Composite Modes in Final Cut Pro
Working with Composite Modes
Final Cut Pro composite modes determine how the brightness and color of one clip visually interact with those of another clip layered beneath it in a sequence. When you edit a clip into your sequence, it defaults to the Normal composite mode, meaning that it is a completely opaque layer that does not blend with the layers beneath.
How Composite Modes Affect Images
Composite modes mix colors from overlapping images together based on the brightness values within each color channel in an image. Every image consists of red, green, blue, and alpha channels (or one luma and two chroma channels in the case of Y′CBCR component video). Each individual channel contains a range of brightness values that defines the intensity of each pixel in the image that uses some of that color.
The effect that each composite mode has on objects that overlap in the Canvas depends on the range of color values within each object. The red, green, and blue channels (or Y′CBCR channels) within each overlapping pixel are mathematically combined to yield the final image.