Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1022)

• Create and manipulate transparency effects: Use filters like the Chroma Keyer or Garbage
Matte to create and manipulate the alpha channel information of clips in your project.
Key filters create alpha channels based on blue, green, white, or black areas in the
image. Other filters, such as the Widescreen and Soft Edges filters, allow you to further
manipulate the areas of transparency in a keyed clip, expanding, contracting, and
feathering the area of transparency to fine-tune the effect. Filters like the Mask Shape
and Composite Arithmetic filters generate a new alpha channel based on simple
geometric shapes or copy an alpha channel from one clip to another. For more
information, see
“Keying, Mattes, and Masks.”
Final Cut Pro includes a wide selection of video filters, grouped into several categories.
For detailed information, see
“Video Filters Available in Final Cut Pro.”
Third-party filters are available if you want a particular effect that isn’t built in. You can
create your own filters with the built-in FXScript effects language or modify existing filters.
For more information, go to
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/appleapplications .
Like most parameters in Final Cut Pro, filter parameters can be keyframed to change their
effect on a clip over time. Keyframing filters works the same way as keyframing motion
settings. For more information, see
“Adjusting Parameters for Keyframed Effects.”
Applying a Filter to a Clip
You can apply filters to clips in a sequence or to clips in the Browser, but it’s very important
to understand the distinction between these two methods.
• If you apply filters to a sequence clip: The filters are applied only to that clip. The master
clip in the Browser remains untouched.
• If you apply filters to a master clip in the Browser: Instances of that clip already in other
sequences are untouched, but if you edit the master clip into a sequence, the new filter
accompanies the clip into the sequence.
In most cases, you apply filters to individual clips in sequences, not to master clips in the
Browser. There may be occasions when you want every instance of a master clip edited
into a sequence to have the same filter applied, such as during color correction. In this
case, apply the color correction filter to the master clip in the Browser. However, filters
applied to clips are still independent of each other. If you modify the filter parameters
for a master clip, the same filter parameters in affiliate clips are not modified.
Tip: To maintain consistent filter settings across multiple clips, you can copy and paste
filter settings using the Paste Attributes command.
1022 Chapter 63 Using Video Filters