Hi, beginner colourist here looking to bring a 15 minute timeline from Premiere into Resolve. I have tried using an XML, but ran into an issue where DaVinci couldn't link the clips because the clips in premiere were "merged clips" with synced sound giving them different file names to the source footage (eg. "sc3sh2t1" instead of "Clip0015.MXF"). All the clips that weren't merged came into Resolve without issues.

What would be the best way to bring this timeline into Resolve without losing information/quality of the footage? This project will be projected in a theatre and streamed online.

Hi! Originally earlier this year (reuploaded since) I made a tutorial on how to modify the way dissolves work in DaVinci Resolve so they interact with the colour timeline, and are also linear so they look more like a photographic effect. But I made this under the assumption that it's common practice to apply the conversion into Rec. 709 and such on the timeline level, and then apply and titles and such on top of that. Since then I realised that timeline level operations are usually stayed away from, instead being done per clip or per group, so I made a follow-up video on how you can still achieve the same effect using adjustment clips, and do no grading work at all on the timeline level

Here's the first video for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zDrN4Z9NxI

Can I post tutorials I made here for specific things I think some users of Resolve should know?

DCTLs for Resolve: KineLog3

The stock CST doesn’t have Kinefinity KineLog3 so here are two DCTLs mapped from the official Kinefinity white papers.

Color Space Transform mk2
Works like the stock CST (any input gamut/gamma to any output) with these added:

• Kinefinity KineLog3 / Kinefinity Wide Gamut (MAVO Edge 6K, MAVO mark2 LF, KineOS 8 BT.2020 mode; Edge 8K & Vista provisional until Kinefinity publishes their primaries)
• DJI D-Log / D-Gamut (suports Ronin 4D 6K & 8K, Zenmuse X9, X7)

It’s a pure conversion, so follow it with a stock CST for tone mapping.

Color Remap mk2
A one-node shortcut. Kinefinity goes to ARRI LogC3 (any EI), LogC4, DaVinci Intermediate or KineLog3. There’s a “Color only” mode that remaps colours but keeps the original log curve, which is handy for matching a Kine or Ronin to an ALEXA, or to each other.

Extras: a KineLog3 → LogC3 DCTL with an optional ColorChecker match, plus a .cube for the free version.

Checked against colour-science and the manufacturers’ published values, with automated tests on every update. Needs Resolve Studio; Mac & Windows installers included. Free, MIT licence.

Feedback welcome, especially from Edge 8K and Vista shooters.

NOTE: ClaudeCode was used to build these plugins. I have tested them on my own footage and hardware and to my eye they work as described.

https://github.com/vividcolour/KineLog3_CST

Hi everyone I have a question regarding the export setting in davinci resolve
I was working in ACES IDT to ODT rec709 gamma 2.2, have been facing the issue with exported file even in grab stills too, the result is washed out look
If anyone has the remedy to it please let me know

Thank you in advance

So with the Claude now able to do API stuff, are there any big time savers for colorists? Can it group or anything?

It can't see the image right? It can just see the text in the media and run whatever the API supports?

I assume it will be good for making multiple outputs of the same timeline but I would love it if it could quickly group scenes or something like that.

Are there any good time saver things Claude can do that I can't think of?

Most of what I've seen it do is bring in media, transcribe, and put together a rough cut. I haven't seen it do much color stuff.

https://subtlesayak.github.io/open-resolve-list/

I made this.

Useful Resolve resources are scattered across repositories, creator websites, stores and community threads. I built Open Resolve List to keep those links together and make it easier to find something for a particular workflow. It is a personal project hosted on GitHub Pages, with the catalogue and source records open on GitHub.

The directory covers free and paid plugins, Fusion tools, DCTLs, LUTs, PowerGrades, scripts, templates and workflow utilities. If you find it useful, you are welcome to use it, share it and report issues. Open Resolve List is independent and is not affiliated with Blackmagic Design.

I can't host a website so it's rn in my GitHub Pages

Hey everyone!
A long time ago, there was a Photoshop plugin that allowed you to not only use the perceptually accurate HVC color space, but could also quickly generate palettes that would automatically be usable in Photoshop in any colorspace it supported (RGB, CMYK, LAB and HSL/HSV).
While it vanished at the time, I managed to track it down and open source it with the original creator's permission!
Here's the link: GitHub repo
It will only work on Photoshop up to CS6 for Windows, as I have not tried building it on Macintosh (although it should work up to CS5).
Thank you, have fun, and please give feedback!

