This release of Final Cut Studio seems to have everything I hoped for. One thing in particular is the new Color app that comes with the new suite. I love the fact that you are going to get near Photoshop level control over your video images now—and not only that but save the settings in portable files that can be traded in much the same way that Photoshop layer styles can be passed around. This is of particular interest to me because I’m a bit of a color nut when it comes to video. Maybe it’s my graphic design background and years of building Photoshop skill, but I can never just use the standard color I get from a camera. I frequently will increase the contrast and saturate or desaturate accordingly. The 3 channel color corrector in FCP is my most used effect. It was the singular tool that allowed me anywhere close to the level of control over all these things that I was looking for. But from I can see there are new curves controls that strongly resemble the curves palet in Photoshops UI. So … YAY!

Also from the looks of it, some of the functionality from Apple’s Shake compositing software has been cannibalized for FCP too. The video demo reveals a very shake like workflow UI that might take some getting used to. Shake had a reputation for being a little quirky in the UI department (this is what I’ve read—I’ve never used it myself).

So this stuff and all the new goodies in Motion and Soundtrack pro and I know that I’m gonna be out the $499 upgrade fee soon.