Copying and Pasting Filters

[ This article was first published in the June, 2006, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]

Ramin, one of my students at LA Valley College, showed me some interesting tricks on how to copy and paste filters.

Here’s a collection of three filters applied to one image. (It’s actually a pretty cool effect, as you can see from our snowboarder here.)

… but I digress.

To copy all the filters at once, click the words Video Filters at the top of the Viewer. Notice how all the filters are selected in one click?

Select Edit > Copy (or press Cmd+C) to copy all the selected filters to the clipboard. (Or, hold the Command key and just select the filters you want to copy.)

Select all the clips you want to paste the filters into and choose Edit > Paste.

However, there are several other ways you can paste filters. First, though, make sure you have selected and copied the filters to the clipboard. Then:

1. Load the clip you want to paste the filters into the Viewer, select the Filters tab and press Cmd+V (Edit > Paste)
2. Select all the clips you want to paste filters into on the Timeline, select Edit > Paste Attributes, check the Filters checkbox and click OK.
3. Drag the words, Video Filters from the top of the Viewer containing the clip with filters, on top of the clip, or selected clips, in the timeline to which you want to paste the filters.
4. Load the clip containing the filters you want into the Viewer and make it active. Select Make Favorite Effect (Option+F). Go to Browser > Effects tab > Favorites folder and drag the bin containing your filters onto another clip. However, I am not a fan of relying on favorite effects because trashing preferences destroys all favorite effects.
5. Create a new bin in the Browser and drag the filters into the bin. However, your filter order changes into alphabetical order, which may change your effect in ways you don’t like.

Sigh… all these choices. Now you get to pick your favorite.