This is probably pretty niche but it's something I've noticed that bothers me.

Make a change to the magic mask in paint tool then try and ctrl+z to get back to default. Nope. I now have to ctrl+z about 15 times because even if I've moved the slider without letting go, for some reason Avid still seems to log a bunch of steps and requires me to undo all of them to get back to the start. You also cannot alt+click the magic mask button to have it reset like other paramenters. Typing in the start parameters should bring me back to the initial state right? Wrong! Luma set to 127 to start with - make some changes - want to reset - type in 127 - different result.

It seems like as soon as you touch it in any way it immediately alters the image but then won't let you quickly reset it. Only way is to remove the shape and start again.

Anyway, tht's my mini rant about an obscure and little-used thing for today.

Andi

I don't think this tool has seen any updates in over ten years!

It's part of (what I call) Avid's 'Create and forget' policy when it comes to a lot of it's AVX effects.

Whilst tools like this might be useful in an offline environment, to show a director what's possible, most of the tools are woefully inadequete for any sort of finishing work.

Agreed. What was great 15 years ago no longer represents an acceptable solution. I do lots of temp stuff and I want it to look good. I also don't have the time to round trip through ten different programs to get a good result. So I'm stuck really. 

I feel like Avid is under in insurmountable backlog of updates and simply don't have the people power to satisfactorily complete any of them and rather than focus on one thing at a time, we are getting this jumble of random bug fixes and interface tweaks. This whole narrative of just cutting with Avid and using other programs to finish is ridiculous, you have to have some level of quality tools in your product.

The crazy thing is, these requests are hardly groundbreaking, they are literally minor tweaks to an existing toolset and yet they never get acknowledged or acted upon. 

There's a tonne of effects that people never use I'm sure, but there are certainly effects that I'd wager a lot of people use on the regular and the Paint tool is one of them I bet.

Andi.   

It does seem as if round-tripping is becoming the de facto workflow these days. This is OK if there's enough time/budget built in to accommodate this way of working. In this respect, Media Composer is simply becoming a cutting tool and not the finishing tool it was once regarded as back in the days when Symphony first appeared.

The problem is that there's a lot of programming that requires fast-turnaround. I've worked on daily magazine shows where we were only a day or so ahead of transmission, so everything (FX, sound mixing, grading) had to be done on MC/Symphony.

Over the years, the increasing demands on Finishing within the Avid ecosystem was causing us problems with the outdated tools avaiable. Some of these issues were alleviated by Boris/Audiosuite plugins or the Baslight Editions grading plugin, but these were really regarded as temporary solutions until Avid got their act together - or so we thought!

I suspect if Avid could fix these things easily, they would. I bet some of the MC code goes back over twenty years and the original programmers aren't around. There's also the danger that by trying to make MC/Symphony a modern, capable finishing tool, it would result in bloatware with loads of bugs. It's far easier to let other third parties try and fill the gap with plugins. 

If you look at the evolution of Davinci Resolve, Blackmagic simply bought up companies and their software (eg Fusion and Fairlight) and added tabs to the main Resolve grading program to allow access to these separate programs. The only thing they really need to do is provide the conduit for passing the material between the separate programs.

This is the way Adobe do things. They've worked hard so that their separate elements (Premiere, AE, Photoshop etc.) talk to each other in a way that means any change in one progam propagates to other programs.

If Avid want to compete, they will need to do something similar. But one has to ask what incentive there is for doing this, given that the free version of Resolve does this already. I think they already know the game is over for an all-conquering system, and their best bet is to focus on what Media Composer does best. For me, that's still the best editing tool for large projects that requires reliable, centralised storage and media management. They have the benefit of probably the most loyal users of any piece of post software around. Luckily, a lot of these users occupy the top jobs in the TV and film industry. As long as they keep them happy, I think they can regard themselves as a long-standing, successful company.

I always tell my students that they should be happy that a lot of new users are put off by MC - especially when coming from other editing software like Premiere. As long as the top TV and film studios carry on using Avid as their main cutting tool, Avid editors will continue to command the best rates if there's not too may experienced users around. I tell them to revel in the quirkiness of Avid's tools and layout because it means most people will shy away from becoming expert at using it and makes you more of a specialist!

Absolutely, that's why it bothers me that I have to pay extra for symphony option. Symphony should no longer exist at all, all those features should be included in the base MC price. If I'm paying extra for it I expect it to be improved over time. I'm certainly glad for the work Avid has provided me over the years but I'd also love an upgrade of my user experience. 

