How to add DaVinci Resolve to the workflow?

[Ryan Holmes]

Using your original media, do your edit in PPro. Once your edit is locked send that sequence via XML (or EDL) into Resolve. Grade the clips in Resolve. Then either export out your finished project from Resolve or export out the graded clips so you can send a XML (or EDL) back to PPro to do more additional work (titles, After Effects, etc.).

Typically color grading is one of the last steps you do. However, if you’re shooting in a flat picture style you may want to do a rough grade (or use a LUT) so that it looks better to the client as they work their way through the edit. You could do this inside of PPro with a 3-way color corrector (just a simple effect on the clip in the timeline).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Sondre Russvoll]

Thanks for your reply! So if I’ve understood you correctly, I should just make the movies the same way I’ve always done it: Make a rough outline in Premiere Pro, then do all the special effects in AE and do the grading after the final cut is done in Premiere Pro.

So, I’ll just have to do the special effects with the low contrast movies?

[Ryan Holmes]

[Sondre Russvoll] “So, I’ll just have to do the special effects with the low contrast movies?
“

You can do it that way. Or just apply a 3-Way Color Corrector/LUT to your footage in PPro so it looks a bit more punchy and then go over to AE. Just be sure not to bake in any of your color correction/LUT on your footage before you go to Resolve (unless you want to as a base grade starting point).

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Sondre Russvoll]

Aha, so for example just add an adjustment layer with some contrast and saturation on while editing and remove it before the final render. Thanks again!

[Don Daedalus]

Actually, adjustment layers exported as XML from Premiere to Davinci are a problem. Currently, they are imported into DaVinci as slug!

If anyone knows a good roundtrip method from Premiere to DaVinci and back so that the timelines and sequences conform in each application, please say so!

Leaving color correction for the end is an antiquated workflow. Even with DaVinci, you can do a “one-light” correction remotely, i.e. while the production is underway.

-D

[Ryan Holmes]

[Donald Daedalus] “Actually, adjustment layers exported as XML from Premiere to Davinci are a problem. Currently, they are imported into DaVinci as slug! “

Adjustment layers are unique to Premiere Pro….those won’t translate to other applications (FCP, Smoke, Resolve, etc). You may have success using a 3-way color corrector applied directly to the clip as Resolve does attempt to translate that upon import, but it’s an imperfect process and you’re changing color spaces between the two apps so it’s never a 1:1 translation.

[Donald Daedalus] “Leaving color correction for the end is an antiquated workflow. Even with DaVinci, you can do a “one-light” correction remotely, i.e. while the production is underway.”

Please note that this thread was created while Resolve 9 was out. Collaborative grading/editing was (and largely still is) reserved for Avid and Avid Isis users. You can apply a look or a LUT to your footage for editors to use while they cut. But finished color grading is done once you have picture lock. Resolve 11 is attempting to blur those lines by giving you a NLE within the app itself. How well that works, remains to be seen. But, color grading is more an end-of-the-line step for post-production.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost