -> Color. Just what has worked best for me. Best to try and get the exp and WB right in the camera before you shoot too.

[@AM2PMReviews]

I have coremelt color finale and it doesn’t work well. I was going to just buy the color finale and glad i didn’t. You saved me 100 bucks I think.

[@rogerthompson2005]

Just starting out in video, and a great video thanks! I have used colour checker in photography for years, and now have the video one to play with! cheers

[@edwardwhite4790]

This use to work in the earlier versions. Yet since version 2 I could never get this to work either. If you didn’t know the two partners broke up. I reached out the partner for Color Finale telling him the old work doesn’t work with the X-Rite target. His response wasn’t that pleading.

[@lenzyruffin]

Same here. Color Finale doesn't work and when I reached out to support, I can only describe the response as hostile. Whomever is running Color Finale is just stealing money because the product does not work.

[@patchharvey7892]

Brilliant tutorial. Thank you so much.

[@MrAdidar]

Great Video very easy to follow along thanks Brian

[@jeffryancarlson3273]

This is a great segment. My suggestion is to enlarge the cursor so it can be followed easily. Thanks.

[@inyoureyes9197]

amazing video, so good I'm going to download and save for later!!!

[@johnrohdejensen1218]

How do you get rid of the extra control points on the Hue vs. Hue curve? They drive me nuts. Great video. Learned some nice tricks here.

[@Mintyseden]

Came here exactly because of my experience with color finale. Couldn’t get it to correct properly. Thanks for sharing

[@champnessjack1154]

Awesome tutorial. Thank you!

[@mike_wellington_]

I’ve been watching your videos since the Fisker Karma. What a crazy time wasn’t it?! Lol. What are we driving now? By the way, you have given me a lot of motivation to do better in life. Appreciate it.

[@hookie]

Thanks, that was perfect. What are your thoughts on using other charts such as DGK?

[@TheSeanBampton]

"my skin looks correct" Sure, if you spent two weeks at the equator without sunscreen.

[@BrianGreenstone]

If it looks that way then your monitor needs calibration.

[@mattcarlson12]

That's what I thought. 🥵 but your skin tones at the beginning and end of this video looked great!

[@ScottThePisces]

your screen must be messed up lol, it looks fine to me (2021 macbook screen)

[@Roz-Inspire-Video]

6:36 Perfect video thanks

[@MilSF1]

If you keep your Sat wheel at 200%, your 50% sat fixes should go right to the box on the vectorscope. Just my experience!

[@BrianGreenstone]

Interesting. I image that may vary from camera to camera tho. I don't even use the Sat wheel anymore. Now I just use raise the entire bar in the Hue-Sat curve since it's on the same widget as the Hue-Hue. Now it's all done in one place instead of 2.

[@MilSF1]

Brian Greenstone True. I have a rather low end camera I’m using. Increasing the Sat also helps a little with the noise my camera introduces onto the chart color chips. I too think it would be great if there was a user configurable Sat ring in the scopes, and perhaps line like the skin tone line that could be turned on and off to help with the hue v hue adjustments.

[@BrianGreenstone]

@@MilSF1 Yeah, I'm shocked that Apple hasn't put better support for this in there. Why have Vectorscopes if there's no way to use them? They should have a built-in auto-calibration tool that does what ColorFinale was supposed to do.

[@maxvcollenburg]

Very helpful, thanks!

[@garystackhouse5787]

You have the "Film Emulation" mix in ColorFinale set to 100%... I'm guessing that is at least part of the reason for the shifting of the colors and the desaturation of the image.

[@BrianGreenstone]

Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll have to check it out.

[@LostBoysLofi]

I'm having the same problem. What would you recommend it be set to? I noticed that at 0% its showing no effect at all. After using my color checker in color finale, every clip the white balance is just thrown right off everytime. Even after correcting everything beforehand.

[@nachovidalle]

Thanks a lot Brian !! Very cool and soooo important Video ! Is this possible in LOG too ????

[@BrianGreenstone]

I’m pretty sure it should work on any of the flat profiles, but it probably needs tweaks due to the different gamma curves and color levels.

[@PTfit]

It works the same way, but first apply a neutral LUT to convert the colors into the Rec 709 space… the rest just follow Brian’s tutorial, he did awesome 👍🏼

[@LostBoysLofi]

Thank you for this video. When Im trying to add the dots to the Hue/saturation lines.. After clicking colors they arent showing up on the line on the right? Any advice is so much appreciated Ive been googling for a few days I just want to use my new tool!

[@BrianGreenstone]

You have to be sure you have the correct eye dropper tool selected.

[@FrankyPlaysRelaxed]

Had the same issue. After Cropping, I forgot to confirm the crop by selecting Done. After confirming, I selected the Eyedropper tool and the dots appeared just fine.

[@MuriloIto1]

Amazing! Thank you!

[@carloscast1]

Great video. When you adjust the Hue to 50%, is it from the large color circle, the center on the color square, or the edge of the color squares?

[@shineliuchang]

Thats a great tutorial thanks Brian. but how did you delete the control point in the Hue vs Hue curve?? thanks.

[@BrianGreenstone]

Just select it and press the Delete key.

[@IoVideoMaker]

Thanks!

