I thought that for this article I would take a look at a program that a lot of editors shy away from, but if you understand how it works, you can get some really great results, and that program is Apple's Color.

Color, formally Final Touch, was added to Final Cut Studio 2 about a year ago, and it's main function is to handle all your primary and secondary color correction needs.  In future articles, we will look at how Color works, but for this article I want to look at the workflow that you will need to understand before using Apple's newest edition to FCPS2.

As you can see below, I have a few clips in my timeline that I want to work with in Color.  We're going to assume that this is my finished piece, and I'm ready to do my final color correction.

To get your timeline into Color is actually quite easy.  Simply select your timeline in your project window, right click and select SEND TO>COLOR.  FCP is going to ask you what you want to call your Color project, and I'm going to call this particular project "Our Wedding Day".

Once Color opens, you will be asked to choose a media directory for media and renders that will be created by Color.  I like to keep everything for my projects located in one place, so I will create a folder in my FCP project folder called "Color".  Once you have selected your folder, you will see Color load your footage from FCP.  What is happening here is that FCP is exporting and importing an XML file into Color for you to work with.  This process in non-destructive, so don't worry about anything happening to your captured media.  Now, you can see that your Color timeline is a mirror image of the one in FCP, with the timecode matching and everything.

Now that my timeline has moved from FCP to Color, I'm free to color correct my show any way I want.  So, I've taken my three shots, and added some Color FX to them to spice them up a little bit.

I'm pretty happy with the way my timeline looks, and I am ready to go back to FCP to output my show, but there is something very, very important that you need to keep in mind when working in Color, and that is that everything is a render.  Once you are done working, you are REQUIRED to render before you send your timeline back to FCP.  This is important because the last thing you want is to be sitting next to your client, and they don't realize that everything needs to be rendered before outputting, and they get upset because they have to wait.  It is important for you as the editor to determine if you really need to use Color, or determine if FCP's three-way color corrector will do the same job, and in real time.

Now that I'm done my color grading, I'm ready to render.  To render your timeline, simply navigate to RENDER QUEUE>ADD ALL, and once you let go of the mouse, you will immediately notice that the bar color under your clips has turned yellow, meaning that they have been added to the render queue.

Now, click on the "Render Queue" tab to see all the clips that are ready to render, and then press "Start Render" to start them going.

As the clips are rendering, you will be updated in the Render Queue of the progress, and you will also see the red bar above your clips change from red to green, to signify that things have been rendered.

Now, just like how you sent your timeline from FCP to Color, we're going to send it back again, since Color has rendered new media for the color changes you have made.  Simply navigate to FILE>SEND TO>FINAL CUT PRO.

Color will create an XML file, and FCP will automatically open it, and create a new timeline in your project window called "Your Timeline (from Color)".  Now simply double click on that new timeline, press play, and all the work you did in Color is ready to go.

Color is an excellent tool that no editor should be nervous or hesitant to use, as it creates great looking color effects and grading.  If there is anything you would like to know about editing techniques, feel free to drop me a line at kevin@reelclever.com, and maybe your question will be the topic of my next article.