[Marc Wielage]

[Chris Wright] “strip quicktime gamma tag with atom tag removal software JES Extensify”…
Sadly, it doesn’t look like Extensfy is available on the net anymore, since the software developer has vanished. Anybody know where this might be?

[Marc Wielage]

I’d still convert it all to ProRes 422HQ or DNxHR and use the transcoded files for final color. (Given a big enough system, DPX or EXR would work as well, but it’d be total overkill.)

I don’t see the point clinging to the camera files — they’re not buying you anything in terms of quality. It just stresses out the system that much more.

[Marc Wielage]

I have seen this kind of thing happen before. My guess is that the render cache is stuck with the old (non-title) image, and it won’t update to the new correction/composite. My cheap workaround is generally to create a new Version, and this generally forces the cache to update.

I agree that the Type Generator is a little buggy. I haven’t used 14.1 yet and we’ll hope it’s improved.

[Marc Wielage]

Oooh, watch out for any kind of automatic settings. Those can lead you right off a cliff in terms of levels.

I have seen cases where parts of the picture (like eyeglasses) are distracting, and it takes a lot of worse to “get the curse” off them to the point where we can direct the audience’s attention to the important aspects of the image. This sometimes takes a bit of work. The split-level technique is outlined by Benoit Cote in this (fairly long) post on LGG a couple of years ago…

https://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/natural-skin-smoothing-davinci-resolve.2983/

The principles for defocus are the same as for selective sharpening. It is a little tricky and there are aspects that are not intuitive, but the technique does work. The recent Resolve 14 OFX Soften & Sharpen plug-in can duplicate some of this functionality in one node.

[Marc Wielage]

It’s not so much “keying on the glasses” — it’s refining a split-level keying qualifier in order to enable anti-aliasing only the top highlights, then using a window to confine that just to the glasses. I also find Primary Highlights to be helpful (unless Log Highlights work better). There’s a bunch of things you can try.

As to the display: how is it calibrated? If it’s been adjusted for Rec709/BT1886, then peak whites will be at 100 nits and blacks will be reasonable. ABL can alter this a little bit with cheap monitors (it’s pretty much the way things are), but you can work around it to some degree.

[Marc Wielage]

For me, lessons learned the hard ones are among those I never forget. There are mistakes out there that you only make ONCE. Sometimes, it’s important to make them, get them out of the way, and avoid them from that point on.

It is a total pain in the ass to have to redo a job, but the good news is: it always takes less time the second time because you already know what you did before. I haven’t had to do this with Resolve yet, but I did have that experience with some earlier color-correctors (including the original daVinci 2K). Crap happens, you move on and get by.

[Marc Wielage]

Wow, here’s a 5-year-old thread back from the dead.

I would say if you’re working on the same project over a period of days, always export a DRP backup file to an external drive, just as a precaution. Worst-case scenario, import that backup file, open it up as a session, and all the work you did up to the save point should be there.

I have not ever encountered any lost work except in a crash, and even then, it’s generally only a handful of shots, like 10-15 minutes’ of worth (when an auto-save had not yet happened). In theory, Live Save should solve this problem, but I don’t think that replaces the need for daily backups.

[Marc Wielage]

[Duke Sweden] “I shot one of the few videos where I’m in perfect focus (in V Log). When I open the clip in Resolve everything is perfectly focused with no sharpening necessary but my glasses appear “oversharpened” (aliasing is visible). How do I remedy that without dulling the other features around it, namely my face, ugly as it is?”
My advice would be to use split-frequency keying and setup a node structure so that you basically have highs selected as a key and another layer node for lows selected. Refine the key so that highs only (like the glasses) are qualified, then blur them the tiniest bit, like maybe 51 or 52, and see if that takes the edge off it.

An alternative would be soft clip or SNR. There’s a few things you can try, but the key (no pun intended) is to only affect the precise area you want. Tracking masks might be necessary in some cases.

[Marc Wielage]

I agree with Michael’s method (but I sympathize with Tero, who correctly points out that Tracking is well-covered in the manual).

I’ll add that sometimes, ALL MANUAL rotoscoping is necessary, and you just have to play a few frames, stop, move the window, play a few frames, stop, move the window… all by hand until the shot is done. And then you have to change the window shape. And you may even have to change the window correction and/or softness. And you will probably have to check it multiple times. A lot depends on how perfect you want the results to be. There are many situations where auto-tracking (even Mocha) is not going to work.

I just had a case with a prison film where I had to lighten people behind prison bars, and I had to jump through a few hoops to figure that out. The trick was keying the prison bars and using them as a mask, which allowed me to illuminate the prisoners but not the bars. Every situation is different, everything is a challenge.

[Marc Wielage]

[John Tissavary] “From the BMD Resolve Panels, press the highlight button on the T-bar Panel (in the cluster under the t-bar), or from the contextual buttons rows when in ‘Vector’ mode.”
I would add a fifth method with the Resolve Mini panel: hit the Tracker button and then the Window button, and the window will come up every time.

I have a macro key on a side panel that basically just hits option-H to bring up the window in any mode, but it does three thing: a) goes to Color page, b) brings up Power Window panel, and c) then hits View -> Window On. Viewing the Window has always been flakey, but for some reason Show Highlight always works.