[Mike Most]

Color Trace works by comparing EDL’s, not clip metadata. We do many of our shows using that approach, by getting a pre-lock cut from editorial, “pre-coloring” that, then getting the final locked cut and using Color Trace to marry the pre-color grades with clips that have not been changed. This works even if the scenes have been restructured because the source side reel name and time code is still the same.

[Mike Most]

If you use it as an input LUT, you’re giving up most of the advantages of working from a log format. The most effective way to use it is just as Rohit described, by including it in a node and grading both before and after it as desired. That way you can recover any information in the image (by grading prior to the LUT) and trim it easily (by grading after it). You can also do any color isolations after it, thus taking advantage of the additional saturation added in the process.

[Mike Most]

It’s probably equally safe to say that editing is NOT Adobe’s forte, and it is Avid’s. Different companies, different histories, different perspectives, different areas of concentration.

[Mike Most]

>Of course I know colorists doesn’t even use a film look lut, and they manipulate log dpx as linear files, >still they got good results on final prints.

I don’t know why you would think that, but in general that’s not true. And in cases where it is true, the colorists in question are not doing their job properly and not getting optimal results. And a LUT has nothing directly to do with “film look” unless you’re working in a film targeted DI environment, in which you’re specifically using a film print preview to simulate the resulting print.

[Mike Most]

Either that, or….

You could take the EDL into either a text editor or a spreadsheet and sort it by reel. That would group all like shots together according to their source, not just their time code (something Resolve really should do in C mode, but doesn’t). You could then do a conform with this EDL and assign the nodes as you need to. Then bring in the original EDL and do another conform. The Master Session will already have those nodes attached, so they should appear in the 2nd conform already.

Personally, I just keep those node configurations in scratchpads and apply them as needed as I work my way into the show. I don’t really see a need to do it ahead of time, since LUT’s can be attached to any node anyway, and their order in the evaluation stack thus controlled, thereby allowing corrections before or after the LUT.

[Mike Most]

In the professional world, at least the network television/studio feature level, the vast, vast majority of shows are cut on Avid, running on Macs. A number of years ago, Avid attempted to move its focus to Windows and met with incredible resistance. I doubt they would try that tactic again, regardless of what Apple does or not do with their own focus and software efforts.

On the other hand, Avid is not really “laughing all the way to the bank.” They are redoubling their efforts to capture the lions share of the “ex FCP” crowd by doing things like minimizing or eliminating their proprietary hardware in favor of commodity video cards like AJA and Blackmagic, and expanding the usefulness and integration of AMA to allow much more seamless integration of camera native file formats. I think by NAB next Spring you’re likely to see a very open Avid, one that has everything people liked about FCP (resolution independence, cheap hardware, etc.) with a few other goodies thrown in (frame sequence support, perhaps). Just my opinion, but I’ve seen a lot of evidence to support it.

[Mike Most]

Hi Elan,

If I’m not mistaken – and I may be, because I haven’t tried this very much – you should be able to avoid the color trace by bringing the new shots into a new subfolder in the media pool, then loading the new EDL (or AAF, or XML, whatever you’re using) into the same project. That should – at least in theory – automatically assign the already colored shots a grade based on the master session and only leave the new shots without grades. I know that works on shorter timelines that I’ve tried, but I’m curious as to whether it would work on a full show. It’s easy enough to try, and you can always just delete the new timeline if it doesn’t work.

Try it and let me know if it works. At the very least, it would save the trouble of creating a new session and going through the color trace dialog.

[Mike Most]

Jake, you really need to stop putting words in my mouth and attaching your own personal interpretations to everything I say. I re-read that entire thread and the only thing I did was try to explain why the Resolve interface was as it was. Your post that prompted my response basically stated that the interface sucked, that nodes were useless, and that it should all be changed to be what some other program(s) are. I pointed out that the design was a legacy design that worked pretty well for those who the design was aimed at, which until Blackmagic completely repositioned the product was professional colorists, largely in facilities, and largely using DaVinci’s control panels. I didn’t “argue” or “champion” anything. I basically said that change is fine, but is was what it was for some good reasons.

I don’t know why you take anything I say as a personal challenge. I don’t like personal challenges, and I don’t try to create them. I usually try to add some perspective when I think there isn’t any, which these days is sometimes necessary because there are a lot of new, younger users of this stuff who have no clue as to where any of this came from, and therefore no perspective other than things like Final Cut Pro and Apple Color. Sometimes having that perspective gives one a new outlook. Sometimes not. But I don’t issue challenges, and I wish you would do the same.

[Mike Most]

Yes, the order of operations most definitely makes a difference. That is one of the reasons for the node based pipeline, to be able to control that processing path. Placing a LUT, particularly a log to video LUT, at the beginning of the processing path can and does yield a different result than placing it at the end. Not to mention the additional degree of control you gain by being able to grade both prior to and after the LUT transform. Based on my own experiments, the path is not concatenated, but it is applied in the order specified by the node tree. The only way it gets concatenated is if you generate a LUT that represents that entire tree.

If I’m wrong about this, I would invite either Rohit or Peter to please correct me.

[Mike Most]

Blackmagic has already said that it does not, but that would be the case anyway because the screen doesn’t have enough resolution for the Resolve GUI, and the Air has Intel graphics (not ATI or Nvidia). You need at least the 15 inch MacBook pro, and even that screen is too small and requires a specific command to shrink the screen so that the GUI can fit on it.