Davinci Resolve lock adjustment layer

[zerocool22]

Hello, 

Does anybody know how to lock an adjustment layer in resolve in the color tab so you do not accidently change the adjustment layer, as when I am browsing the clips in the color page, it often switches to the adjustment layer without me noticing and I start tweaking the adjustment layer instead of the individual clip. (locking the adjustment layer in the edit tab does not work)

 

Thanks,

[SteveV4D]

I find if I hide any layer in the edit page, those clips don't show up in the colour tab.  I often use this to separate drone, different cameras.  Hiding all layers except the one devoted to the camera files I wish to grade.  It also works on adjustment layers and transition layers I have, making sure I don't accidentally grade these when I apply a node to all clips.

[zerocool22]

Thanks, glad that you brought this up. How do select all footage from one cameta to apply a conversion if you are working with different camera systems. Or do you do this manually, going clip by clip? As my timelines are shuffled between cameras and I have to look up which camera it is at each clip, which is quite a drag. So a select all where filename starts with a000 or something in the edit timeline page.

[zerocool22]

38 minutes ago, SteveV4D said:

I find if I hide any layer in the edit page, those clips don't show up in the colour tab.  I often use this to separate drone, different cameras.  Hiding all layers except the one devoted to the camera files I wish to grade.  It also works on adjustment layers and transition layers I have, making sure I don't accidentally grade these when I apply a node to all clips.

Oh I am not behind my pc atm but does hiding the adjustment layer also not disable all effects on it? If thats the case then its not that usefull. As after a global grade, every clip reacts a bit different and I need to set it right by eye.

[zerocool22]

3 hours ago, SteveV4D said:

I find if I hide any layer in the edit page, those clips don't show up in the colour tab.  I often use this to separate drone, different cameras.  Hiding all layers except the one devoted to the camera files I wish to grade.  It also works on adjustment layers and transition layers I have, making sure I don't accidentally grade these when I apply a node to all clips.

Yeah but then you have to layer the camera model per layer. Just tested hiding the adjustment layer but it then the grade doesnt get applied either, so not that usefull im afraid. 

[zerocool22]

Best way is prolly to just add a new node on the adjustment layer and disable the node itself. 

[SteveV4D]

3 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Thanks, glad that you brought this up. How do select all footage from one cameta to apply a conversion if you are working with different camera systems. Or do you do this manually, going clip by clip? As my timelines are shuffled between cameras and I have to look up which camera it is at each clip, which is quite a drag. So a select all where filename starts with a000 or something in the edit timeline page.

I select all the clips for the camera, sbich on their own layer, just means ctr A and then apply a grade, then click in the menu above, apply grade to node on selected clips, or append node to selected clips. 

Something like that.  I'm not in front of resove, so basing this on memory.

[zerocool22]

45 minutes ago, SteveV4D said:

I select all the clips for the camera, sbich on their own layer, just means ctr A and then apply a grade, then click in the menu above, apply grade to node on selected clips, or append node to selected clips. 

Something like that.  I'm not in front of resove, so basing this on memory.

yeah but in that case, you are grading it before the edit. Or you keep your layers seperated. I just throw all my footage on the timeline no matter the camera, edit a timeline, and in the end start grading. But at that pont all camera's are mixed up all over different layers. 

[SteveV4D]

24 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

yeah but in that case, you are grading it before the edit. Or you keep your layers seperated. I just throw all my footage on the timeline no matter the camera, edit a timeline, and in the end start grading. But at that pont all camera's are mixed up all over different layers. 

Yes, I tend to separate the cameras.  Each have their own layer and their own colour label.

[herein2020]

My entire process is set up for speed, so it may not yield the quality that you are looking for but my workflow is as follows; some of the steps may help you speed up your workflow....

1 - Import all of the footage from the memory cards to the PC into a folder called RAW clips (sub folders separate the clips by camera)

2 - During the import separate them by camera using the sub folders  (I typically can have up to 4 cameras)

3 - I have a second folder called selected clips

4 - I open the RAW clips folder in one window and the selected clips folder in a second window

5 - I preview each clip in VLC then drag it to the selected clips folder if I will use it. Any clip that looks totally unusable (false start, etc. I drag to a discards folder).

6 - From the selected clips folder I drag it into DR

7 - I build out the timeline do all of the edits etc until the project is done. I dump all of the cameras on a single layer and only add layers for text, multi-cam scenarios, overlays, special effects, etc. I don't bother labeling the cameras, naming the clips etc (unless I am going to add it to my stock footage library). Every min I spend on a project is $$ lost is the way I treat projects.

8 - I move to the Color tab and when I encounter the first camera I apply a grade that brings it to the Rec709 standard based on the WFM. Once the grade is complete (LUTS, manual adjustments etc) I save it to Color memory slot 1 > Color > Memories > Save Memory A (or just press  Alt 1). Each time I encounter that camera I press Ctrl 1 to apply that camera's grade. For the rest of the cameras I repeat the process. By the 4th camera I have base grades for all of them saved. 

9 - After pressing Ctrl + camera number to paste  the grade on the next clip from that camera, I make small adjustments in case it is the same camera but a different scene (i.e. indoors vs outdoors etc).

10 - After all of the base grades are done I go back to the edit tab and add an adjustment layer over all of the video clips but under any titles/text/logos etc. 

