1.5

Editing Controls and Procedures
Color is not intended to be an editing environment, and as a result its editing tool set
isn’t as complete as that of an application like Final Cut Pro. In fact, most of the time you
want to be careful not to make any editorial changes at all to your project in Color, for a
variety of reasons:
• If you unlock the tracks of projects that were imported via XML or sent from Final Cut Pro
and that will be returning to Final Cut Pro, you risk disrupting the project data, which
will prevent you from successfully sending the project back to Final Cut Pro.
• If you make edits to a project that was sent from Final Cut Pro, you’ll only be able to
send a simplified version of that project back to Final Cut Pro which contains only the
shots and transitions in track V1, and the Pan & Scan settings in the Geometry room.
• If you import an EDL and make edits, you can export an EDL from Color that incorporates
your changes; however, that EDL will only contain the shots and transitions in track V1.
• If the project you’ve imported is synchronized to an audio mix, making any editorial
changes risks breaking the audio sync.
However, if you’re working on a project where these issues aren’t important, you can use
editing tools and commands in Color to edit shots in unlocked tracks in the Timeline.
Tip: If you need to make an editorial change, you can always reedit the original sequence
in Final Cut Pro, export a new XML file, and use the Reconform command to update the
Color Timeline to match the changes you made.
Select Tool
The Select tool is the default state of the pointer in Color. As the name implies, this tool
lets you select shots in the Timeline, move them to another position in the edit, or delete
them.
It’s a good idea to reselect the Select tool immediately after making edits with any of the
other tools, to make sure you don’t inadvertently continue making alterations in the
Timeline that you don’t intend.
To reposition a shot in the Timeline
µ
Drag the shot to another position in the Timeline.
When you move a shot in the Timeline, where it ends depends on the In point’s relation
to shots that are already there. Shots you move in Color never overwrite other shots.
Instead, the other shots in the Timeline are moved out of the way to make way for the
incoming shot, and the program is rippled as a result.
• If the In point of the moved shot overlaps the first half of another shot, nothing is
changed.
176 Chapter 7 Timeline Playback, Navigation, and Editing