We have a winner! C.P. takes the first free Post|Production World NY pass (worth $799), picked at random from the 13 people who RSVP'd by Monday's midnight cutoff. Check your inbox.

PPW schedule here

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Next drawing: Friday. We only draw from people who RSVP'd for the meetup. Not on the list yet? RSVP here and you're in. One more pass after that.

The meetup: Tuesday, October 20, 6 to 8pm, Midtown bar (announcement soon). Free. Some food and drinks - probably will go fast. Show up early.

Our sponsors, who make Meetups possible:

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Please make sure to check them out!

And thanks to Post|Production World for the passes.

Lurkers welcome. So are professional colleagues - they don't need to be on Reddit. We ask that all of you register, please.

See you in New York.

I'm new to professional look development, but I was wondering what programs or tools are out there for creating 65-point LUTs that won't break your footage, even in neon-lit or other high-purity situations.

This question comes after using KUBIK LUTs, which so far seem to have the best saturation failure, purity compression, and smooth gradation. I'm not looking for more high-quality LUTs like these, but rather how show LUTs or LUTs for high-budget films are made.

I love different aspects of these tools but wish to create my own. How can I make my own custom LUTS for what I'm looking for?

The following images are some examples of what I'm talking about:

The first image is the chart.

1. DaVinci's Native CST ❌ (Very Rare to Use)

2. DaVinci's Native 2383 🫤(Good for Negative to Print, but not for digital workflows)

3. Cullen Kelly's Referent ✅ (solid but a 33-point LUT, upside it's free)

4. KUBIK 0815 LUT ✅ (65-point LUT, great quality, may not utilize the full rec 709 color space? Also, some colors don't fail to white, which is personal preference)

5. Dehancer ✅ (Can be solid, but provides mixed results depending on how you use it)

Hi everyone,

I'm currently trying to edit and deliver a video in DCI-P3 using Avid Media Composer for the first time. In other words, my final delivery needs to be in the DCI-P3 colour space.

I've configured my Avid system according to the settings shown in the attached screenshots. I'm also using Baselight Editions for Avid for colour grading.

The problem is that my footage looks extremely oversaturated and overly contrasty in DCP-o-matic, and I honestly don't understand why.

I've already tried several things, including changing the Full Range and Legal Range settings, but nothing seems to help.

Am I overlooking something obvious?

Please bear with me, as this is my first time working with a DCI-P3 delivery, and I'm still trying to understand the workflow properly.

I've tried to describe and label the screenshots as clearly as possible. If you need any additional information about my settings or workflow, please feel free to ask.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hey guys.

I have a question: What do you do when a client sends footage with completely flat lighting, but their reference is a frame from a top Hollywood movie?

​The footage has no real color or light separation. I have tried use masks to isolate the subject and try to imitate some depth. I tried to make some color contrast. But it starts looking way too artificial.

​How do you communicate with clients in these situations? How do you explain what is actually possible with their footage, and how do you handle the grade itself?

Can I get this kind of image just with color grading and film emulation? Please consider the landscape shots only, no way they could control the lights there except for the time they shot in.

Hi all, I’m working in da Vinci resolve.

When working with black or dark hair, it does not seem super prudent to have it anywhere in the middle. While lighting more flat and cranking the ISO can be good for dark scenes, there’s frequently an amount of it that I’ve run into as difficult to recover as not a black mass.

Even if the hair isn’t super noisy or clipping back in the log footage, you can still bring it up with lift dark hdr and custom curves and compensate for lifted middle, and that can be fine, but frequently running into spots where I’m like “this cannot be made any less black without ruining the contrast”

I’m pretty clear that you can film something flat and exposed and day-to-night it, just desaturate, low contrast, pull everything down and it makes it feel dark with everything visible.

But it’s just in situations where you want both contrast and highlights that it feels like a challenge.

Do you have any tips and tricks to deal with this?

That being said, plenty of horror movies as of late have had intentionally underexposed silhouettes relative to the backlight or the key side. So many movies I’ve seen it’s like yeah dark side texture is gone, or black hair is only realizable as hair due a sliver of a highlight and maybe a tiny bit of contour. Sinners and obsession are the examples I’m thinking of. Really tender parts with dim faces and eye-light that looks really cool, but I feel like on this site, people would say “you’re crushing the low end and losing information”. I also feel like sacrificing contrast or any semblance of milky is bad, right? It also feels like it’s not just horror/noir night scenes, feels like common practice to just let a lot of dark things remain black. And say you have a silhouette sort of scene, you have to extend those exposure levels to other shots in that scene as well.

