CineD on newly released Colourlab Ai color grading software using Artificial Intelligence

Jeff Loch at CineD has an article on Colourlab Ai which works with DaVinci Resolve to match color using Ai.

You can check out Colourlab Ai at their site and try a free trial, or you can get it as well as Look Desinger and Grain Lab for $49 a month or $490 a year.

What this sounds like is it takes a sequence from DaVinci Resolve and then can quickly match it to a look that you show it, and it does it with standard corrections that can be sent back to Resolve without using XML at all and it puts the grade on nodes.

It is supposed to be perceptual matching of shots to reference shots. Obviously I need to try it out before I can comment on how it works, because I have just watched a few videos on it for now. And most impressively is how it creates 8 versions of the match so you can pick your favorite.

The video above is pretty long winded, but very interesting. I certainly want to give it a try.

Blackmagic Design updates DaVinci Resolve to 17.3

Blackmagic has updated it’s DaVinci Resolve software to 17.3.

The big feature is 3x faster with Apple Silicon M1 enabling 8k editing and grading. As well as H.265 encoder enhancements.

It also includes the ability to rotate garbage mattes.

Another great sounding free update. Can’t wait to give it a try.

Billy Rybka’s 4 top DaVinci Resolve Plugins for 2021

You can also read about these 4 plugs in at 4K Shooter.

OK I haven’t used these yet, but I want to try them all out.

I use Optical Flares from Video Copilot for flares in my motion graphics all the time, so I do love having access to flares and $39 for LensMaster Flares is ridiculously cheap.

And I have to admit to hating doing audio mixes and cleanup, and though I do use Essential Sound in Premiere it doesn’t do as much as it looks like Alex Audio Butler does. And I really want to get my hands on the ERA 5 Bundle. I don’t really mess with EQ and compression unless I have to, so these tools would be amazing to have.

And I just installed Reactor from We Suck Less. I haven’t delved too deep into Fusion as of yet, but I have played a bit. And to have this amazing set of tools for free. Wow! I can’t wait.

Neat Video has updated it’s awesome Noise Reduction plug-ins to 5.4.6

Neat Video the creator of the best Noise Reduction software out there has updated it’s software to version 5.4.6.

It has expanded AMD support, optimization for Apple’s M1 chips, and support for the latest Adobe releases. You can read about the changes here.

Neat Video is incredibly good and they keep getting better and faster, the only rival is noise reduction in the Studio version of DaVinci Resolve, but I have found they are great companions, and tend to work on software that the other doesn’t do well on. I try out one and then switch to the other if that one isn’t working as well. And I have Neat for Premiere Pro and After Effects as well.

Chadwick Shoults and his creative video tips, 10 Mind Blowing Tips to Edit Faster in DaVinci Resolve is a must view

I stumbled across this video and was literally blown away. Great tips, and a must listen.

And you can check out his site Creative Video Tips, and his tutorials are awesome, you can also see his videos directly on YouTube. Well worth the time to check out if you use DaVinci regularly.

Elgato has updated it’s Stream Deck software to version 5.0 with a store

The software for the Elgato Stream Deck has been updated to version 5.0 with the addition of a store. Jose Antunes at ProVideoCoalition has a great article on it.

Now it is great for them to have a store, but the store is pretty useless to me if it doesn’t have SideShowFX in it, because they make the profiles for pro video users. Now you can find software for streaming in the store, but the Stream Deck really works for Pro Video users, and to not have that software represented seems like a huge mistake.

I still plan on doing an article on Steam Deck and SideshowFX, but have been so busy I haven’t had the time.

Fstoppers on getting perfect color with X-Rite Color Checker and DaVinci Resolve

Fstoppers has an article with a video on the awesome X-Rite Color Checker (why doesn’t Premiere support it?) of which I personally use the Passport edition.

I do find that sometimes it doesn’t work (and I have yet to figure out why) but when it does it gives an awesome baseline for every shot. You just have to convince the camera department to shoot it every time the lighting or setup changes.

Still this is an awesome tool and one everyone should shoot with.

Some videos by Daria Fissuon who wrote black magic design training on DaVinci Resolve 17

Daria Fissuon literally wrote the DaVinci Resolve 17 Training Guide, and she has some great tips and tricks for using DaVinci.

From Casey Faris

Aslo from Casey Faris’s YouTube Channel

And this one from Craig Beckta at FStoppers which I need to watch again, because she goes into how to setup and export your videos to deal with the Mac Color shift, which is huge!!!!

BlackMagic RAW has been updated to 2.1 with improved Premiere Pro Performance and M1 Support

Blackmagic Design has upgraded it’s BlackMagic RAW plugin to version 2.1 with M1 support and improved Premiere Pro Performance.

  • Added native support for Apple Silicon on Mac.
  • Added optimised CPU decoding for clips captured by Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K.
  • Added Blackmagic Generation 5 Color Science Technical Reference document.
  • Added support for Panasonic Lumix S1H, S1 and S5 Blackmagic RAW clips captured by Blackmagic Video Assist.
  • Added support for Nikon Z 6II and Z 7II Blackmagic RAW clips captured by Blackmagic Video Assist.
  • Blackmagic RAW Adobe Premiere Pro plugin performance and stability improvements.
  • General performance and stability improvements.

Improvements to performance are always welcome and M1 support is as well.

Adobe needs to bring back SpeedGrade as Lumetri Pro and have a proper finishing workflow

Now I was a huge fan of SpeedGrade when it existed, and greatly lamented it’s passing when it went away. For those of you who don’t know, SpeedGrade was a professional color correction software much like DaVinci Resolve that Adobe purchased and added to their creative suite for a while, and then gutted it and that is where the Lumetri color panel came from. What I miss the most was that unlike with DaVinci where you render out movies with the grade baked in, the grade from SpeedGrade could be exported a single movie or movies of each shot, but you could also roundtrip to premiere and the entire grade came back to Premiere as the Lumetri plug in on your clips! Not only was this much faster, especially since most Lumetri grades would play back in real time without rendering in Premiere, but it saved hard drive space too and made the whole round-tripping thing a real pleasure.

Sure it wasn’t quite as powerful as DaVinci Resolve at the time, but it was plenty powerful and at the time even beat DaVinci on a couple of things.

Of course by this point DaVinci has vastly moved on from SpeedGrade, but this is Adobe we are talking about, and they could certainly update it (and give it multi-monitor support). And maybe bake in some After Effects tools for masks and tracking and the like.

Now Premiere Pro has the Lumetri Color Panel, but it isn’t near what SpeedGrade was and no where near what Premiere can do. So the Adobe Creative Suit really needs a high end color correction package and it could be the evolution of SpeedGrade or as Randi Altman called it Lumetri Pro (I wish I could take credit for the name).