[Tig] color (was FT, that is)

[Joe Owens]

What happened between October 2006 and April 18, 2007 will likely be  
in the Apple history books someday... but..

As a member of the Final Touch community we very much felt like we  
were hung out to dry.  Check the FT users community boards at the  
(private) groupee (former Silicon Color "support" forum), Creative  
Cow, you name it...  They just disappeared, poof, and there was anger  
and frustration.  Okay, so it was the NDA that Apple slammed the lid  
on any interaction with the developers.  A few of us got involved in  
projects that required a bit of walking through, and it was not  
available.  To the credit of the FT users group, there was a ton of  
mutual support, and I am grateful to the other users of this  
application for their insights.

Now that the application is "free" bundled with the forthcoming  
FCStudio2... that's another matter.  Apple thinks that a free upgrade  
(if you have a "current" support contract) is fair.
      I'm of two minds about this.  On one hand, I feel screwed (no  
way to mince words on this issue) that a large investment of mine has  
gone south, just like Shake exactly a year ago as well..  but OTOH,  
about 800,000 FinalCut licensees are going to see that this little  
diamond in the rough can really sparkle in the right hands --  
marketing like that I could never afford.  Whether those nearly a  
million users will see the light that a talented colorist is an  
asset.... well, actually if only 0.1% of them connect the dots, I'm  
laughing.  And, and this is a big "and"... its still not a garden- 
variety app that will run comfortably on a PowerBook (if at all).

The floor demos at NAB were a little bit of a laugh.  I know, you've  
got to create a buzz by creating "cool looks"... with the press of a  
button...  okay, then, good luck with that if its a "ransom note"  
that you're looking for... and the "Auto" button...  touted as a good  
starting point, is also the "turn to $h!t" button most of the time.   
XML I/O is hidden as a "send to...", true... but there are still a  
couple of "gotchas" that we will no doubt be hearing about...  ;)   
There are more tweaks coming, of course... its an ongoing process.   
My hope is that now the development team is once more semi-accessible  
we "senior users" can get back to coaxing it into becoming the tool  
that we would like it to be.  Without doubt, the October crisis was  
serious, they got caught between fix/versions and then the thing got  
frozen at an awkward place.  The last Release Candidate was seriously  
broken (I never used it), and it wasn't worth fixing because "Color"  
was coming -- think of it as Version 3.  And you're welcome.

Kevin Shaw?  Your thoughts?

Joe Owens
Presto!Digital Colourgrade
302-9664 106 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta T5H0N4
+1 780 421-9980
jpo at prestodigital.ca