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FCPX, VLC and Vimeo all different colours/colors

Y

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
all,

as the title says, im absolutely bewildered with the current issue i am having!

i have edited and colour graded a 4 min video in FCPX. i then sent to compressor for export using 1080p vimeo output (i changed the colour tab to say "preserve source").

on opening the video in Quicktime, all is ok. the colour is fine. brillant. when i open in vlc, the colour is subtlety redder.

once uploaded onto vimeo, the video gets even redder!!! so between FCPX and vimeo, it seems to have shifted to the red side. not overly red, but skin tones definitely have a red tinge to it.

does anyone know why?!! when i was colour grading, i accidentally had the Adobe RGB (1998) display profile set. when i changed to default imac profile, the colour and contrast changed.

without buying/renting calibrating equipment, what should my default profile be.

sorry for the million questions! i need to deliver the vid to client next week! HELP!!!!
 
Y

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
Ok, so even stranger, I jus viewed the video via Vimeo on my iPad and the colours look great! No red tinge!!

I'm even more confused now, would it have something to do with my iMac display profile then?
 
B

boch82

macrumors 6502
Apr 14, 2008
328
24
What codec are you exporting with?

H.264 seems to give a color shift on the Mac unless you turn off gamma correction in the settings.


Otherwise I would suggest using smpte color bars and calibrating your screen to the bars. There are a bunch of resources that will give you instructions on how to calibrate using color bars.

Those are the free ways to do it. The only true way to check is using broadcast monitors and external scopes.
 
Y

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
hi boch82

yea, its h.264 .mov file. what im still wondering if why the colour shift between QT and vlc. i've read that different players will show colours differently. but why vimeo is that much diff to QT/FCPX is confusing.

yea, i might have to invest in a scope, but would i be right in thinking - if "most/average" ppl use default settings on macs/pc's then if i edit in the standard imac profile setting, then it should be good enough? the video is only for online, BUT will have to start editing for personal dvd viewings.

thanks!
 
Erendiox

Erendiox

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2004
706
12
Brooklyn NY
The internet uses the sRGB colorspace. Unless you graded and exported in that color space from beginning to end, you can have color shifts.

VLC uses its own bundle of codecs to play media. It's possible that it's not reading the color space of your exported file correctly.

Also, keep in mind that iMacs are horrible for color in general. The screens are overly saturated and overly contrasty. Even color calibrators won't correct it. It's fine if you're only comparing color on that same screen, but if you want other people to see exactly what you see in terms of color, you'll need something more accurate.
 
Y

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
thanks Erendiox! yea i've noticed that the imac is indeed saturated/contrasty.

so i guess for now, do i stick with the default "imac" display profile or use sRGB?

from comparison sRGB is very similar to what the default "imac" is. adobe RGB (1998) seems to decrease the reds from my videos.

ok, amateur time (so forgive me), when u say grade, export in colour space, is this a setting in FCPX or the screen colour profile.

again, much thanks in educating me!!
 
Erendiox

Erendiox

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2004
706
12
Brooklyn NY
Your screen color profile tells your screen how to display color. The color profile of the footage tells the computer how to interpret the colors in your footage. So essentially, footage color profile communicates with screen profile to give you the final image that you see.

Keep your screen profile on whatever the iMac came with by default. Changing this won't help anything. Ideally you want a calibrated profile, but just use what you've got.

As far as your footage color profile... I'm not sure if FCPX has an option for this. These kind of options are generally pretty advanced and FCPX is... well not quite as advanced as professionals were hoping. Suffice to say, if you pick an export module that matches where it's going (ie. use the "Share->Vimeo" setting) the color should hopefully be close enough. I've only seen color profile options on programs like Color, or After Effects. FCPX is primarily an editing program.
 
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