Free Final Cut Pro plugins: 11 colour effects
Following on from the blurs collection, here are some more Motion effects published for use in Final Cut Pro X – this time it’s the colour modification effects.
This post shows the controls for each effect and provides download instructions. Refer to the section of Motion help system that documents them. Motion defines these as colour correction filters, but I think they can be summarised as colour modification effects.
Brightness
Increase overall brightness.
Channel Mixer
Combine values from different channels. For example, you can transparency values from the alpha channel with the values in red, green or blue channels.
Color Balance
Provides three colour wheels that match those shown in the three-way colour corrector in Final Cut Pro 7.
Color Reduce
Choose two, three or four colours to keep – optionally changing them to other colours.
Contrast
Advanced contrast control.
Gamma
More precise brightness and brightness range control.
Gradient Colorize
Choose a channel to map a range of colours onto.
Levels
Map the darkest and brightest channel values to black and white – with gamma controls to adjust midtone values.
OpenEXR Tone Map
Apply a tone map to OpenEXR encoded content.
YIQ Adjust
Adjust values in the YIQ colour space – useful for adjustments to NTSC content.
YUV Adjust
Adjust values in the YUV colour space – useful for adjustments to PAL and NTSC content.
Naming
I left name ‘color’ in this set of effects as the US spelling because I would have had to rename many controls in these effects to follow the British spelling without any real benefit…
Installation
Download this disk image:
It includes an installation script for Spherico’s Motion Template Tool application, if you don’t have it on your Mac, download it. It is a freeware/donationware tool that simplifies effects installation for Final Cut Pro X users. MTT installs the effects in the correct folders, creating them if need be. You don’t need to have Motion 5 or MTT installed for these effects to work.
Once you have MTT installed on your computer, double-click the ‘Install Alex4D Color effects v1.0.mtt’ file.
If you don’t want to use MTT, install these effects in Home / Movies / Motion Templates / Effects / Color:
If you find this free plugin useful, you might like my Alex4D Animation Transitions plugin pack:
Find out more about Alex4D Animation Transitions.
There are many more free plugins on my Final Cut Pro X page
alex4D old blog 
The Color balance effect: holy cow! Being able to get the three color wheels back like that is fantastic, and using the color picker wheels is a genius way to do it. I find that using the wheels to get it very close and then adding or subtracting a touch of a something using the color board at the end is a good way to use this. Cooling or warming the image up a touch in the mids or highs for example. Nicely Done!!
Hey man.. Do you do all of these for Free all the time?? If so I would like to know how to donate to you or your site.. It won’t be much because I can’t afford much… but you deserve to know someone believes your worth a donation..
Thank you!
There is a PayPal donation button on my Final Cut Pro X home page. Thanks for thinking of me.
Hi, i’ve got a probleme i did everythink you said, but in FCP x when i try the effect the screen is blue… Can you help me please ?
https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/blue-screenis-your-fcpx-new-enough/
Hi
my Mac doesn’t seem to know what application use to open install the software when I click on it.
Can you give me any pointers
thanks
Neil
Pointers:
Did you have the chance to follow the installation instructions? What happened when you downloaded the disk image? Did you run the Motion Template Tool installation script?
I’ll double check, probably my error.
neil
Hi!
I’m trying to install the Channel Mixer a4d plugin in my FCPX. I’m doing it manually and took care with respect to the .localized folders. I restart FCPX and I am able to see and add the channel mixer effect to my footage but, when I’m going to set parameters in the Inspector, the effect shows no controls – so, I can’t use the plugin…
Any ideas on what the problem might be?
Thanks!
It tells me that the program is not compatible with my operating system when I. I can’t see any folders in motion template. Do I create the effects and the color folders?
I can’t for the life of me get this to work, any advice?
Ive tried using the installer but my Mac just brings up error codes, I’ve tried placing the folders individually in place and reopening final cut (still can’t find the effects) Ive also gone into the info of each folder and added .localized still no joy after reopening final cut. Fingers crossed I can figure this out but at the moment I’m running against a brick wall.
Any help appreciated.
Can’t install it to FCP. Is it still working? Valid for FCPx 10.4.6?
When I open Motion template tool, it shows an error “POSIX file “/Volumes/Alex4D Color effects v1.0/Contrast a4d/Contrast a4d.moef” of «script theScript» doesn’t understand the “«event XML open»” message. (-1708)”
Can’t install it. Is this plugin still valid?
It gives me an error “POSIX file “/Volumes/Alex4D Color effects v1.0/Contrast a4d/Contrast a4d.moef” of «script theScript» doesn’t understand the “«event XML open»” message. (-1708)”