Magic Lantern HDR Compose: Free Final Cut Pro X generator

This is an unpolished effect that I’m releasing early so that the few people who need it can give me some feedback.

Magic Lantern is a system for adding features to Canon DSLRs, Unified is a recent ML package enables some cameras to shoot footage that can processed to produce content with a larger exposure range – i.e. High Dynamic Range.

The files produced are made up of alternate frames of under- and over-exposed footage. My new generators take these frames and give you the control to define how the overexposed frames are overlayed on top of the underexposed frames.

For more information on Unified and Magic Lantern and the software to for your Canon DSLR, visit the Wiki

Note that you must shoot footage at twice the framerate you need, as 25 fps footage results in 12.5 fps HDR footage. These generators don’t do any interpolation.

Workflow

1. If you have Motion installed, or you have already installed third-party effects, download the effect archive from here.

Expand the ZIP archive and add the folder to Movies : Motion Templates : Generators :

If you don’t have Motion installed on your Mac and you’ve never installed any third-party effects, download the archive of the Motion Templates folder with the Alex4D ML HDR Compose generators in the correct sub-folder. Expand the ZIP and put the resulting Motion Templates folder in the Movies folder of your home folder.

2. Start Final Cut Pro X, add your HDR footage to an event, create a new project at the native frame rate of your footage.

3. Add your ML footage to the project.

4. Go to the ‘Alex4D’ section of the Generators panel:

The Magic Lantern HDR Compose generators default to a duration of 10 minutes, so to set the correct length, drag the generator you need on top of the ML footage:

When you release the mouse button, a pop-up menu will appear. Choose ‘Replace from Start’.

5. The ML footage isn’t automatically added to the generator, so you need to click it, click the clip well and choose your ML footage.

The generator defaults to simply showing the overexposed frames.

There are many settings, but I suggest you try changing the following in this order:

The Opacity Out setting defines how much of the brightest parts of the overexposed frames are overlaid onto the underexposed frames. Start by reducing this value, so less of the most blown out parts are shown.

The Opacity Gamma setting defines how smoothly the overlaid image fades out the brighter parts, gradually increase this value.

The Gamma setting defines the contrast of the overexposed frames, increase this a little.

This may result in a desaturated image, so use the Overall Saturation setting to increase the saturation.

The Black In, Black Out, White In and White Out controls give more control over the contrast of the overexposed frames.

Here’s a demo showing the results of these settings of some night-time footage (which you can download from http://vimeo.com/34028226 )

Check out my other free effects and articles on my Final Cut Pro X home page.

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