I'm not a witch... I'm Hue

[christopher witzke]

Just out of habit I've been using apple color and magic bullet looks for my color grading.... what do you folks think would be the next step for me? I'd love a true 4k/4.5k/5k workflow that is stable and available and willing to invest in a few grand to get there.

I love the simplicity of Looks... and it's usually what I go to if I'm in a hurry. But I'm leaning toward a higher end app I guess.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jean Déraps]

The buzz on the block at the moment is Resolve for the Mac, if I'm not mistaken....

 

[Ben Brainerd]

Anything beyond Color is a VERY significant step up in price.

Out of curiosity, why do you feel that Color isn't a "Real" color-grading program? I would think that stepping up to that from Looks would be a good first step. While Color's a victim (like FCP and all the pro apps) of Apple's neglect, it's still a very functional program, especially now that there's (Alpha/Beta) Rocket support.

 

[Stephen Strangways]

I remember the days when Color was Final Touch by Silicon Color. Back then, it cost:
$1,000 for SD
$5,000 for HD
$25,000 for 2K

Now that it's included "for free" with Final Cut Studio, it gets a lot less respect!

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

The buzz on the block at the moment is Resolve for the Mac, if I'm not mistaken....

Resolve is buzz worthy.

Here is why I can't buy it today:

It requires two Nvidia video cards- one has to be very powerful.

You need a video i/o card, BlackMagic's Decklink is the best supported of course.

If you are a RED facility you need a Rocket

and you need a storage card. ( an eSATA, RAID or Fibre Channel card or the like.)

Oh wait ... that's five PCIe cards, and the Mac Pro has 4 PCIe slots.

This may be a problem.

The second reason is that Resolve does not support the Euphonix MC Color, or other Artist series controllers. That's a detail, and I expect it to change. The Artist series controllers are not in the same league as the dedicated Resolve control surface at all, so it only benefits Black Magic to support them.

So, while Resolve is kind of awesome, I have made the decision to stay with Color on the Mac.

So, from where I sit what does Resolve provide that Color does not? Improved real time performance and scalability.

Resolve on a properly equipped Mac is faster than Color. If you have several secondaries and involved looks, it can be much faster. Furthermore, what you are looking at on your monitor output is the final rendered grade, not a proxy of any sort. That can improve the quality of your work.

Resolve is also highly scalable. A Linux seat of Resolve with lots of GPU's loaded into the system can handle RED, OpenEXR or DPX footage at 2K+ resolutions with lots of very deeply involved corrections in real time, plus you get an incredibly well optimized control surface. In that environment a Mac based Resolve is an assistant's station.

So, is that worth it to me? Not really.

I do color correction on the same system I use for editing and compositing. I am guessing that like me, you don't get hired for a lot of separate coloring jobs... mostly editing jobs that need some coloring as part of the edit project. Projects that may never go to a dedicated colorist.

In such a case, Color is pretty fast. Color delivers high quality results. Color can handle the few dedicated colorist jobs I get, and definitely works well in my edit to color workflow.

At some point I'd like a highly color consistent workspace that justifies a dedicated color correcting system- and the workload to pay for it. If that happens anytime soon, then I'll buy in a dedicated Mac Pro to use as a Resolve system

Until then I'll keep optimizing my "jack of all post trades" system.

 

[Uli Plank]

May I add that Resolve's tracker is light years ahead of the one in Color ?

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Resolve def has a lot going for it AND it costs more... -

Makes kinda sense.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

May I add that Resolve's tracker is light years ahead of the one in Color ?

I disagree.

I have yet to find a bit of footage where Color's tracker would not work and Resolve would work.

I have found footage that I had to cut up differently for Color to work than I did for Resolve to work.

So... while I would agree that Resolve's tracker is faster, and generally better quality, I would not say its "light years" better than the one in Color. Since I attribute the improved performance of Resolve's tracker to Resolve's general higher performance, I do not consider this a decision factor.

Put differently, Shake's tracker is better than either of these, and its pretty ancient now.

 

[christopher witzke]

Thank you so much for all of your input.

Being that I'm not up for buying new gpu's right now... I think I'll just try to get more proficient at using color. And maybe putting some money toward a control surface to make things a little more organic.

 

[Ben Brainerd]

Thank you so much for all of your input.

Being that I'm not up for buying new gpu's right now... I think I'll just try to get more proficient at using color. And maybe putting some money toward a control surface to make things a little more organic.

To be honest that's probably your best bet. Color's a good way to learn "real" color-grading.

I color professionally (Not "for a living" yet, though. Getting there.) and I've stuck with Color so far. It gets a bad rap due to being included in the FCP suite and thus having a lot of folks go "I've dabbled in Color, I must be a Colorist!" (That logic reminds me of the "I own a RED, therefor I am a DP" thing that was going around for a while)

I've done projects on Resolve, Baselight and Scratch, and while I'll freely admit that I would jump to Resolve or Baselight in a heartbeat, given the cost of entry I'm content to keep working with Color. Resolve for Mac strikes me as a kind of half-step, not really worth it. Given the technical limitations Alexander mentioned (And I don't care what they say, the only way you're going to get realtime out a Resolve Mac system is with a Rocket) and the fact that kitting out a full-spec Resolve Mac System puts your cost into "Well, for another $10,000 or so I could have just built a baseline Resolve Linux rig" I'm holding off.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

The resolve tracker is a bit quicker and smarter to work with, I see no point in denying that... -

Realtime with audio is also a thing to get used to fast - which doesn't come all that hard once you get used to it.

I am curious to see some signalchain comparisons between color and resolve. That's where it is really happening.

 

[Ben Brainerd]

The resolve tracker is a bit quicker and smarter to work with, I see no point in denying that... -

Tracking in and of itself is the main reason I want to jump to Resolve. Faster, Smarter and you can do multi-point tracks (GASP!) for rotation/scale etc.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Tracking in and of itself is the main reason I want to jump to Resolve. Faster, Smarter and you can do multi-point tracks (GASP!) for rotation/scale etc.

Yup, and that alone is a huge argument. Seeing is believing. It works really welll...

 

[Uli Plank]

May I add sound to the list?

As long as we could afford Color only, I said: "I'll be fine without it!"

But now with Resolve – well there's a reason why we say sound has it's colors too.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Audio is for amateurs!

LOL

(For those not catching it: This was irony comming from a former sound-guy...)