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Color trace or power grade to copy grades?
Hello again!
I’m grading a feature (split into 6 rolls/projects), and we have pretty much signed off on the grade but there are some pickups that are replacing some shots and changing the edit in parts (only ever 1-2 shots). I don’t really want to start poking around in the DaVinci timeline/conform to match the new edit or to a Reconform in DaVinci and use colortrace for the whole film, so I was thinking of creating timing with just the changed/new shots in and then adding 1-2 shot handles each side so We can grade these new shots in some context to the already grades shots surrounding them.
Question is, what is the best way to transfer the grades? I’m fairly new to
Colortrace so advice for that would be appreciated. I know an alternative is to save stills or use power grades etc. do either of these methods copy dynamic grading? What are the benefits of one workflow over the other? So you suggest another workflow entirely?This would be good to know for future projects too (especially colortrace) for projects with director edits or other variations of an edit. I always push for picture lock but as I’m sure you all know that ‘lock’ seems more and more like an elastic band.
Thanks in advance!
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6 Replies
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Using color trace hasn’t worked out well for me in the past…
But why aren’t you just adding an XML/EDL of the new edit into your project? It’s simple, all your grades will line up. And render them out with handles if you need to.
Lock is never locked, and honestly that’s why I love DaVinci, adding a new EDL/XML is cake and all your grades just copy over.
Joseph Mastantuono
http://www.goodpost.net
Color Grading & Post Production Consulting -
If I do use the xml method, would different grades of the same master shot come across correctly (most clips of the same take/shot have been un-linked and graded separately)? What about dynamic grades and windows etc?
Also, for the new clips (that aren’t in the exisiting timeline) would I just add these manually to the media pool? Would these then appear in the master session?
Thanks!
Toby
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Color Trace works by using tape name and timecode, very similar to Avid relinking. If the tape name and the time code of both clips match, color trace will work. If they don’t, it won’t. So if you create new clips within Resolve, or you bring them in under a different tape name in the editing system, you won’t get a match. If you avoid that, and make sure the tape names and time codes are the same in the source project and the destination project, it will work. Remember that what’s in the EDL is the issue, not how you ID the files themselves for linking.
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I understand, but what about dynamic grading and differenct grades across differnt clips from the same master file / master clip?
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It works the way I just described. Dynamics are preserved (including window tracking) if the time code is the same. If the new clip is longer than the original, it won’t trace properly. Basically it expects all of the frames of the destination clip to be included in the source clip. I’ve never really tried color tracing a project with various versions and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but my guess is that it will reattach all versions of a multi version clip, provided the criteria is met. If not, it might offer you some choices in the color trace dialog, much as it does when there are conflicts because of matching time codes on various clips.
The easiest way to see if any of this works is to try it, then ask questions. It sounds like you’re asking the questions first…….
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Fair enough. I just tested it, dynamics come through with the xml workflow but clips from the same master clip get re-linked, and so different grades of the same master clip don’t seem to come though, but the clip durations have changed so I’m not surprised here. These can be overcome with manually copying/pasting grades via still etc if need be.
Thanks for the advice guys.
Toby
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