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apple color vs. adobe after effects

R

ragnarwantsmbp

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 23, 2007
12
0
Winnipeg, Canada
Hi,

My understanding is that the new Apple Color application is supposed to be apple's answer to the old standard - Adobe After Effects.

I am buying a new mbp (see my thread in the buying advice forum - new macbook pros on ebay) to edit a short film I recently shot on a Panasonic HVX200 in HD 720pn. I've decided I want to go with Final Cut Pro as my editing software, and am wondering if I should go with the new Apple Color or After Effects for my advanced color grading and image manipulation needs. I've never used either, but have years of experience with Photoshop as a freelance stills photographer. I'd like to go with Color for the integration, but not if it's still way behind After Effects in its abilities.

If anyone out there has experience with both apps and has some advice, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks.
 
Color = color grading
After Effects = motion graphics and compositing (it does have some color correction, but nowhere near Color)

The Final Cut Studio equivalent to After Effects is Motion, not Color.
 
ragnarwantsmbp said:
Thank you for enlightening me. Should I assume that with Final Cut Studio 2 that I'll have all I need then (and not worry about the After Effects)?
Click to expand...

Well, it depends on what your needs are. If you are going to be doing a lot of compositing work you may go beyond what Motion and FCP can offer. Also, Color still has a lot of caveats of what does/does not work so I'd make sure your exact workflow will be possible using Color so you can plan for stuff now and not get burned down the line.


Lethal
 
Yeah, I don't think I'll be doing much compositing work at this time. I'm coming from a film background and moving into HD video - trying to piece together a home system that will do for HD video what I'm used to doing with film through labs and postproduction houses.

Thanks for the advice.:)
 
i wanted to stay with a FCP studio workflow for my at home film work, but from my understanding you can color grade at a higher quality in AE (though i don't know much yet about Color). Any thoughts on this Lethal?

I'm don't really know AE yet but I'm about to dive head first into it for compositing and color correction, I plan to learn Motion and Color better as well, but for low budget action filmmaking which should I learn first? I've recently read the DV Rebel book and Stu has me convinced on AE.
 
Mr B said:
i wanted to stay with a FCP studio workflow for my at home film work, but from my understanding you can color grade at a higher quality in AE (though i don't know much yet about Color). Any thoughts on this Lethal?

I'm don't really know AE yet but I'm about to dive head first into it for compositing and color correction, I plan to learn Motion and Color better as well, but for low budget action filmmaking which should I learn first? I've recently read the DV Rebel book and Stu has me convinced on AE.
Click to expand...

Stu runs a blog and ever since Color came out, he seems to be having a lot of fun with it. Check out what he has to say here:

http://prolost.blogspot.com/search/label/Color

P-Worm
 
^ Stu wrote that book when the program that became color, FinalTouch, cost somewhere in the $20-30k range. So it wasn't really in the rebel filmmaker's budget. Stu used AE as a cost-effective substitution for a high-end color grading software.



For color grading, After Effects doesn't have anything you can't do in color. I would get it if you find yourself feeling limited by Motion. I prefer doing work in AE so I've ordered the CS3 video suite (just for AE and PS... I have a friend at Adobe, so it wasn't a waste).
 
Thanks guys, i think I may just lock my front door and learn them both! Of course I'll open it occasionally to shoot some more footage. Btw P=Worm, which camera were you using for your action test? And how's the new film coming?


B
 
Yeah, what bigbossbmb said. There is also a very good plug in for color work called Colorista and it works in Motion, AE, FCP, PP, and certain Avids. Color is very powerful, but it's also got a huge learning curve to go w/it and some workflow quirks that make it less flexible currently for integrating w/FCP.

If you are going to use the MBP for grading you'll need to pick up an a Matrox MXO and a HD monitor as the MBP's screen isn't up to the task. I've heard the MXO couple w/a 23" Apple Cinema Display can yield very good budget quality results.


Lethal
 
Any word when Magic Bullet Looks is coming out? And colorista will still be a separate program right?

*and can you explain what exactly the Matrox box does to make the 23' capable of HD monitoring? I work on a mbp with a 23' and this would be HUGE.
 
Mr B said:
Any word when Magic Bullet Looks is coming out? And colorista will still be a separate program right?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if they've announced a date for Looks yet, and yes Colorista is a seperate app.

*and can you explain what exactly the Matrox box does to make the 23' capable of HD monitoring? I work on a mbp with a 23' and this would be HUGE.
Click to expand...
In technical terms the MXO is a magic box that takes the video signal coming out of or your Mac and turns it into a broadcast quality signal.:D It's been tested w/specific hadware to make sure that everything plays nice together and you get the quality signal Matrox says you should get.

Of course now that I've said that I hopped over to the MXO page to confirm some things and it looks like the MXO is not yet compatible w/the new MBPs that use the nvida cards (older MBPs w/the ATI cards work fine). Hopefully they'll have the MXO working w/the nvida cards sooner rather than later.


Lethal
 
Lethal, thank you as always. I'm definitely going to research that box more, sounds like a perfect match for my setup. I have the 1st C2D so I have an ATI.

Now if you can just decide for me whether to blow all of my savings on an HVX or save some money and try an HV20 suped up rig I'll be good to go :p
 
my biggest concerns are
1. Apple Color is radically different workflow,
AE w/ Colorista and Looks has familiarity

2. After Effects can go 32 bit, can Color?
 
the first part isn't a question; if you don't like the workflow, don't use it...

Yes, Color can do its calculations at 32-bit.

this thread has been dead for 2.5 years...:eek: I wish there was a face-palm smiley on here.
 
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