Calling It Salvage Might Be A Bit Harsh…

POSTIT

…but at first, I didn’t really even think I was going to touch this shot. The raw, unedited picture (which I can’t be bothered to post on here because it’s on my laptop, which is all the way downstairs, and I don’t really want to leave my computer chair right now :p) was completely washed out, slightly more tilted, and the highlights were blown to hell. Wasn’t really an obvious keeper in a day that was full of some other really nice portrait shots taken with my snazzy 50mm f1.8 lens.

Actually, I think I was just trailing behind at the end of our hike back down from the peak of the Stairway To Heaven in Vernon, my tiny kit 16-50mm screwed onto my Sony, just randomly snapping pictures out of slight exhaustion when I got this.

Not exactly an honest shot – the sky was starting to unfold from an otherwise dreary and overcast day in these light pinks and oranges, but nothing as cinematically sepia as this – but I like what came of trying to make something out of a picture that I normally would have tossed.

Calling It Salvage Might Be A Bit Harsh…

Still Trying to Self-Teach Myself Final Cut Pro…

…but it’s gotten a hell of a lot easier now that I’ve sort of gotten my head around the basics of color correction and color grading. I’m not a huge fan of the way that the interface presents itself in FCPX, with the color board and the knobs, but I’ve got a rough workflow worked out after messing around with the salvage of a video I ended up not posting.

Actually found this free plugin that allows you to create adjustment layers you can apply color grades to – something that my version of FCPX doesn’t really let me do. I’ve seen a lot of videos that incorporate Motion into the mix, but this is miles easier for someone like me who’s still rather illiterate towards this whole thing.

Here’s the link for anyone who’s interested: https://sellfy.com/p/Nxcc/

After you install it, you basically just drag and drop it on your timeline after you’ve finished with your edit and your primary color correction. Then you can just open up some color correction on your snazzy new adjustment layer, and apply a uniform grade to all your clips. It’s so much easier than individually grading each clip, and I definitely wish I’d found out about it sooner…

 

Still Trying to Self-Teach Myself Final Cut Pro…