echoblack.net blog

So far i’ve spent maybe 10 hours with Resolve. I’m getting much more comfortable and love the flexibility that node based grading provides.

So far the things I miss…

Easy XML round tripping.
Workflow is a big adjustment.. I was definitely spoiled with the FCP to Color to FCP workflow. But i will figure this out as i go i’m sure..

Hue, Saturation, and Luma Curves.
i’m finding ways to get around Resolve’s lack of these, but they were very handy. I definitely relied heavily on the Saturation and Hue curves.. never really used the Luma curve that often, but it has its uses.

Seeing the Color Wheels..
Even though most of the time i wouldn’t ever be looking at them, it was a regular visual reminder of which directions meant which hues… and i know that should be more ingrained in me with the hundreds and hundreds of hours i’d used Color.. but for some reason it was good seeing it.. and also having a visual reference of where you were inside the color wheels when you make an adjustment. The Resolve interface makes perfect sense, but it portrays it more mathematically if that makes sense, but not nearly as visually… like I see that I’ve added more red and green but taken out blue, but in Color it would show me that i’ve been pushing the correction towards yellow or whatever… I’m adjusting.

Dragging a correction from one shot to another..
A lot of times i’d drag my vignette from one shot to the next shot and quickly tweak the shape or position as needed since the amount of darkening i usually kept pretty close.. it seems in Resolve it’s much more convoluted to drag and drop a node from one shot to another. You have to grab a still, show the nodes of that still, and then drag the desired node into a fresh serial node on the target shot.. So what once took under a second, is now a much more involved process.

On the flip side…
No limit to corrections you can make on a shot.
Enough said.

The tracker. Is. Awesome.
It’s incredibly quick and accurate, and it really opens up some new creative opportunities that were too time intensive inside of Color.

Resolve has a hue adjustment knob that can be applied in any node..
Cool. That was only available in Secondaries in Color.. So one way to get around no Hue curve is to qualify a certain hue, then twist the hue knob.. A decent workaround, i’m sure i’ll come up with a better way as time goes on.

The qualifier seems to behave a little differently from Color, but it’s better.
I feel like i get cleaner isolations and have more flexibility.. being able to eye drop, and then using add/subtract selection.. and then all the power window options for inside/outside.. anyways.. i could ramble on endlessly.

Chroma Light/Chroma Dark
Is really cool, and very useful, and being a preset it saves a lot of time.

Plenty of keyboard shortcuts.
I can use a keystroke to add a node with a vignette activated, ready to be adjusted. There are even different keystrokes to add nodes ready to go with each of the 4 types of windows.

RED Raw..
Resolve works beautifully with Red footage. Has access to all of the metadata adjustments.. which Color still does not..

I’m sure there are tons of other things i could think of, but these are some of the highlights..

Disappointments..
Performance
My storage as of now, isn’t up to the challenge. My internal raid (only 3 drive) isn’t quick enough to keep up with the software, but once the Cubix comes in (been waiting a month), i’ll be able to hook up my external raid again and additional quadro card and I think I’ll be in great shape. So I think this will rectify itself.

My dream with Resolve was to not only unlock more creative possibilities for my work, but to also be able to playback sessions with audio inside of the grading environment. It’d be a huge plus for some of my clients.

My speed
As with any new tool, there’s a learning curve. And right now, I’m a lot slower than I’d like to be. I’m still making the adjustment to the Wave. I’ve been using an MC Color/MC Transport for the past year, so I’m retraining my muscle memory and learning the panel. I know as I continue to practice and gain experience with Resolve, i will get faster, but right now, if I had a quick turnaround job come in, I’d probably use Color.. I expect that to change soon.