1.5

The Graphics Card You’re Using Affects the Rendered Output
Color uses the GPU of the graphics card that’s installed in your computer to render the
color correction and geometry adjustments that you’ve applied to the shots in your
program. Different video cards have GPU processors with differing capabilities, so it’s
entirely possible for the same Color project to look slightly different when rendered on
computers with different graphics cards. To ensure color accuracy, it’s best to render
your project on a computer using the same graphics card that was used when color
correcting that program.
Which Effects Does Color Render?
Projects that are imported from XML and EDL project files may have many more effects
than Color is capable of processing. These include transitions, geometric transformations,
superimpositions, and speed effects. When rendering your finished program, your
import/export workflow determines which effects Color renders.
In particular, if you render out 2K or 4K DPX or Cineon image sequences to be printed to
film, Color renders the shots in your project very differently than if you’ve rendered
QuickTime files to be sent in a return trip back to Final Cut Pro.
In all cases, the corrections you’ve made using the Primary In, Secondary, Color FX, and
Primary Out rooms are always rendered.
Effects That Aren’t Rendered in a Color–to–Final Cut Pro Roundtrip
• When you shepherd a project through an XML-based Final Cut Pro–to–Color roundtrip,
all transitions, filters, still images, generators, speed effects, Motion tab keyframes and
superimposition settings, and other non-Color-compatible effects from the original
Final Cut Pro project are preserved within your Color project, even if those effects aren’t
visible.
• Color Corrector 3-way filters are the exception. The last Color Corrector 3-way filter
applied to any clip is converted into a Primary In correction in Color. When you send
the project back to Final Cut Pro, all Color Corrector 3-way filters will have been removed
from your project.
• When you’ve finished grading your program in Color and you render that project as a
series of QuickTime movies in preparation for returning to Final Cut Pro, any of the
previously mentioned effects that have been invisibly preserved are not rendered.
Instead, when you send the finished Color project back to Final Cut Pro, such effects
reappear in the resulting Final Cut Pro sequence. At that point you have the option of
making further adjustments and rendering the Final Cut Pro project prior to outputting
it to tape or as a QuickTime master movie file.
390 Chapter 17 The Render Queue