Exporting stills for color correction outside of FCP

Hello All,

What are some best practices for exporting still frames for color correction (particularly frames from ProResRaw footage to create a LUT in Resolve or Fylm.ai)?  The latter has guides for exporting stills for CC from Resolve & Premiere but not FCP, which seems to lack the fine options for color space, gamma curve, etc.  See:  fylm.ai/docs/how-to-export-still-frames-...-for-use-in-fylm-ai/

It seems that, as is usual for FCP, a workaround is needed to keep things consistent.  Is the only option to transcode a clip, open in Resolve and export from there to preserve a camera maker's color space & gamma curve?

Thanks!

ProRes RAW doesn't have an intrinsic color space or gamma curve. Unlike BRAW it is true Bayer-pattern RAW data. You assign the ProRes RAW material a gamma curve and color space within the NLE. Technically the camera that recorded the material via ProRes RAW also doesn't have a color space or gamma curve. When sending data in ProRes RAW, those menu settings are typically greyed out in the camera. Color space, gamma curve and chroma subsampling (e.g, 4444) only exist downstream of ProRes RAW when the material is converted to RGB.

However the presumption is the conversion function that (say) Sony provides Apple for FCP is optimized for their camera and sensor, likewise with the other mfgs. So while you can convert ProRes RAW from Sony to Panasonic VLog in FCP, the best practice is use SLog3 since that was provided by Sony, and likewise for whatever camera you're using.

That is in FCP's Inspector, Info tab, Settings View. Normally FCP will read the ProRes RAW metadata and assign that automatically, however it will also automatically assign an SLog3-to-Rec 709 camera LUT (for the Sony case), which you don't want.

So the procedure is import the ProRes RAW material, look in Inspector's Info tab to ensure it identified the right log conversion for that camera, then de-select the camera LUT but leave the appropriate RAW-to-log conversion function in effect. 

Some combinations of cameras and recorders will provide ProRes RAW material the right metadata so FCP can adjust white balance and ISO. E.g, The Sony A7SIII, FX3 and FX6 if recorded by the Atomos Ninja V have that. The Shogun 7 does not provide that. That is up to the camera manufacturer and Atomos. We are still waiting on an Atomos firmware update (which is likely in turn waiting on info from Sony) to provide the Shogun 7 with the correct ProRes RAW metadata to enable WB and ISO for FCP. I think the initial version of Atomos and Panasonic firmware that implemented ProRes RAW likewise did not provide WB and ISO in FCP, but Atomos and Panasonic did firmware updates which later gave that.

If your camera and recorder provide that info you could adjust WB in post before exporting still frame from FCP.

To export a frame from that, first add that as a preset, do File>Share>Add Destination, then draw/drop "Save Current Frame" to the destinations. Thereafter you can export a single frame using File>Share>Save Current Frame. For image type, I'd probably use TIFF.

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your thorough response.  I thought similarly and agree with your suggested workflow.  For PoResRaw, I set the clip to the camera Raw-toLog conversion, let's say S-Log3 per your example.  This issue is with the export.  FCP only allows exporting stills or video clips in the following color spaces: rec 709, rec2020, rec 2020pq or rec2020 HLG.  This leads to mismatches when exporting from FCP, creating a LUT elsewhere on that file that has changed color spaces and then applying the created LUT in FCP to the clip that is in the original color space.

The export options are really lacking and are not even accessible within the export dialogue (it has to be set within the inspector prior to export).  Unless I'm missing something, Apple is wayyy behind in the respect.