How do you all color grade from cs5.5?

[jake blackstone]

Well there's that, but there's also Control Surface compatibility, and the quality of the tracker in Speedgrade, which last time I tried it was less than stellar - albeit that was some time ago. Any experience with this?

Last time, when I saw the demo of "new" Speedgrade by Adobe, I didn't see anything new. It was the same old Speedgrade. So, aside from that and the fact, that personally, I had never used Speedgrade, I have no info whatsoever.
Right now Аdobe enjoying little well deserved renaissance, thanks to re-emergence of PPro as a viable alternative to FCP and Avid. I think, Adobe should use the introduction of a new suite as an opportunity to cement the leadership role as a provider of high value post tools. Since buying DaVinci, BM worked very hard to improve Resolve, while at the same time porting it to Windows platform. I would hate to see Adobe just slap a new name and re-introduce Speedgrade as is.

 

[Michael McLaughlin]

yep

yep

This is one of those defining moments.

I really hope Adobe can see the bigger picture and really hit a home run.

I hope they get the gravity of the moment, and how this could really up the stakes for them.

If they get this right they will have their future set for at least the next couple of years; for the pro video
indie crowd.

Although they are a much larger company than just pro video, I want to see them really become a force to be
reckon with.

It will also up the competition level. Which is good all around.

I have to imagine they are working furiously behind the scenes on upgrades to the suite (which hopefully we will see at NAB),
and Speedgrade.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

I don't have lofty expectations from Speedgrade CS6. If there's dynamic link functionality this soon, that's job well done.

By CS7 I would certainly expect Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Encore and Speedgrade to behave like one program - seamlessly linking up with each other without constantly switching between apps. The concept of using a dedicated application for a dedicated purpose using information exchange formats or intermediaries need to go away. I think that is Adobe's "grand vision", that is why they overhauled Audition from scratch in CS5.5 and why they acquired Speedgrade, but I wouldn't expect that as soon as CS6. But Adobe have been executing well of late, so there might be surprises...

That's yesterday news. Now you can run pretty much any nVidia card, including 580 and 590 with latest nVidia drivers without need for any modifications.

That's precisely his point - it took them 24 months to figure out GTX 480 and later. Even so, the drivers are two generations behind, so the performance and stability will always be lacking. GTX 680 is releasing in a few days, when will see compatibility for that and GTX 780? 2014? It has always been like that. NVIDIA and Apple are to be blamed equally. Of course, it's not just graphics cards, several important hardware tech don't even exist on OS X or take years to make it. All part of the walled garden.

 

[jake blackstone]

I don't have lofty expectations from Speedgrade CS6. If there's dynamic link functionality this soon, that's job well done.

By CS7 I would certainly expect Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Encore and Speedgrade to behave like one program - seamlessly linking up with each other without constantly switching between apps. The concept of using a dedicated application for a dedicated purpose using information exchange formats or intermediaries need to go away. I think that is Adobe's "grand vision", that is why they overhauled Audition from scratch in CS5.5 and why they acquired Speedgrade, but I wouldn't expect that as soon as CS6. But Adobe have been executing well of late, so there might be surprises...

You just described Smoke, which had been around for quite a while, thank you very much. So, Adobe doesn't need to come up with any kind of "grand vision". Simple flattery, as in "just copy the idea of one app finishing solution, instead of 4 or 5 separate ones" will do just fine...

That's precisely his point - it took them 24 months to figure out GTX 480 and later. Even so, the drivers are two generations behind, so the performance and stability will always be lacking. GTX 680 is releasing in a few days, when will see compatibility for that and GTX 780? 2014? It has always been like that. NVIDIA and Apple are to be blamed equally. Of course, it's not just graphics cards, several important hardware tech don't even exist on OS X or take years to make it. All part of the walled garden.

I disagree, as he was saying "Apple is an IOS company. That's where the money is for them. After taking forever, they put out exactly the software they wanted to with FCPX, totally ignoring the input from 'Pro' users in a market they totally owned. I just can't trust Apple after this"
This statement has nothing to do with the MacPro today. He's projecting and so are you BTW, based on the past, which normally would be fine, but in this case it is not. And the fact is, that right now all high end nVidia cards are working on a Mac. And they apparently working good enough to be used with Resolve, which is not a small feat.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

You just described Smoke, which had been around for quite a while, thank you very much. So, Adobe doesn't need to come up with any kind of "grand vision". Simple flattery, as in "just copy the idea of one app finishing solution, instead of 4 or 5 separate ones" will do just fine...

