Color Finale Pro vs Standard vs Davinci Resolve Lite

Hey,

I was mainly color grading until today on Apple Color, and was thinking of moving to either Color Finale or Davinci Resolve Lite.

I was wondering 1st of all what’s the difference between Color Finale Pro and Standard, since it’s not listed on the cologradingcentral website.

My other question is what’s the difference between Color Finale and Resolve Lite, and the pros/cons for each.

Thanks
Oded

P.S.
I also posted this in the "Third Party Products for FCP" subforum but there's a lot less traffic there, so if it's not okay that I posted it again here feel free to remove it, thanks

odedh wrote: …what’s the difference between Color Finale Pro and Standard, since it’s not listed on the cologradingcentral website.…

… would have bet high sums, I had seen a comparison chart at CGC… ?? Hmm, gone?
What I remember (hopefully correct) are:
support of ACEs which plays a role in HDR color management (not my domain )
support of the X-rite color-board for automatic adjustments
support of hardware 'knobs and sliders' (forgot the brand name …)
support of copy/paste of adjustments (that puzzled me as an amateur as a 'new' feature?)
support of save/load/share customise settings…
… perhaps there is more…

odedh wrote: …what’s the difference between Color Finale and Resolve Lite, and the pros/cons for each.…

The obvious difference is: you use CF in FCPX, no export, no xml, no back'n forth. And, in UI, Resolve is node-based, whereas CF works with 'instances' (<< no better word at hand)

CF comes as a trial, Resolve is free, so why not find out yourself…?
Denver Riddle offers on his website lots of tuts…

Thanks Karsten, I guess I'm just wondering should I spend money on a simpler app but that saves me the roundtripping or go for the free app which has more abilities but maybe more then I need but I have to start working on roundtrips

odedh wrote: … should I spend money on a simpler app but that saves me the roundtripping …

grading is really not my domain, but I do know CF is no simple but a very mighty tool, saw e.g. some marvel done with colour-vectors ...

odedh wrote: … or go for the free app which has more abilities but maybe more then I need but I have to start working on roundtrips

… doesn't that answer your question?
do YOU have more abilities?
and: you can switch to DR any time later, if you stress CF to its limits ....

time is the most valuable asset … 99$ translates into how minutes of your work?

Bought Color Finale Pro

odedh wrote: Bought Color Finale Pro

"Mr Riddle, my commission goes to …"
Share your experiences here ............!

IMHO Color Finale and Resolve are two complementary software. What I mean is that Resolve is a way more powerful tool (and has a smooth and faster workflow for color grading). Color Finale instead is really good when building not so complex gradings, and obviously, lets you work inside FCPX.
So, it all depends on the type of project you are working, and not just in terms of budget.
Anyway Color Finale needs further development in order to reach Resolve (it doesn't have specialised curves, qualifiers and motion trackers, just to name few features), and also has some annoying bugs (some of those I guess related to the restriction given by the fxplug architecture and limitations... like the random disappear of the floating window and the buggy color pickers). It is still the best plugin available for fcpx. It would be nice to see a collaboration between Denver and Apple in order to integrate color finale officially inside FCPX as part of the color tools (something like the lumetri tools inside premiere)

Imo CF is neither fish nor foul. I learned FCP X's color board mainly through tutorials by Denver Riddle. I knew Apples Color and I know Resolve. Although the Color effect within FCP X is terribly sketchy with it's increments from 0-100%, I stack instances of it like a would nodes in Resolve. I save them as effect preset, skim over this preset's icon in the effects tab to preview them on other clips in realtime without having to apply them first. I make a freeze frame of the sequence's reference shot, connect it over the other clips and crop it, a makeshift wipe/splitscreen view like in Resolve. I made my own skin-warming and skin-smoothing effect in Motion (wedding videos :blush: ).

At the end of the day, it takes me, say, three hours to grade everything in FCP X, compared to six hours in Resolve, roundtrip and render times not included. The results are as good. How can that be?

EDIT: I can answer my own question. If the task is to just generally enhance and stylize the images, staying in FCP X is way more effective. You quickly move the pucks and instantly see that it's approximating what you had in mind. You don't see the niceties, because they aren't shown. Very intuitive. If the task was to squeeze the utmost beauty out of every shade and color, you can do this only with the precise tools of Resolve. Food photography for example. Strawberries need a different red, less saturation, and need to be softer, the schnitzel must be brighter and so sharp you see the breadcrumbus crumble. But CF was still too crude to do that.

I see what you mean Axel, the big difference between the Color Board and Color Finale for me as that the Color Board is less sensitive then CF, what I mean every small movement of the puck has a bigger change on the image, plus CF has Curves, Vectores and now ACES support. on the Other hand the Color Board has separate Saturation slider for Black/Midtones/White while CF doesn't, but between the 2 of them(with SliceX) I think you can get most of what I can in Davinci Resolve

You are right. I am not a CF hater. I'd wish the sensitivity of the color board pucks was better. Had the chance to get a 40% discount for CFP on black friday, but unfortunately checked my E-mails too late ...

Yeah I bought CF Pro on the Black Friday sale, hopefully more people will buy it the better it will get