From Clip to Cohesive: Mastering Color in FCP

How to Easily Match Color in Video Clips with Final Cut Pro

Benjamin Arango

Aug 18, 2022• Proven solutions

If you are involved in video editing or post-production activities, then you might be familiar with color matching. In this, we make sure that the overall color and tone of our videos are matched throughout. Thankfully, you can easily do color match in Final Cut Pro or any other reliable video editing tool. In this detailed Final Cut Pro match color tutorial, I will help you do the same and would also share details about its best alternative.

Part 1: How to Use Final Cut Pro X to Match Colors: A Stepwise Guide

Final Cut Pro X has to be one of the most resourceful Mac applications that you can use to edit your videos. If you want, you can use the automatic FCPX match color tool in the application to automatically apply the effect. Besides that, you can manually match color in Final Cut Pro X by using its inbuilt features.

Method 1: Using the Final Cut Pro Match Color Tool

To use the Final Cut Pro X Match Color feature, you can simply go through these simple steps:

Step 1: Load and import the video clips

To begin with, you can just launch Final Cut Pro on your Mac and go to its File > Import > Media to load any video clip of your choice. You can simply drag and drop your videos to the Final Cut Pro interface.

Step 2: Apply the FCPX Match Color effect

Now, simply select the clip you want to edit, go to the Enhancement menu, and click on the Match Color icon (below the viewer). You can also find it under the Modify > Match Color option or get the feature by pressing the Option + Command + M key combination.

Afterward, the Color Match FCPX tool will display two different screens in the viewer. On the right, you would have the clip from where you can match the source while the target clip will be displayed on the left.

From the Final Cut Pro timeline or the browser, you can find the appropriate clips. If you want, you can even import a still image to source the respective colors for matching. Simply preview the changes that the FCPX Color Match tool will make and click on the “Apply Match” in the end.

Method 2: Adjust the Video Color Manually

Apart from the match color tool in Final Cut, you can also manually set the color grading and saturation feature. While this will not get you instant or exact results to color match in Final Cut Pro, you can still give it a try.

Once the video clip is loaded on Filmora, just go to the Effects Browser > Inspector and add the Color Correction effect to the video. Now, you can go to the Color Correction tab from the sidebar to manually adjust the value for color, saturation, and exposure to get the desired effects.

Part 2: Wondershare Filmora: The Best Alternative to FCPX Color Match Tool

Since Final Cut Pro is not the most user-friendly application, a lot of people look for other alternatives to perform operations like color match. Therefore, you can also take the assistance of Wondershare Filmora . It is a powerful video editing and post-production tool that is extremely easy to use and runs on all the major macOS versions.

• On Filmora, you can find seamless options like color matching, color tuning, splitting, resizing, scene detection, and so on.
• There are also tons of advanced video editing features in Filmora like keyframing, motion detection, green screen edits, etc.
• You can find a wide range of effects, presets, texts, stickers, transitions, and more in the Filmora library.
• There are also dedicated options to edit audio in your media files or add voiceovers.
• Filmora is one of the easiest video editing tools out there with import/export options for all the leading formats.

To perform automatic color matching in your videos using Wondershare Filmora, the following steps can be taken:

Step 1: Import the video to edit on Filmora

At first, you can just launch Filmora on your Mac and drag-and-drop the video you want to edit. You can also go to its File > Import Media to load any video of your choice on Filmora and just drag the clips to the timeline (at the bottom).

Step 2: Apply Color Correction to your Clips

If you want, you can add multiple clips on Filmora and simply add them to the timeline as per your requirements.

You can now take the playhead and place it from where you wish to edit the video. You can select the remaining clip (or photos), right-click, and choose the Color Match option. Alternatively, you can also click on the color palette icon on the timeline’s toolbar and select the “Color Match” button.

This will change the viewer into two screens. Here, you can select the reference picture or clip as a source and preview its effects on the target clip. You can also go to the Color tab on the side and adjust its level under the Comparison View section.

On the viewer window, you can see all the changes, and click on the “Match” button to apply the effect.

Step 3: Export your video to a preferred format

After making the needed changes and applying the color correction feature, you can go to the Export option of the tool. Here, you can choose a preferred format to export your file and even choose its resolution and video quality.

I’m sure that after reading this post you would be able to apply color match in Final Cut Pro. As you can see, I have included a stepwise tutorial that anyone can follow to use the Final Cut Pro Match Color tool. Though, if you are looking for a better and more user-friendly option, then explore Wondershare Filmora. The free video editing application offers a wide range of features and will certainly meet every post-production need of yours in no time!

Benjamin Arango

Benjamin Arango is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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