So where do you draw the line and how do you decide just to go for clipped low end?

Okay so someone smarter than me please tell me if I have a handle on Judd offset.

X-300's and some early OLED's needed Judd offset to look right but then later dual LCD and better OLED's came along and fixed the issue necessitating Judd offset?

With the more recent screens, if you include the judd offset in the calibration, that's just to match to a x-300 or some hero monitor that has Judd offset?

If clients are viewing on iPads or laptops, then it's better to not have judd offset?

Hi everyone!

I’m editing videos in DaVinci Resolve Studio 21 on a Mac, and I’d like some advice on setting up the correct workflow for footage recorded on my Google Pixel phone.

I want to learn how to color grade my footage properly and understand the difference between SDR and HDR workflows. I’m still unsure which project settings, color management options, and node structure I should use.

I’d really appreciate help with the following:

1. Project settings: What timeline resolution, frame rate, and color management settings do you recommend?
2. Color management: Should I use DaVinci YRGB Color Managed, DaVinci Wide Gamut/Intermediate, or manual Color Space Transform (CST) nodes?
3. Pixel footage: How can I identify whether my footage is SDR, HDR, or 10-bit HDR, and which input color space and gamma should I select?
4. Node workflow: What is a good node structure for exposure, white balance, contrast, saturation, HDR adjustments, and detail?
5. Mac display settings: Should I disable True Tone, Night Shift, and automatic brightness while grading? Are there any other important display settings?
6. HDR export: If I want to export HDR video for YouTube, what output color space, codec, bit depth, and export settings should I use?
7. Monitoring: How can I check that my colors and HDR highlights look right when I don’t have a dedicated reference monitor?

I want to build a reliable workflow from importing the footage all the way to the final export, rather than randomly changing settings until the image looks good.

If anyone edits Google Pixel footage on a Mac using DaVinci Resolve, I’d especially appreciate your project settings, node tree, and any tips you’ve learned.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi everyone,

Out the outset, apologize for the lengthy post.

I'm relatively new to professional color grading and currently grading a **Crime-thriller feature film**. I haven't had the opportunity to work directly with a professional colorist, so most of what I've learned has come from online tutorials and experimenting in DaVinci Resolve.

I've been working on this project for about **3 months**. I've gone through all **7 reels several times**, and each pass has helped me improve. However, before I lock the grade, I'd really appreciate feedback and **Industry best practices** from experienced colorists on whether my **workflow and node structure are appropriate for a commercial/theatrical feature film**.

I'm using a **Group-based workflow** with this general structure:

**Group Pre-Clip**

1. CST: ARRI LogC → DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate

**Clip**

1. Exposure
2. White Balance
3. Contrast
4. Saturation
5. Power Windows / local adjustments
6. Highlight adjustments
7. Tone adjustments

**Group Post-Clip**

1. Overall tone / look
2. CST: DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate → DCI-P3 / Gamma 2.6

# I'd really appreciate professional advice on these points:

**1. How should clips be grouped in a feature-film workflow?**

What is the usual professional approach for grouping clips to make grading faster and maintain consistency?

* By scene?

* By day/night?

* By location?

* By lighting condition?

* By exposure?

* Some combination of these?

For example, would you normally create one Group per scene, or use Groups primarily for common technical/look adjustments?

**2. Is my current node structure appropriate?**

Is the general:

**CST In → Clip Corrections → Look/Tone → CST Out**

approach reasonable for a feature film, or would you recommend a different structure?

**3. Is my correction order appropriate?**

At the Clip level I'm currently doing:

**Exposure → WB → Contrast → Saturation → Windows → Highlight/Tone adjustments**

Is there a preferred order that professional colorists generally follow?

For example, should WB be established before exposure, or does the order matter less as long as the image is being evaluated correctly?

**4. What is your professional approach to white balance?**

When grading ARRI footage, how do experienced colorists establish a reliable/consistent white balance?

Do you primarily rely on scopes, known neutral objects, skin tone, RGB balance, reference shots, or a combination?

**5. How do you maintain consistent tone throughout a feature?**

One of my biggest challenges is maintaining a consistent visual tone across different scenes, lighting conditions and reels.

My current thinking is:

**Clip level → technically balance exposure/WB/contrast**

then

**Group/Post-Clip → establish the creative/cinematic tone**

Is this a good approach?