Thanks for pointing that out, but CS and Smoke play at totally different price points. Also, is Smoke more of a "jack of all trades" solution or a "master of all trades" one? I don't mean a one app finishing solution as much as a one app complete post-production solution.

I disagree, as he was saying "Apple is an IOS company. That's where the money is for them. After taking forever, they put out exactly the software they wanted to with FCPX, totally ignoring the input from 'Pro' users in a market they totally owned. I just can't trust Apple after this"
This statement has nothing to do with the MacPro today. He's projecting and so are you BTW, based on the past, which normally would be fine, but in this case it is not. And the fact is, that right now all high end nVidia cards are working on a Mac. And they apparently working good enough to be used with Resolve, which is not a small feat.

The fact is that it took 24 months for OS X to support now EOLed Fermi GPUs. And even that is with R275 gen drivers from 2010. NVIDIA hasn't ordered a GF11x GPU since Dec 2011, what is left is remaining inventory. GK104 was to release in January but has now been pushed back to March due to yield issues at TSMC. Let's see if OS X supports GTX 680 later this month. That would be a most unprecedented development.

On a related note, there's no support for AMD Radeon HD 7700, 7800 or 7900. Yes, it will come, eventually, but it isn't here now. It's just a general issue with a walled garden operating system that extends to far beyond graphics cards.

 

[Les C.]

The fact is that it took 24 months for OS X to support now EOLed Fermi GPUs. And even that is with R275 gen drivers from 2010. NVIDIA hasn't ordered a GF11x GPU since Dec 2011, what is left is remaining inventory. GK104 was to release in January but has now been pushed back to March due to yield issues at TSMC. Let's see if OS X supports GTX 680 later this month. That would be a most unprecedented development.

On a related note, there's no support for AMD Radeon HD 7700, 7800 or 7900. Yes, it will come, eventually, but it isn't here now. It's just a general issue with a walled garden operating system that extends to far beyond graphics cards.

OS X - Yesterday's chips, graphic cards and drivers .... Today!!!!

 

[jake blackstone]

Thanks for pointing that out, but CS and Smoke play at totally different price points. Also, is Smoke more of a "jack of all trades" solution or a "master of all trades" one? I don't mean a one app finishing solution as much as a one app complete post-production solution.

As I said earlier "That's funny world we're living in, when Baselight, Colorista and Magic Bullet are used in the same sentence" Apparently, people have no problem comparing $200k system with $100 software. And wasn't Speedgrade alone, before Adobe bought, it cost more than Smoke on a Mac? BTW, the educational price of Smoke on a Mac is $0 for three years. Smoke does whatever you want at the very high level. Obviously, it is impossible for any software to be the "master of all trades" and there is no need for that, but Smoke's toolset is extremely deep and of extremely high quality.

The fact is that it took 24 months for OS X to support now EOLed Fermi GPUs. And even that is with R275 gen drivers from 2010. NVIDIA hasn't ordered a GF11x GPU since Dec 2011, what is left is remaining inventory. GK104 was to release in January but has now been pushed back to March due to yield issues at TSMC. Let's see if OS X supports GTX 680 later this month. That would be a most unprecedented development.

On a related note, there's no support for AMD Radeon HD 7700, 7800 or 7900. Yes, it will come, eventually, but it isn't here now. It's just a general issue with a walled garden operating system that extends to far beyond graphics cards.

Again, you're projecting, while disregarding the latest GPU support development. It's been a long time since the last update to the Mac hardware. We'll see new Apple hardware soon, which should tell us the direction Apple is taking, regarding support of various hardware.

 

[SeanBrown]

I have an Imac can't upgrade the Card at this time.. So No resolve for me any other ways?

 

[SeanBrown]

That's not really the right card for 5.5 either. 5.5 is CUDA accelerated, and that means nVidia. I've got a GTX-580, and it performs well.

BTW - check out http://www.presynkt.com/blog/ for some color grading workflows with Resolve.

I saw this when it came out. Was great!

 

[Hillary Knox]

Last time, when I saw the demo of "new" Speedgrade by Adobe, I didn't see anything new. It was the same old Speedgrade...I would hate to see Adobe just slap a new name and re-introduce Speedgrade as is.