11 - I go back to the Color tab and apply a finishing LUT to the adjustment layer.

12 - Color grade done

With my process my entire color grade for a typical 2-5min project with 4 cameras and 100 clips takes less than 10min.  I have optimized my workflow to minimize the throwaway clips in my NLE, maximize my editing speed, and with the added benefit that if I start running out of storage space in my archives I know I can go back and delete unused footage from the Discards folder without affecting the finished project. Also for speed, my entire folder structure for photography and video is set up as a templates in a read only folder so I just copy that folder structure each time into a new project folder when I start a project. I hate spending 1 additional unnecessary second on a project if I can help it.

I tried DR's Use Remote Grades feature but for me it was confusing and annoying to work with if a single clip had multiple exposure changes (say walking from outdoors to indoors or the sun went behind the clouds) so I like the memories slot approach better.  I also tried the apply grade by camera approach using bins but there is no single camera base grade that will cover every scenario so I found it faster to build a base grade for that particular project for each camera by hand or via a LUT with manual adjustments. I have also had multi-day projects where the next day was a completely different venue and there is no way I would want to use the same grade from the previous day even though it was the same camera.

My process I'm sure would fall apart for really large projects but for me where the typical project never exceeds 4 cameras or 100 clips it works great.

[kye]

17 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Does anybody know how to lock an adjustment layer in resolve in the color tab so you do not accidently change the adjustment layer, as when I am browsing the clips in the color page, it often switches to the adjustment layer without me noticing and I start tweaking the adjustment layer instead of the individual clip. (locking the adjustment layer in the edit tab does not work)

I have played around with various ways to structure a grade, with most of my real projects (not tests like I post here) having 3+ cameras.  I tried using Groups, I tried using the Timeline feature, but I found them all to be kind of cumbersome in various ways.

Here are two approaches for you consideration.

Approach One - Shared Nodes

Setup a node graph on the first clip that looks like this:

• A few normal nodes for this clip
• Three Shared Nodes for this camera
• Five Shared Nodes for the whole project

The idea is that the normal nodes at the start are to adjust things that are likely changing from clip to clip, like WB tweaks, exposure tweaks, and maybe NR or sharpening (some of my lenses are softer at wider apertures so benefit from a little sharpening to even out the odd fully-wide-open shot).

The camera specific Shared Nodes are for every clip from that camera and are typically structured to have the second node do the Rec709 conversion (be it via curves or LGG wheels or CST or contrast/sat/pivot or whatever) and the first one be pre-adjustments and the third be post-adjustments.

The global Shared Nodes are to apply a 'look' to the project.  Depending on how you like to work you could setup more than five to begin with.  It's easy to add more at the start and not use them than have to add them later.

You can also choose to add a "scene" set of nodes between the camera ones and the global ones, if you want to have different looks for different scenes.

Approach Two - Simplicity Itself

Review the footage and find your hero shot (or shots, if you've got multiple scenes), which will act as a reference.  It could be a good idea to have this as a wide shot because it will include lots of different luma and chroma values.

Grade the hero shot.  Take a still as a reference, and make sure you're showing the gallery on the screen so it's visible.

Grade each shot, manually, to match the hero shot.  It should match closely enough to not look 'different'.

Apply a look over the whole timeline, either using a Shared Node, use the Timeline window, Put on an Adjustment Layer, whatever you want.

Go into the Lightbox view and look for any clips that don't 'fit' and go and fix them.

Done.

The second approach works really well if you have a control surface.  On well shot footage you can get away with doing very simple adjustments to most shots, and only have to do fancy things to solve problems, like desaturating distracting elements in the background or whatever.

9 hours ago, herein2020 said:

My entire process is set up for speed, so it may not yield the quality that you are looking for but my workflow is as follows; some of the steps may help you speed up your workflow....

.............

My process I'm sure would fall apart for really large projects but for me where the typical project never exceeds 4 cameras or 100 clips it works great.

Cool workflow, thanks for sharing.  There's some things in there I hadn't heard of before, like the colour memories feature.  Will have to look into that a bit more.

Resolve is so deep....

[herein2020]

1 hour ago, kye said:

Cool workflow, thanks for sharing.  There's some things in there I hadn't heard of before, like the colour memories feature.  Will have to look into that a bit more.

Resolve is so deep....

Yes Resolve is incredible, but it can be pretty hard to find some of its features. I think the key to my color grading workflow is I don't add the adjustment layer until I have a base grade for all of the clips, that way I don't accidentally end up with it selected. It's pretty annoying that DR does not provide an easier way to do this, and I accidentally start working on the wrong layer all the time if I have already added say a logo or watermark at a higher layer. I now try to color grade before adding text/titles/callouts etc. but if a client wants changes after seeing the project that's where things get time consuming.

 

I learned the memories trick from the following video, and out of all the different ways to copy a grade to another clip I liked it the Memories trick the best, if the clips are side by side I just hit the = key but it usually doesn't work out that way. For speed purposes I just put everything into one node unless I'm doing something complex like power windows, selective color, green screen work, etc. I used to do multiple nodes and all of that but it takes too much time; create a base grade, throw a finishing LUT into an adjustment layer....done.

I literally did not leave Premier Pro until DR added the adjustment layer feature. It is a huge time saver.