**6. What is the professional technique for maintaining a consistent look across the entire movie?**

I'd especially appreciate advice on how you approach:

* Scene-to-scene matching

* Reel-to-reel consistency

* Day vs. night consistency

* Skin tone consistency

* Maintaining a consistent cinematic contrast/tonal response

* Creating and managing the overall "show look"

**7. What is your professional approach for Perfect Skin Tone?**

I realize there are many different professional workflows, so I'm not necessarily looking for one "correct" method. I'm mainly trying to understand **how an experienced feature-film colorist would structure this workflow from the beginning**.

If possible, I'd also appreciate recommendations for **good professional tutorials, books, or online resources** that explain feature-film grading workflows rather than only individual Resolve techniques.

Thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to read this and share your experience. I really appreciate the help.

Too embarrassed to post this on my main account as I’ve been grading for years and all.

I normally grade with timeline/output in the color management in Resolve set to Rec709/gamma2.4 or DWG/rec709 2.4 and when I export I choose tags rec709/rec709. Clean feed to a flanders etc etc. exports match my timeline and never any issues.

I recently saw a video where Walter Volpatto had his color management set to the default rec709 scene for both timeline and output.

I grade everything from music videos to short films to broadcast tv and beyond. Sometimes I have to cover a colorist in posthouses and they almost always have their proj management set to the same as me (rec709/2.4).

When should you have your project set to rec709 scene?

Thank you.

I’m not asking about gamma shifts or 2.2 etc. I don’t have those issues. And I always export with rec709 tags unless it’s for theatre etc.

Hi colourists,

I'm self learning proper davinci workflows from tutorials like Darren Mostyn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdTMRQP_V7E

Long way to go but generally finding my feet after being Premiere Pro for life.

Question:

Workflow is looking good with CSTs in and out into DWG following DM's process the into a final LUT (phantom neutral).

I will be condensing this tree a lot but for now just learning proper structure so I understand what's happening.

Overall image is heading where I want it to be so I can develop a more specific look, but I'm getting intense saturation burn on certain colours like red/green/yellow. Is there a core reason/setting I'm missing that is making this happen

Even without the csts in and out (taking the workflow in and out of DWG per DMs process), and using only log3g10 phantom lut at the end, the burning is still happening in the reds.

Am I missing a basic setting/understanding? (probably). Any advice greatly appreciated.

There is this option in the CSTs which when selected does seem to pull it in. But that just doesn't seem like a correct solution. I feel there's something more basic that I'm not doing correctly.

Even when ignoring the finishing phantom LUT and following DMs process exactly to rec709/gamma2.4 in the CST out. The burning is still there (below).

General Project settings

Camera

Nikon ZR

4k, R3D, log3g10, 25p

Cheers. Love the sub.

I am a student filmmaker without much coloring experience. I am going to be DPing a thesis film and I am looking to develop a LUT before we start shooting in a little over a month. I've messed around a little bit in DaVinci, but would not say I have much experience seriously grading footage. I understand that the general process is to do a test shoot and then grade the footage to how you would want it.

I will hopefully be shooting on a sony fx6. Unfortunately, I will not be able to take this camera out for a test shoot. This is a dumb question, but can I still develop my LUT using fx6 raw footage online, or would it not necessarily "work" without my test lighting and specific shooting settings?

Also, any tips you can give me for workflow for developing a LUT would be greatly appreciated. I'm not a colorist; I'm much better at the stuff in production. But, it's a student production so sometimes you gotta wear multiple hats, and I've been wanting to learn this skill anyways.

I know you should always use a Decklink Mini Monitor or similar for a color managed workflow. But there are occasional situations for me a) where I don't have this setup and have to go by viewers or b) work with a software outside Davinci that doesn't work like that. In these cases, when working with a hardware calibration capable monitor, I could't find reliable info or advice (or looked in the wrong places) for the following question: 

In the Apple Display Settings for this external monitor, e.g. for me an Eizo CG247x or HPZ31x – should I leave the colour profile on the automatically assigned one (usually name of display) or actually have to change to a setting that matches the profile calibrated on the monitor? I don't just wonder for Davinci but also e.g. Photoshop or Affinity? Do you ever touch Colour Synch instead? And for Eizo specifically: Does Color Navigator handle it all, or will it need to double check / manually select in MacOS display settings.

Thanks for the help!

Hi, beginner here. I only have access to a camera that shoots sRGB Rec709 (canon t5i). I like the film emulations that are floating around, but I often wonder if I even have the space or enough information to even push the grade into any of these looks? Is this a futile effort with the data I have? Thanks. And yes, I am a novice.