Final Cut Pro X – Apple’s Editing Program

Final Cut Pro X is Apple’s video-editing program and one of the best software for content editing—totally living up to Apple’s reputation of excellent graphics, design, and ease of use. Using Final Cut Pro, one can edit videos from various sources, add new elements, combine different tracks, and use many other functions to make videos better.

What are the main features?

Apple has always been a great operating system for graphic, video, and audio editing. There are a bunch of features that make video editing so easy and create results that look innovative and professional. It is a powerful tool that one can use to extract, trim, cut, synchronize, and enhance video quality. Importing raw footage, the program creates a project to edit the video, and the final product is rendered quickly as the program supports background rendering while you’re still editing the video. The powerful tool supports formats like AVCHD and H.264 from DSLRs.

The user interface, like many other Apple products, is slick, stylish, and quite intuitive to use—making video editing a breeze, even for the most amateur of users. The icons and layout are laid out in a clean one-click format, and it is easy to access and utilize various features of the program. The trackless Magnetic Timeline gives it a more professional look, shortening the video editing steps.

The program can export videos directly to YouTube—and for content creators and vloggers, this is a big advantage. The program is simpler and lighter and supports 360-degree video and VR formats—and of course, the more common video formats.

Making video adjustments is easy using the color wheels for guidance, and one can really change and play around with the look of the video using the program. A wide spectrum of colors and gradients can be used, which greatly enhances the picture quality—resulting in professional-looking videos, without using heavy-duty professional equipment.

Some of the additions you can make are to the text titles that can be created in 3D and other creative ways. For amateur creators, there are plenty of options to play with and try out—a great opportunity to learn hands-on how to create a good video. The options provided really make the videos stand out and look fit for distribution.

Final Cut Pro X stores the projects in excellently organized and easily-accessible libraries that can be referred to begin or continue a new project. Libraries are intuitively designed, making it easy to search for a particular project and organize it in any way you wish. One can tag the content according to their content type for better searchability and organization.

While editing, the program supports up to 64 different viewing angles that can be combined to make a particular video, making the final product more engaging and interesting. For live viewing, the program can support up to 16 different angles.

What are the best things about Final Cut Pro X?

Video-editing and video content creation is the most common way of producing content on social media. Final Cut Pro X makes it easy for even an amateur creator to develop innovative fresh content, and distribute it directly to YouTube. Other programs like Filmora, iMovie, Premiere Pro—while offering similar features—are not as intuitive to use and not as powerful to render videos. iMovie, especially—another product by Apple—is not intuitive at all and requires a great amount of time and perseverance to understand how the editing works. This program, while more powerful and professional, is still easier and has an edge over iMovie. Also, there are a lot more features and editing functions that one can use with Final Cut Pro X, when compared to iMovie.

This software is also great for adjusting the video and tweaking the color spectrum. With these simple yet effective editing tools that can are so easily used, the program gains points by creating the most professional looking content, even without the most expensive or sophisticated equipment.

The multi-angle support ensures that the video can be combined with multiple views and perspectives, making the product more engaging and professional in its look and feel. The interface, while working on multiple angles, makes you clearly see the video from up to 64 different angles—making it easy to cut and combine portions for various camera feeds. Also, for anyone who’s worked on the video, the auto-saving feature is a lifesaver as it ensures that the work done on a project does not get lost because you forgot to save it.

What are the negatives to watch out for?

Final Cut Pro X is an Apple program and strictly used on Macs and Apple devices. There is a version for Windows, too—but then one might as well download other programs like Filmora, which are more readily available and specially made for Windows. The text tools here, while fun to use and experiment with for beginners, are not really sleek and professional-looking. The 3D text is new and innovative but does look tacky sometimes, especially when trying to create a serious or business-related product.

Sometimes, the addition of sound to transitions can bleed and not be precise, and the clipping feature also doesn’t give good results, by being not as seamless as one would like it to be.

What’s the final word on Final Cut Pro X?

In a world where content creation has not totally been overtaken by videos, it is imperative to learn video-editing on a simple, intuitive, and powerful program that lets one create videos—using a spectrum of effects, features, adjustments, and enhancements. Final Cut Pro X is a great product for video-editing for both professionals, as well as beginners. One can directly share the content created on YouTube, which is a big advantage for the program. Overall, this is a slick, sophisticated, yet simple program for video editing—and the trial version can be downloaded right away.

