Apple Final Cut Express 4 - Manual (Page 678)

678 Part IX Effects and Color Correction
 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 Chapter 53, “
Keying, Mattes, and Masks ,” on page 837.
Final Cut Express includes a wide selection of video filters, grouped into several categories.
Third-party filters are available if you want a particular effect that isn’t built in. For more
information, go to
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/appleapplications .
Like most parameters in Final Cut Express, 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 Chapter 48, “
Adjusting
Parameters for Keyframed Effects ,” on page 751.
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 where 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.
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Tip: To maintain consistent filter settings across multiple clips, you can copy and paste
filter settings using the Paste Attributes command.