That would be just about the biggest mistake they could make with the release of Adobe Speedgrade. (I am anything but a Speedgrade expert, but I have played around with it enough to not be talking out my ass about what I'm about to say). As most everybody knows, in Adobe's software there are tons of UI paradigms that apply nearly universally - common hotkeys, window names, tool icons, GUI conventions, etc.

The one way that you'd hear a collective "wah wah wah waaaaaaaah" would be if they just released Speedgrade as-is without conforming the UI to something significantly more Adobe-y. As it stands right now, it's not even close. Don't get me wrong...Speedgrade is a wicked powerful grading tool and there are plenty of things that I think it does better than Resolve. The tools & ideas are already there - but the crazy UI will alienate a lot of people. And this is coming from someone who has a reasonably good handle on Smoke (which has a highly efficient UI, but ONLY once you spend some in depth learning time). My point is, if Adobe's Speedgrade is meant to be another step toward the democratization of high-quality color grading tools, I can easily foresee that an unrevised or hardly revised UI will sink that ship before it even sails.

However, if they manage to hit a home run with Speedgrade, make AE a little more real-time-y, and get the integration damn near seamless between Speedgrade, AE, and Premiere...I'm gonna say that I'd have a hard time justifying going into Smoke for a lot of stuff

 

[Stephen Townsend]

I've recently switched to an Adobe workflow since the release of FCPx and the fact that I work in a creative agency so the people around me are more used to Adobe products. I'm also a big fan of the idea of being able to seamlessly switch between products for different uses as efficiency is a big deal to me. Like the creator of the thread though I've also been in the same debate about what to colour grade with. Previously I was working with a Final Cut to Color workflow which offered professionalism with ease of use. Color seemed straight forward but with the power to achieve a lot if needed. I had a dabble with Resolve Lite but, for a non-professional grader, it felt a bit counter intuitive. I've looked at Magic Bullet suites on the RED giant site but it just reaks of cheesey filters and unprofessionalism. You can do a lot with the the standard After Effects and Adobe Prem filters although it would be nice to have some of the advanced control that Color has so I'd be really excited to see a professional colour grading package from Adobe to add to my workflow!

 

[Bob Gruen]

Can you send the R3d's to Apple Color? Do you use after effects.. I don't have resolve and wont be getting it. I want to have some clips I shot just keep one actor in color while the others are in B&W. Suggestions? I know in color I could do this with the 2nd room and the picker.

In Pr, I use the Red API debayer settings to 'normalize' my footage at the clip level. Then I use Colorista 2 to do anything that requires simple masking, (like de-popping skin on close-ups) again at the clip level. I aggregate my scenes into sequences on one omnibus sequence (full movie). I then use MB Mojo or Looks on the individual sequences (scenes) to give me the scene by scene 'look' I'm looking for.

Anything that is more complicated gets done in After Effects via layers and masks. One great trick is to drag a second version of a clip with a blown out item into the project window and setting different debayer settings, super-crushing it to see of you can get any detail back. This poor man's HDRx can really improve some scenes if there is detail to be had. I've recovered windows and repaired driving sequences with this method.

Changing the majority of a scene to B&W would be something to tackle in Ae. One way would be to open/import the picture locked Pr file in Ae. The Colorama plug-in can be used to get a very adjustable grey scale by changing the output cycle to "Ramp Grey". (Check out videopilot.com's 42. Advanced Sky Replacement @ 9:30) The trick would be to duplicate all layers (select all then ctrl-D), set the lower of each pair to B&W then use various methods to mask in the colored character on the upper layer. Hopefully you can find a few core methods to get most of the scenes and only rely on roto-scoping for the most complicated scenes.

Best of luck,

Bob

 

[Doug Beatty]

+1 We use that + some home-brew AE filters. Resolve is MUCH faster than Colorista if you add a control surface.

Oh my gosh, yes. Colorista is powerful, but clunky to navigate. One click tracking and stabilizing in Resolve saves a ton of time, and it's pretty darn fast to render as well.

 

[Rob Castiglione]

Hi Stephen. Yes, that has been similar to my experience as well. I found Color easy to learn and use. The rooms concept was great! My first dabble with Resolve caused me to think that it would just take too long to learn the darn thing. I am a bit bereft without Color and looking for a solution.