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What color grading software yields the best image?
  • I wanted to get some advice and opinions on what software is the best for color grading when it comes to yielding the best image. I ask because we're about to go into editing on a feature we just finished shooting, and we had planned to use Premiere/Speedgrade or Premiere/After Effects, but a lot of people really praise Resolve.

    So my question is, what color grading software is best for yielding the best image - and WHY? Please be specific with how your favorite software yields a better image. All opinions are welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance.

  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • they are all capable of delivering amazing images - what you should be concerned with is ease of use * power. And for ease of use * power - Resolve wins.

  • @shian Great advice - thank you. My editor is the type to like to grade while editing, going back and forth a lot, so perhaps Premiere/Speedgrade is the better choice for her. I will have to look into CGPro for Speedgrade.

  • I know it's got a bad rap for all of the way-too-intense looks people use, but I'm still a big fan of Magic Bullet Looks. It has Colorista built in, along with many other useful filters, gradients, etc etc. I rarely use a prefab "look", and instead use it as a relatively well-featured color grading platform. I figure I'll eventually switch to Speedgrade or Resolve (actually about to grade my first project in SG), but for everything I've shot so far MBL fit the bill perfectly.

  • @Sangye I remember when they first came out hearing the same thing about the too intense looks, but interesting to hear that MBL Colorista works well. I remember looking at a MBL Colorista overview and it looked pretty decent.

  • MBL and Colorista coupled with After Effects is a very nice way to work (especially with its tracking and layer features) It is efficient though I find it slower than Resolve which is truly dedicated to this. Resolve is the winner in power/efficiency but then you can get the same color correction with whatever software. It's just a preference, what matters for your audience is the film, they won't care much about which button/software you've pushed/used.

  • Thanks everyone for advice.

  • assimilate scratch??

  • I use apple colorina, I have no rational explanation but she eats little, works slow, has tiny popooza fonts and outdated UI graphics, messes with frame rates and abandoned by her parents, has no one to trust... call me romantic prince :P
    Now I just need a nice tailor (A - B) that can make a mga LUT dress for taking her dancing and we will be forever happy... and hungry. Saludos Matt ;-)

  • I like Resolve a lot... but damn... it's SO slow and crappy on machines without a super-charged graphics card. With my RAW 2.5k BMCC files... I'm getting 2-3fps playback on Resolve 10, whereas I can actually playback and edit the native RAW files in Premiere CC in real-time. So it's an all Adobe-workflow for me right now...

  • I'm looking to get a laptop coupled with a AMD A8-5545M. I'm crossing my fingers that the the AMD will be strong enough to handle resolve.