Depending on your imported source media or your output needs, you can set your project to one of two working color spaces: Standard or Wide Gamut. The working color space setting may affect the appearance of your final render. For example, when the project is changed from Standard to Wide Gamut, the effect of some filters or blend modes may change in appearance.
If you’re building a template for Final Cut Pro X in wide color gamut, you can instruct the template to use the color space setting of the Final Cut Pro library, or to override the color space setting of the Final Cut Pro library. Also, if an imported file’s color profile is missing or incorrect, you can override its color space so that Motion correctly interprets the media’s colors.
In addition to dealing with media and template color space, you can also apply wide-gamut colors to shapes, text, and effects.
In the Layers list of the project, select the Project object.
In the Properties Inspector, click the Color Processing pop-up menu, then choose Standard (Rec. 709) or Wide Gamut (Rec. 2020).
For more information, see Wide color gamut overview.
When you create an effect, generator, title, or transition template in a certain color space, and then apply the template to a Final Cut Pro project that has a different color space, your effect might not appear as expected. For example, if you create an effect in Standard working color space, then apply the effect to a Final Cut Pro project that is part of a wide-gamut library, the Motion effect switches to the Wide Gamut working color space. You can ensure a consistent result regardless of the Final Cut Pro library’s working color space setting by selecting the Override FCP Color Space checkbox.
In the Layers list of the template project, select the Project object.
In the Properties Inspector, select the “Override FCP Color Space” checkbox.
If Override FCP Color Space is not selected, and you apply an effect in a Final Cut Pro library, all processing happens in the working color space of the library.
For more information on the library and output color space in Final Cut Pro, see Final Cut Pro X Help.
If a media file is not tagged or is tagged incorrectly prior to importing into Motion, you can manually set its color profile in the Media pane of the Inspector.
Open the Media pane, then select the image or clip.
In the Media Inspector, click the Color Space Override pop-up menu, then choose an option.
In the sRGB color space, red, green, and blue color values range from 0 to 1. For black, you set all three channels to 0, or no saturation (0, 0, 0). For white, you set the three color channels to 1, or full saturation (1, 1, 1). For the most saturated red, you set the red channel to 1 and set green and blue to 0 (1, 0, 0). There are many colors, however, that fall outside of the sRGB color gamut. For example, a saturated red in Rec. 2020 (wide gamut) will have a red value greater than 1, and green and blue values less than 0.
Because it’s difficult to know the necessary values for wide-gamut color, use the Motion and macOS color pickers to set wide-gamut color for effects (such as filters or particles), shapes, and text.
In this example, set the fill of a shape to full-saturation red for the Rec. 2020 color gamut.
In the canvas or Layers list, select the shape object.
In the Shape Inspector, click the Fill Color well.
The macOS Color window appears.
In the top row of the macOS Color window, click the Color Sliders button, then click the pop-up menu and choose RGB Sliders.
To the right of the pop-up menu, click the gear icon, then choose a color space (for Rec. 2020, choose Rec. ITU-R BT.2020-1).
Drag the Red slider all the way to the right (to 255), then drag the Green and Blue sliders all the way to the left (to 0).
Close the Colors window.
In the Inspector, the Red value is now set to 1.25; the Green value is set to –0.39; and the blue value is set to –0.14. When your project is exported to the Rec. 2020 color space and played back on a device capable of reproducing the Rec. 2020 color space, the object will appear the reddest-red possible.
Note: Your project does not have to be set to Wide Gamut (Rec. 2020) in order to set wide-gamut colors.
You can switch the appearance of a project in the canvas (and the appearance of a project when exported) between standard working color space and wide working color space. For example, if you’re working in wide-gamut Rec. 2020 and plan to export to a standard-gamut Rec. 709 format, set Render Color Space to Rec. 709 to view any clipping that may occur. (This parameter is most useful if you’re working on a wide-gamut display.)
Choose View > Render Color Space, then select Automatic, Rec. 709 , or Rec. 2020.
When Render Color Space is set to Automatic, the render color space is defined by the Color Processing setting in the Project Properties Inspector.
Note: By default, when you export a project, it’s rendered using the Render Color Space setting. However, you can override this setting in the Render pane of the Share window by choosing an option from the Color Space pop-up menu.
For more information, see Working with Wide Color Gamut.