Color Grading with Da Vinci Resolve: Beginner to Advanced

What is a "conform?"  It's how we take an edit from our choice of NLE (editing program) and take it into resolve with all the editing decisions made intact.  We can then grade that timeline and return that to our client.

The first step of a slightly involved process.  We're going to bring a timeline into Resolve, intact and still referencing the original rush files our editors worked with.  This is the essential Workflow for anything captured in any RAW format or any high-end project as well as longer form projects such a serial-length or feature films.  Here we take a look at the first step, and the first step is always organization, follow along with the Premiere pro project file provided.

Here we take a closer look at the Media Panel.  This is where we manage our project's media files, import our material and generally keep things organized to ensure a smooth grading workflow.

Now we're going to go through the edit we've brought into Resolve and proof-check it using the offline reference file we made during the first lecture on the XML roundtrip.  We need to be totally sure that what we've got is correct here as we have to send the footage back to our client at the end of the process!

It's time to open up our project.  But this is a little different form a standard project file.  Here we will see how to restore an archived project, footage and all so we can get to work.

The primary wheels are our most basic and important tools in Resolve.  We go through how to make adjustments to the brightness of our image using these simple yet powerful tools.

Now we're going to move on to fixing a color cast in our image using the primary wheels.  This, along with our initial contrast adjustment, is the most common task in Color grading.  Time to get started!

Now onto the RGB curves.  These straddle the line between primary and secondary as they can be used to target parts of our tonal range, but also the entire image at once.  We'll take a look at how they work and how I like to use them.

Now for something with a little more finesse.  We can control our color channels very tightly with the right use of the RGB curves and make some very accurate adjustments.  We'll take a look in this lecture.

Now to put it all into practice, follow along as we tackle a short dialogue scene head on and make sure we get it into a good place for the secondary grade!

Now we're going to look at how to deliver a project for upload to the web.  We'll start with an overview of the delivery panel, then we'll go through how to get our graded project back to our client in either a single piece or as a new timeline and an XML to finish up our roundtrip.

We're going to look at the different settings available to use when we render out a project from Resolve.  This is super-important, we need to be sure we're sending the right stuff back to our client or we haven;t done the job!

We're at the last hurdle.  We're going to get a graded timeline back into our choice of NLE in it's separate edits ready for the online edit and final export.

Alpha is a fourth channel that governs transparency, whether or not we can actually see a part of our image.   In the context of resolve it allows us to combine qualifications to make highly accurate adjustments to our image, we're going to look at how to do this in this lecture.

A quick look at what we'll be covering in this module.  This is super-important stuff, so be sure to take note!

A look at what we need to know about codecs to deliver a simple project for web.

An all-important concept in both color grading and VFX.  Bit depth denotes the number of colors we have to work with n our footage.  why does that matter?  You're about to find out.

A quick look at compression and the effect it has on our footage.  We don't want our footage to be mangled before it even reaches us, this is important stuff to know and to pass on as we work with less experienced clients.

We're now on to our first real-world project.  But before we rush in, there's some thought about the grade we're going to perform.  how do we start this creative process?  Continue to find out.

We're going to move onto the first phase of a real grade.  We're going to develop a number of looks that our client can feedback on and then we're going to progress with the chosen look.  We'll take a look at how to find inspiration and what we might consider when looking through our project and deciding on the direction of a grade.

With the look chosen by our client we'll now go onto the first pass of our grade.  We'll use everything we've learned to get a rough approximation of our chosen look on the whole timeline and we'll think about how far to go before presenting the project for feedback.  Then we'll prepare to continue with the second pass.

Now we're onto the second pass.  We've got feedback from our client and we're now getting the project close to a deliverable state.  We're going to match our shots more closely and sign off on each one as we work.  We'll then prepare for final feedback and the final, third pass.

We're right at the finish line!  We'll polish off the last few lingering issues with our project and then get it ready for delivery back to the client who will take care of the online edit and final export for their delivery to their choice of web platform.