FCP Plugins

Plugins for Final Cut Pro by Jorgen Escher.

The title of this page is plural, but there is in fact only one plugin on this page. Well… for now that is!

• DSLR Moire Filter,  v.1.01 of feb 16 2011

  • General
    • This FCP plugin battles the disturbing problem of micro-moire. Micro-moire manifests itself as red/blue color streaks and pixels that appear in natural and irregular patterns, such as hair, water and grass. Micro-moire is seldom visible on the camera’s LCD display and sometimes not even on a 7″ external monitor. Many a good shot has been spoiled. Get them off the shelf and run them through this new filter! – see remarks and this very short demo video on youtube that Martin from Marvels has put together in a hurry 😉
    • If you want to read more about the moire artifact and why it can feature in your last movie, read these articles:
      • http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/freshdv/story/vdslrs_alias_kthxbye/ by Matt Jeppsen
      • http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/article.php/20 by Barry Green
  • Installation
    • Download the ZIP archive from the link below. This will present you with a plugin file and a README file (read it!).
    • Copy the plugin file “Marvels DSLR Moire Filter” to the folder/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/pluginson your root Macintosh HD volume. Restart FCP if it was already running. You’ll now find the Moire filter in the effects group “Marvels DSLR”.
  • Usage
    • Double click on a clip on the timeline, go to filters->Marvels DSLR and select DSLR Moire Filter. If you want to fine-tune the filter, you can open the Filter tab of the selected clip and adjust two parameters:
      • Chroma Blur -> move slider until moire disappears
      • Overall softening (standard off) to soften the whole image
      • Softening amount to set the amount of overall softening
  • Remarks
    • This plugin does NOT work with AVCHD footage. This will need to be converted to e.g. ProRes or H.264 before usage.
    • This plugin is targeted towards filtering micro-moire issues (red/blue color streaks and pixels that appear in natural and irregular patterns, such as hair, water and grass).  This filter is less effective in removing moire appearing in regular and/or artificial patterns such as brick walls. For the latter, another way of shooting or using a soft filter usually solves the problem.
    • This filter CAN remove almost 100% of micro-moire from irregular structures (e.g. strands of hair) with just using the standard settings. In some cases, depending on the footage and chroma blur amount, a slight desaturation of the red channel can occur. This can simply be amended by using the standard FCP Color corrector filter. Canon 5DMK2 owners that have a camera that came with a bit reddish factory settings (like mine) will even welcome a slight shift to the green… 😉
    • This is NOT a blur filter. It will not soften your image. It transforms the colorspace to YCbCr and breaks it up into components, further only affecting the “C_B and C_R” channels.
  • Download
    • http://mediatube.marvelsfilm.com/Marvels_DSLR_Moire_Filter_v1.01.zip
    • Mirror: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31127109/dontdelete/Marvels_DSLR_Moire_Filter_v1.01.zip

If you like the free “Marvels” profiles and plugins, you can make a small donation via PayPal by clicking the button below. This is voluntary and much appreciated   Donations will be spent annually (usually around Christmas) as a donation to a good cause. On december 23th 2011, the amount of 414 Euros was donated by Marvels Film to Save The Children, via eBay MissionFish. Thanks for your donations!