Andi

Andi, If you find you need Paint FX improved, I agree, fwiw.

I am sincerely interested in hearing what you or others rely on using Paint FX for, in a pro context. I never even tried to learn what Magic Mask does and or what it is for, so any tricks in general re: Paint FX or Magic Mask is a curiosity...

Don't know why I have seriously ignored Paint FX, all these years except one day a few years back, when I somehow was able to achieve, for kicks, a basic Light Leak transition FX using a blurred edge white circle moving across tbe frame to hide the edit point...kinda fun, but just noodling around since many folks were whining about MC not offering stock FX to do that. Now we have that great free Plug-in, thankfully.

Re: Symphony. I hear you, but say get it even for offline MC editing to "sell" your screeners by removing color distractions with speed. Sure you know all about its capabilities. Best affordable MC add-on for me, ever.

The perpetual Symphony plug-in was on sale a long while back. I hardly need to use it, as soneone else handles cc for me....loved more knowing Symphony was once Avid's jewel in the crown...so precious, so elite.

Telegram!:

I am sincerely interested in hearing what you or others rely on using Paint FX for, in a pro context. I never even tried to learn what Magic Mask does and or what it is for, so any tricks in general re: Paint FX or Magic Mask is a curiosity...

Haven't used the Paint Tool in a number of years, but it was useful for a number of things...

Clone

Cloning parts of the picture either to remove blemishes (say off a dirty wall) or to add (say) extra clouds to sky. You could also use it as a pixel fixer.

Limitations - You can't seem to clone from one source to another and although you can track cloned elements in a moving shot, the Avid tracker is a fairly basic point tracker, so no planer tracking.

Vignetting

A lot of people use the Animatte tool to make vignettes, but I would often prefer the Paint Tool as I could do vignettes that weren't to video black, but to a slightly lifted black, which seems more pleasing in some instances. You can do this because you can add multiple shapes on top of each other and blend them in different ways (open 'Mode' hamburger to see options).

So for vignetting I would paint a solid colour using the rectangular tool that covers the whole image (choosing an off-black colour for my solid). Then I would add a circular shape on top with the 'Mode' set to Erase. This cuts away the black layer to reveal the image. By adjusting shape and feathering you can achieve a nice vignette.

You can also use this technique to create variable focus effects on your image. Instead of using solid black on your bottom layer, you use the Blur mode to apply the defocus to the image. You then use the Erase mode and paint whatever you need to be in focus.

Magic Mask

I never found this tool to be much use. It's really a simple chroma key tool that allows you to further refine what you've selected using the normal paint tools. So in theory, you could do some sort of secondary correction work on images.

For example, if you selected a rose bush with a circular paint tool in Blur mode, it would blur the whole bush. By using the Magic Mask, you could select just the red petals for blurring. The Magic Mask is quite crude and doesn't do a great job at selecting particular hues etc. Davinci Resolve would do a much better job these days.

As I indictated in a previous post, although these were cutting-edge tools 15 years ago, many other grading/FX software now offer far better tools to do similar things. It's just that it involves round-tripping.

Thanks so much Bruno. That's a very good overview: clear, concise, on target as always. Appreciate it.

The prospect of overlapping 2D shapes and modes is still interesting, though decidedly low-tech. I am going to explore Clone and Magic Mask. I can read a manual but I keep forgetting what BIAS slider does. I learned I could duplicate shapes and their keyframes... seems to open up possibilities. 

I find whether its Symphony's vast tools or advanced Tracking concepts such as Offset tracking, or fine-tuning Timewarp Fluid Motion FX, which makes my brain hurt,  or Dust/Scratch removal, there is a world of really complex precision adjustments built into MC from long ago, all still very enticing if for no other reason than pure curiosity or introduction. Can't quite imagine how complex more modern tools have becone...

At a certain point, all I need is the comfort of a familiar interface and for the never-ending march of technology to not get in tbe way of my editing, or steam-roll me. 

I'm real glad MC is still here, amidst steep competition. Glad too that MC continues to focus improvements in the very idea of "non-linear" editing. With v2021, it has never been easier to juggle editing variations on the timeline, by moving clips around tracks. It it clutters, it lives.

I am jazzed about upcoming versions and custom-ability of the new User Interface. Yesterday, I set up my Effects Workspace for the first tine, to check out Paint FX. 

Now I have a max-sized Single monitor, with a Miniscule Tineline, a big Effect Editor, and the Palette in a shared tab with Composer…all on a single monitor.