DaVinci Resolve Training from Alex Jordan: Special Pricing

Last year I had a talk with a colorist by the name of Alex Jordan. The way I found out about him was from a short YouTube piece he put together on color correction in Resolve. What amazed me by that video was that he was able to explain a rather complex topic in just a couple of minutes. He's a natural when it comes to teaching.

So I went to his website, FilmSimplified.com, where he has a series of color grading and editing courses as well as several LUT packs. I took one of the free courses on getting started with DaVinci Resolve and was pleased to find that the entire course was very useful and very concise, just like the episode on YouTube.

So we had this discussion and I've looked to him as a friend and mentor in the world of color since then. His approach is very practical and the things he discusses always useful.

So if you'd like to learn more about color grading, I'd encourage you to have a look at FilmSimplified.com. Try one of his free courses and see if you learn something useful. He won't waste your time.

Also, if you're interested in buying any of his courses, he's having a black Friday special pricing event where he's offering his full DaVinci Resolve color grading course as well as courses on editing in Resolve, a "practice" course where he actually shows you how to correct and grade several clips, and a lighting course all for $99 USD. That's a good investment.

He also kindly offered to provide LearnLightAndSound a portion of the proceeds of that special pricing so that we can continue to post useful tutorials (full disclosure). You won't spend any more using these links than if you just went to his site on your own.

Even if you don't have the budget for the black Friday bundle, definitely check out his free introductory course on DaVinci Resolve 12.5.

Quickly Correct White Balance in DaVinci Resolve 12 5

Have you ever forgotten to set the white balance on your camera during a shoot only to get back home and find that the color in your video is way off? Here’s a way you can quickly correct the white balance of your video clips using the free version of DaVinci Resolve 12.5. You can download the free version of DaVinci Resolve.

Check out Alex Jordan's free and premium color correction and color grading courses.

Color Grading with Alex Jordan: LUTs and Highlight Rolloff

https://youtu.be/ytGCWgPpJ1w Another conversation with Alex Jordan on color grading, this time talking about LUTs (what they are, what they are useful for and what they are not useful for) as well as highlight rolloff. I like his practical approach where he clearly explains that you cannot just expect to drop a film emulation LUT on your clips and expect it to fix all the issues your clips may have in terms of exposure, white balance, or color shifts and this makes his "componentized" LUTs more flexible for getting the final look that you're after.

I've learned a lot from Alex's DaVinci Resolve 11 online training. I love that his courses are so succinct. You can get through a lot of material quickly and I think I actually retain the info better at this pace.

Also, in this episode he offers a 20% discount for the next five days on his LUT packs over at LUTMarket.com. Also, if you buy the full pack in the next five days, you also get a lifetime membership to this DaVinci Resolve 11 training which will soon be updated to Resolve 12 training once the new version is released. That's a good value!

iMac 5k Display Color Accuracy

http://youtu.be/Ls1G_q1DZhM From the time that Apple announced the iMac with 5k Retina Display, I wondered how color accurate the display measured. As a photographer and videographer, I didn’t wan to put all my money into an all-in-one computer that had a beautiful, but color chaos screen. So here we use an XRITE i1Display Pro colorimeter to get a read on how well the color would work for basic photo retouching, video editing, color correction and grading for an enthusiast producing for the web. (This is obviously not a reference display for color critical work. Look to brands like Flanders Scientific and Sony for displays in that range).

DaVinci Resolve 11: Learning to Match Shots from Different Cameras

One of the issues that comes up in multi-cam shoots is that the color from different cameras can, and often does, look very different. I am not a colorist but this is a practical problem that I am learning to fix using DaVinci Resolve 11. In this example, I shot a scene with two cameras: A Nikon D750 and a Panasonic GH4, both using their Neutral Picture Styles and set to tungsten white balance. But as you can see, the two clips look startlingly different! Using techniques I learned from Patrick Inhofer, we use color match, then manually tweak the luma on the two clips, and finally massage the color just slightly to get two clips that can cut together without distracting the audience.

To learn more about color grading from Patrick, check out his new DaVinci Resolve course over at Lynda.com or see his website: taoofcolor.com

http://youtu.be/Zr7FQKzxl68

Basic Cross Process Color Grading in DaVinci Resolve

In our continuing journey to learn color grading, let's take a look at a fairly simple cross process grading look in DaVinci Resolve Lite. Nothing too complicated but a look that I've found to be pretty useful in a fair number of cases.For those not familiar with DaVinci Resolve, it is one of the big color correction and grading tools used by professionals and indie film-makers alike. There are paid and free versions available at http://blackmagicdesign.com. The main caveat with the free version from my perspective is that you need a computer with at least a dedicated video card and fairly well appointed specs in terms of RAM and CPU power. It will not run well (or even at all) on ultrabooks with fairly light specs.

http://youtu.be/_lKeCG5FnPI