Creative COW: Colorgrading Round-Up

Creative COW by Dennis Kutchera

Hello, my name is Dennis. I'm an Avidaholic. I've been running with Media Composer since 1993.

Today I use Avid Symphony. I love Symphony. I love the way it introduced advanced color correction to the non-linear editing. It opened the doors to those who could not afford the big DaVinci rooms of yesteryear. But your time has come Avid Symphony. You are showing your age. There are a lot of newer, younger, faster, and fresher vixens of color grading that are causing my eye to wander. So I set off to the NAB Show 2012 in Sin City with full intent to cheat on you, my dear Avid.

I arrived in Las Vegas for NAB with a full schedule, overflowing with one prime directive--to find the best solutions for the color grading and finishing work for Egg Studios, a full service commercial production house in Halifax Canada, which I joined in January as Chief Technology Officer. My COW published prediction that color grading was going to be a major highlight at NAB 2012 was proven from the moment I landed in Las Vegas, starting with the announcement party for the Autodesk's New Smoke for Mac. While not strictly a color grading solution, Smoke does have probably the most advanced color correction of any non-linear editor available today and offers a lot of value with a very complete finishing toolset that, while supporting plug-ins, doesn't lack much for finishing, with what is already built into the software.

Once Autodesk wowed us with Smoke, we moved on to the RED Users party for the rest of the evening. But that wasn't about post and color grading, so what happened in Vegas Sunday night, will stay in Vegas.

On Monday, I spent the entire day at Post World taking a series of color grading classes taught by color gurus Patrick Inhofer, Alexis Van Hurkman and Robbie Carman. I arrived 45 minutes early because I wanted a good seat. By the time the first class started, there were many more attendees than available seats. Clearly the interest in color grading was very high. Many endured the day standing or sitting on the floor. Google these guys, they know their stuff and they have found a niche in training and sharing their knowledge. Alexis has a book out that is the definitive text on color grading entitled "The Color Correction Handbook." read more...