Revolutionary video editing. Powerful media organization. Incredible performance for 4K video. The future of post-production is here.

Revolutionary video editing.

Built to meet the needs of today’s creative editors, Final Cut Pro breaks free from the restrictions of old-fashioned timeline tracks. A dynamic editing interface lets you experiment freely while working with extraordinary speed and precision.

Magnetic Timeline

With a visual simplicity that reveals powerful professional tools just when you need them, the Magnetic Timeline in Final Cut Pro offers an exceptionally fluid, flexible way to edit. Assemble shots with ease as clips “magnetically” close up to eliminate unwanted black gaps in the timeline. Similarly, clips move out of the way to avoid clip collisions and sync problems.
If you prefer to work with traditional, non-rippling editing behaviors, you can use the Position tool to build your timeline.
Interactive animations show you exactly what’s happening as you work, so you can easily try out new ideas.

Multicam

Assemble sophisticated multicam projects with unprecedented speed and flexibility using Final Cut Pro.
The 64-bit engine allows you to work natively and in real time with a variety of formats, frame sizes, and frame rates. Create a Multicam Clip by automatically syncing up to 64 angles of video and photos, or choose custom sync options to precisely align footage based on time of day, timecode, markers, or audio waveforms.
To adjust a Multicam Clip, double-click to open it in the Angle Editor, which lets you move, sync, and edit the look of individual clips. When it’s time to cut, simply drop the Multicam Clip into your project and click in the customizable Angle Viewer. Or use keyboard shortcuts to seamlessly switch between video and audio on the fly. You can even combine audio channels from multiple cameras with just a click.

Multichannel audio editing

Edit multichannel audio faster than ever — right in the timeline. A simple keystroke lets you expand any audio file in place so you can view its separate components. Easily enable or disable entire channels, select ranges to adjust timing and volume, and use the embedded audio fade handles to quickly smooth transitions. For a complete view of your audio file, access the Inspector, where you can rename and hide individual channels. And if you’re working with Multicam Clips, you can switch between and combine multiple audio sources with a click.

Clip Connections

Clip Connections make it simple to place clips such as B-roll, sound effects, and music in the timeline so they all move together as you make changes — even in the most complex projects. Final Cut Pro automatically creates a Clip Connection when you drag a secondary element to the timeline.
It’s easy to reorganize your story as you work, because you can move a section of your project in a single step. Or press a modifier key to keep Connected Clips locked in place as you rearrange clips in the Primary Storyline. Clear visual connections make it easy to hand off a project to another editor or resume editing at a later date.

Compound Clips

Compound Clips are automatically saved back to the Library, making it easy to reuse them in other projects — for example, when designing a unique sound effect with layered audio. And Compound Clips work just like Multicam Clips, so changes you make in the Browser instantly ripple across your projects.

Inline Precision Editor

The Magnetic Timeline improves on traditional ways of trimming, including ripple, roll, slip, and slide edits. If you need additional control, double-click an edit to open the Precision Editor and make trims directly in the timeline. The Precision Editor expands your view of the edit point so you can see both used and unused portions of your clips. Then skim entire clips and adjust edit points with a click.

Auditions

With the unique Auditions feature, you can collect multiple alternative shots at a single location in the timeline and quickly cycle through them in context. Test different B-roll shots, different reads of the same lines, different color grades for the same shot, or different effects. Or use Auditions to create multiple versions of your project for different deliverables and venues. It’s easy to create an Audition — simply drag shots of any length to the same place in the timeline and choose “Add to Audition.” As you try out different shots, the Magnetic Timeline keeps everything in sync.

3D Titles

Choose from simple animated 3D templates or use cinematic templates with built-in backgrounds to create stunning looks in one click. Customize with hundreds of materials, realistic lighting options, and text styles. And instantly open any title in Motion for total control.

Color Grading and Masks

Use the Color Correction effect to quickly grade your image, with the ability to simultaneously view up to four separate scopes. Apply Shape, Color, and custom Draw masks to pinpoint effects to specific areas of the frame. And save any effect as a preset to easily reuse later.