Useful Tools for Editors: Baselight for Avid is Ready

StudioDaily by Scott Simmons

It was in back in April, at NAB, that FilmLight was showing their Baselight for Avid plug-in, part of the ever-growing Baselight Editions family of products. Baselight for Avid is a color-grading tool for Avid Symphony and Avid Media Composer that, like the previously available Baselight for Final Cut Pro, put the Baselight interface right inside of Avid. It’s now ready and available for download from FilmLight’s site. If you're heading to IBC next week, you can also get a look at it in action at FilmLight's booth, 7.F31.

The interface and the way it works is overall quite similar to Baselight for Final Cut Pro. That’s part of the whole Baselight Editions strategy: a consistent interface across all platforms that also includes a version for Nuke. But the availability of this particular color-grading tool for Avid systems is very good news, as Media Composer doesn’t really have that many robust color grading plug-in options. While Media Composer has very capable color correction built in (and Symphony, of course, adds even more color tools), Baselight for Avid goes beyond what Avid offers. The Baselight layer-based grading approach includes mattes, secondaries and keying. It’s a very powerful tool and like most powerful tools, it takes some effort to learn exactly how to use it. But once you’ve got it figured out the color correction possibilities are, almost, endless. There are some things that can be done on a full Baselight that aren't possible in the NLE plug-in version, so don’t think that just because you learn to push the Baselight buttons you’ll become a full-fledged colorist. But if you are wanting or needing color tools beyond what’s already a part of Media Composer or Symphony—and you want a more traditional color grading tool than Magic Bullet Looks—then Baselight for Avid is ideal.

FilmLight has been working on the Avid plug-in for quite a while. read more...

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