[@yourhappyuncle6055]

Why do you use the grey instead of the white for white balance? Thanks!

[@BrianGreenstone]

I use gray most of the time, but the white card on that thing is much larger than the gray swatches so sometime I have to use that. Either works fine as long as nothing is overexposed.

[@daily5sets609]

Nice!!

[@mcneilbelle]

question do we do this first before correcting the HDR clip like in your other video

[@BrianGreenstone]

No, do it after converting HDR to SDR

[@mcneilbelle]

Brian Greenstone ok so convert HDR To SDR first then color correct the white and skin tones and overall clip using hue and the color checker right

[@elmono3939]

Color calibrating - as you explained it step-by-step, should be done automatically, and with the same results as adjusted manually. Nothing to it. We should not guess whether Hue lines up or Saturation is 50%.

[@BrianGreenstone]

I agree 100%. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that this is not built in to the software. It is such a standard thing that everyone does, yet we all have to do it manually.

[@drradon]

I feel like in the salmon video your skin is way to red. Especially if compared to your introduction at the beginning of this video. Not a professional comment, just a gut feeling that irritated me a bit when I saw the result. Thanks for the tutorial!

[@BrianGreenstone]

I think that’s just poor color balancing. The closeups were shot with an old camera that had lousy video color accuracy, and my attempts to correct it were nit great.

[@omarbrown2696]

Proper

[@Roz-Inspire-Video]

10:24

[@neurojitsu]

Thanks for the demonstration. I have a question about another alternative process that I've read about: using the x-rite colour checker to create dng camera profiles, and then creating an adjustment LUT that you apply in FCPX. Have you tried this? This video explains the idea of illuminants and their different wavelengths of light: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZfMnIejbb18qpY - my understanding is that different illuminants (ie daylight, LED, flourescent, tungsten etc) have different light wavelengths and so the camera sensor will "see" them differently, and so you create camera profiles to correct to true (Colour Checker) colours, based on the light source (ISO and colour temperature do not matter as the video explains clearly). So you would need profiles for each camera and light source you use, or dual-illuminant profiles if you mix two light sources. The idea is to create a camera profile for each illuminant (ie daylight or LED or tungsten or flourescent etc), and then capture these profile adjustments as LUTs using a LUT generator such as the free (donation-funded) IWLTBAP LUT generator for Adobe Lightroom (YCImaging KZbin channel has a video about his colour grading process that explains how to create LUTs this way). The Colour Checker software requires a dng image which you can convert from a raw photo. The camera profile is then generated, and can be used in Adobe software such as Lightroom. Using the LUT generator plugin for lightroom, you then turn the camera profile into a LUT that can be used in Final Cut Pro X. I'm planning to try it, but wondered if you have discounted this method for some reason or if it has disadvantages? I'm aware colour science and colour grading is not a straight forward topic, so what seems logical to the uninitiated may not work so well in practice! Once you've created the LUTs, in theory this gives you at least a quick one-click colour correction to start from and should help to balance colour across different cameras and light sources. As long as the cameras used can capture raw images, you can use this process. Even an iPhone can capture raw (DNG) images using ProCamera app for example, or Lightroom app's camera. Clearly this only works if you have an Adobe subscription. As far as I can tell, Affinity Photo does not integrate Colour Checker colour management unfortunately. The other question I have for you (sorry!) is whether you think you would need to create camera profile LUTs this way for different Picture Modes? For example, I use a Panasonic GH4 and use CinelikeV, CinelikeD and Natural profiles. CinelikeD captures a flatter image (more dynamic range) than the other profiles, so again it would seem this LUT approach offers a quick way to colour correct CineD video images which have notoriously difficult colour (and being 8bit images on the GH4, you have to be very careful when grading not to push things around too much). My simple brain assumes that since these profiles are processing the image from the sensor in different ways, you would need different profiles. But is this true? I'm going to try... but I mention it here because I think you could create a great video on this if it works! My doubt is that this seems too simple! If you only need camera profile LUTs, why are camera-matching and colour correction LUTs like Leeming LUTs or FilmConvert so popular? Or do these plugins just make the whole process easier?

[@BrianGreenstone]

I’m not a fan of LUTs at least when accuracy is involved because LUTs only work correctly when the source footage was shot with the exact same conditions (camera, lens, lighting, white balance, ISO, etc.) that the LUT was created with. Any variance creates inaccuracies. So, I pretty much never use them, and just recalibrate with a ColorChecker for each scene. It’s the only way to be sure the results are correct. However, if accuracy isn’t that important and some variance from true color is acceptable then LUTs are fine.

[@neurojitsu]

Brian Greenstone - thanks, I've decided just to colour correct each time using the X-rite. It doesn't take that long! Having messed around with LUTs quite a bit, I've always found myself frustrated at how much work it takes tweaking things around to get the look you wanted... so maybe it's wishful thinking that a LUT will provide a one-click solution!

[@DennisBergDrums]

So you only get the saturation of the color chips to be at 50% but you do nothing to the skin tones? Why is that? Basically the only thing you need to make sure with the skin tones is that they actually line up with the skin tone line but you never touch saturation on those?

[@BrianGreenstone]

You probably could and should, but it’s so close to red and yellow that it kinda fixes itself.