Adding Finishing Touches


Before the actual outputting begins, there are usually a few finishing touches that can be applied to your sequence. Many times these adjustments are made during the editing process. But sometimes they are not made until you are ready to step back and think about the sequence as a whole, or rather as two halvesaudio and video.

Making Audio Adjustments

When preparing the audio of your sequence for export or output, it's important to keep your eyes and ears open. You must look closely at the output level on the Audio Meters, making sure the combined audio tracks never peak at 0 dB. And you must listen closely to the mix level between tracks, making sure the primary audio is clearly heard over any background audio. (If you want to learn how to mix audio tracks together, read the "Working with Multiple Tracks" PDF on the DVD, where you will learn to raise or lower all the audio tracks in a sequence by the same amount.)

You will begin by opening a previous project, copying a sequence from that project, and pasting it into the current Lesson 16 Project.

1.

Open the Lesson 15 Project file. Copy the 15-Finished sequence (Cmd-C), click the Lesson 16 Project tab, and press Cmd-V to paste it into this project.

2.

Close the Lesson 15 Project file. In the Lesson 16 project tab, double-click the 15-Finished sequence to open it in the Timeline.

3.

In the Timeline, press Option-W to reveal the clip overlays, and play the sequence.

The music in this sequence is a little too loud in comparison with the dialogue clips. You will want to bring down the audio level for the music but keep the keyframes intact.

4.

In the Timeline, select the surfing voices.aif music track.

5.

Choose Modify > Levels, or press Option-Cmd-L. In the Gain Adjust dialog box, enter 2 in the "Adjust gain by" field. Leave the Make Changes pop-up on Relative. Watch the music tracks in the Timeline as you click OK.

The volume level lines of the music tracks move lower, but the change is made relative to the keyframes and levels that already exist in this clip.

6.

Select both of the big waves clips. Choose Modify > Levels, and lower the relative volume on these clips by 4 dB.

Note

The other Make Changes option, Absolute, will remove any keyframes in the clip and adjust the audio level an absolute or specific decibel amount from the original zero level.

7.

Play the sequence and watch the Audio Meters. Make any additional changes in the audio levels to prepare this sequence for output.

Depending on your sequence, you may choose to adjust the Pan control in the Viewer to redirect the sound of a clip. A mono track can be panned or redirected to the left or right. With a stereo pair, one channel is panned to the left and one to the right. Wear headphones when making these adjustments to hear how the sound is being directed.

Making Video Adjustments

The finishing stage is a good time to do something about any clips that appear too dark or light on your monitor. As with audio monitoring, the way an image looks on your computer isn't always how it will look on your television monitor. The best way to check your sequence is to screen it on a separate video monitor before outputting it to tape. If this isn't possible, you can output a sequence to tape, view the tape, and then go back to the sequence and add a corrective filter to any clips that do not look good.

1.

Ctrl-click in the Browser and choose Import Folder from the shortcut menu.

2.

Navigate to Media > Surfing > Jimbo's Clips. Select the Jimbo's Clips folder and click Choose to import the entire folder of clips.

3.

Display the folder's contents in the Browser. Double-click the nose ride clip to open it in the Viewer. Play the clip.

In this clip, there is a high contrast between the bright (white) and dark (black) pixels in the image. The pixels of the boy's face are too dark, and the pixels of the sand are too bright. The balance in this image can be improved by adding the Color Corrector filter.

Note

In Lesson 14, you added transition effects to edit points. The other type of effect is a filter. Filters are applied just as transitions are but affect the entire body of the clip, not just the edit point. You look at and adjust filter parameters in the Filters tab in the Viewer. To learn more about filters, go through the exercises in the "Working with Filters" PDF on the DVD.

4.

To apply a filter that will correct the color of this image, choose Effects > Video Filters > Color Correction > Color Corrector.

5.

To see the clip's image as you make adjustments, drag the Video tab away from the Viewer and move it left over the Browser window. In the Viewer window, click the Color Corrector tab.

6.

In the Video tab, move the playhead to the middle of the clip.

Changing the level of brightness for pixels in the middle range, or mids, in this image will raise the brightness level of the boy's face. Bringing down the white levels will decrease the brightness of the sand. This will improve the overall balance of lights and darks.

7.

Drag the Mids slider to the right a bit until you see the boy's face look a little brighter. Then drag the Whites slider to the left to reduce the amount of brightness in the whites. Experiment with dragging the Blacks slider to the left a tad.

The adjustments you make in this filter apply to every frame in this clip.

8.

To compare the effects of the color correction, click off and on the Enable box next to the Numeric button in the Color Corrector tab.

Tip

If a clip needs color correcting, it may be easier to correct the original master clip before you start to use it in editing. Or you can copy and paste whatever color correction attributes you applied to one clip to other clips like it already in the Timeline.

Project Tasks

1.

Improve some of the other clips in the Jimbo's Clips bin by applying a Color Corrector filter and following the steps in the previous exercise.

2.

When you are through working with the clips in the Browser, click the Close button in the separate Video window to return it to the Viewer.

3.

Play through the 15-Finished sequence and see if any clips need adjusting before output.

4.

Listen to the sequence and watch the Audio Meters to make sure the overall audio output will be balanced and within the desired range.




Apple Pro Training Series Final Cut Express HD
Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Express HD
ISBN: 0321335333
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 174
Authors: Diana Weynand

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