Color Grading Tools to augment FCP X

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Maybe Colorista from Magic Bullet is something for you?

Unfortunately it’s only available for all other NLE’s EXCEPT FCP X for the moment. I do hope Red Giant is busy with an update though, they have made most of their plugins available for FCP X.

Also, don’t forget that Resolve 9 is coming out soon, which simplifies some set-up operations, has some new UI, and 64bit support.

And as someone that came from Color, and had the same overwhelmed feeling as you had by opening Resolve, I highly recommend the DaVinci Resolve training on Ripple Training. It’s very inexpensive (80 dollars), but is very throughout and detailed.
It’s easy to understand if you come from Color and already know some basic things about color correction.

[Andy Neil]

Couple of things I’m a bit confused by…

[Michael Holmes] “I have been struggling with color and shape masks in FCP X to deal with the bad cases, but it is really tedious. “

Are you referring to the time it takes to keyframe the mask? Or is there some other aspect of the masks that you’re having trouble with? Because no matter what program you use, if you need to mask out portions during the color correction, then it’s going to take some time. Resolve has the ability to track the object or person you’ve masked, but even that is not a magic bullet all the time.

[Michael Holmes] “I looked in detail at what it would take to use Resolve and it makes absolutely no sense for me………….I would spend tons of times learning complex capabilities designed for much more complex movies, and also spend a fortune on a separate computer system.”

Why do you think you need a new computer system to run Resolve?

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Oliver Peters]

Here are some current options:

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/fcp-x-tools-part-3-color-grade-effects/
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/fcp-x-tips-part-5-filter-suites/

Of course, there’s the roundtrip with Resolve Lite. Best solution and it’s free.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/final-cut-pro-x-roundtrips/

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Michael Holmes]

(1) Yes, I recognize the masking will be tedious and time-consuming in any case. But the FCP X masking just seems crude and cumbersome to me. I was hoping that there would be some easier tools to accomplish this.

Tracking would be fantastic, even if it doesn’t work perfectly and would need some help. The musicians move around just enough to throw the masking off, and it does more damage than good.

(20 If I read the Resolve Mac Config Guide correctly
https://www.blackmagic-design.com/media/3358646/Resolve%20Mac%20Config%20Guide%20Mar%202012.pdf
I would need a Quadro 4000 card to go along with my 5770 card, a Decklink capture card, and a RAID card as a minimum if I hope to do ProRes in real time.

I run FCP X and Pro Tools HD Native on my Mac Pro 2×2.4 Quad Core now. I process all the audio in Pro Tools and return it to FCP X, for the best sound quality. I already have these PCIe cards now: 5770, Pro Tools HD Native, card for external hard drive bays, and a UAD plug-in card.

So, I don’t see any way to add Resolve to this Mac Pro, except to buy more memory, some SSD, and a Cubix PCIe Xpander unit. I really don’t want to sink any significant $ into this Mac Pro since I am expecting a completely new replacement computer next year: hard wired memory, all SSD, no PCI cards (what do I know?).

So, I am hoping the next version of Resolve will work on a new more powerful Mac next year, alongside FCP X and Pro Tools. In the meantime, I’m reluctant to do anything major.

Please let me know if I am wrong about what I need for Resolve.

[Michael Holmes]

Thanks, Oliver.
I will check out Magic Bullet Looks 2.

Yes, I think the Resolve round-trip would be the best solution, also…..I’d love to use it. But as I discuss above, the software is free but the associated horsepower to run it in real-time is not. 🙁

Unless I am way off-base on what is needed. I hope I’m wrong.

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Holmes] “Yes, I think the Resolve round-trip would be the best solution, also…..I’d love to use it. But as I discuss above, the software is free but the associated horsepower to run it in real-time is not. :(“

FWIW- MBLooks2 is very nice, but the performance of all the suite packages in X is horrible. Forget anything close to RT. It also won’t help you much with the shapes issue and there’s no way to keyframe it.

Take a look at my review of Resolve 8.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/davinci-resolve-8/

You should be fine, however, Resolve requires BMD hardware if you want to see the image on a broadcast monitor. The CUDA cards don’t buy you as much real-time as you think. I actually get much better RT performance with SpeedGrade than Resolve.

Another option if you have Color installed, is to use Xto7 to send to FCP7. Then Send to Color from there.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Michael Holmes]

Super review, Oliver.

So, let’s say for monitors I will stick with my HP 2711x right now (calibrated with SpyderPRO4), along with an HDMI cable from the 5770 card to my Panasonic Plasma TV, as a check.

Let’s also say I will expand memory from 16GB–>32GB, and replace hard drive 1 with 254GB SSD for OS/Apps (not super expensive steps).

So, no RAID card, no Quadro 4000, no capture card. Resolve Lite doesn’t require any of this hardware to operate?

Could I reasonably expect to be able to work in real time with Resolve Lite, with Projects involving: dual cams, one Project per song (to make it easier), song duration 10 minutes max, in ProRes? (ProRes Proxy defeats the purpose, it seems to me)

I have been assuming even this would bog down without more GPU cards in an Xpander. If this would work in real time, then I would be enthusiastically on-board.

BTW, all my disk storage now is Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200RPM SATA II. I assume this is where things will bog down.

[Michael Holmes]

Oliver,
Let me amend my comments.
If it would be the difference in Resolve running very nicely versus bogging down, I could give up one PCIe slot and install a large SSD card for Events/Projects, to get 6Gbps rather than 3Gbps.

I don’t know if this would be a critical help or not.

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Holmes] “So, no RAID card, no Quadro 4000, no capture card. Resolve Lite doesn’t require any of this hardware to operate?”

Correct. But since Resolve Lite is free, why not install it and see how it performs? You are going to want fast drives, although no need for SSDs. For instance, I’m running two internal 7200 drives in my MacPro, which are in a software RAID-0 configuration. This is fine for ProResLT, ProRes and small amounts of PRHQ and PR4444.

[Michael Holmes] “Could I reasonably expect to be able to work in real time with Resolve Lite”

No, but Color wouldn’t be RT either. You will probably get 15-24fps depending on media format. RT isn’t that important anyway since you aren’t laying off to tape from Resolve.

I would caution, though, that if you find FCP X grading tedious, I’m not sure Resolve would be any different. Remember that all grading applications are reasonably deep and require a lot of commitment to learn the application. The only reason to go with Resolve is for a better final product.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Michael Holmes]

Thanks so much for the help, Oliver.

Tedious is not a problem, I expect that. The problem is that the tools seem cumbersome and the results don’t merit the extensive effort.

You don’t see real time as important because you are normally working with a frame at a time……correct?

Based on this information, I will plunge in and demo Resolve Lite. I hope I come back up at some point.