Jan Maarten de Wit August 28, 2020 Share August 28, 2020 (edited) I am very curious to the current state of affairs in 2020 regarding this topic. My 5 cents: Where I can only speak for moving away from Davinci Resolve to Mistika Boutique. I left Davinci Resolve because there was not so much development going on the color side of the program. Still the responsiveness and accessibility of Davinci Resolve is great, compared to Mistika where the learning curve I just a bit more steep. But, if you have Mistika under control it is a beautiful piece of software with a great support team and a lot of progression on the colour-grading side of the software compared to Davinci Resolve. The level of control over colour you have in Mistika is really out of this world. (compared to Davinci Resolve) Primary - with a great control over the printer lights (contrast mode on 'printer light' are really nice for split toning) Also adjusting the soft-clip with a knee-soft and rolloff creates good looking soft-hightlights. Bands - The control in bands is really great for look creation, for instance the 'Black and Shadows' and 'Highlights and White' are separated. Keep your black's black while putting a bit blue in the shadows. I cannot go back to Davinci Resolve without this level of control. (yes you can pull this off in Resolve wit a keyer to keep you black's intact but this feels a lot better). And on top of de Bands control you can adjust the ranges for the bands. Fixed - A fast way to do Hue shifts/ Hue-Sat control/HueHue -Luma control. In combination with a 'Qualifier' a great way to put a skintone in the right tint, or making the greens just a bit more autumn like. Curves - And yes, the same curve control there is in Resolve is also available in Mistika. Only the feel of adjusting Hue's with 'Fixed' is way more intuitive. Qualifier - For every layer you are gonna key you can choose what source you wil use, you can use the 'Base Grade', 'Direct Source' or any other layer you just graded on. In Resolve you can do this in different ways, but this is much faster. Also there is a curved control for adjusting the key. And you can connect the keyer to different passes from the 'Post Department', like Z-Dept, Normals etc.. This was just a small gasp of features I really prefer above Davinci Resolve. Working in VR and S3D is also a blast and perfectly intergraded in the ColorGrade interface. Still LUT management, Stabilising shot's and overall OFX support is much better in Davinci Resolve. But with the speed SGO is working on Mistika this can change quite fast. For me, Davinci Resolve feels like a dead end, with a big focus on hardware sales. And with the release of the new Mistika Boutique 10, this feels like a new fresh start. Last but not least you can use the Tangent Element panel plus 2 Bt panels and adjust the mapping manually if needed. My Mistika Setup For more pictures check www.postwest.nl. 🙃 Edited August 28, 2020 by Jan Maarten de Wit 3 Link to comment Share on other sites
Mazze August 28, 2020 Share August 28, 2020 Such nice rings you got there on your Element 😜 . 2 Link to comment Share on other sites
Jan Maarten de Wit August 28, 2020 Share August 28, 2020 1 hour ago, Mazze said: Such nice rings you got there on your Element 😜 If you love it, put a ring on it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Mark Mulcaster August 28, 2020 Share August 28, 2020 I learnt on Mistika - coming from a editing background I was “wtf?!” But you get to grips with it and the colour tools came on leaps and bounds during my time with it.Im now on Baselight and that’s a lot more locked in and it’s not restrictive but with mistika’s open timeline it was easy to cobble things together and properly comp from scratch. I guess that’s to do with it’s Compositor background.Hands down though Baselight colour management is head and shoulders above any other tool I’ve tried ( I’ve not tried them all though). Admittedly I’ve not tried to finish a whole project in Baselight as we online back in avid using the AAF round trip with Baselight for avid which in it itself is a handy as hell as my spelling is atrocious so I made for a appalling online editor [emoji1787] but I was delivering shows from conform through to final delivery including having to make editorial changes on the Mistika.It still wasn’t easy compared to everything in one box like resolve but I find anything but the simple bit of editing a real chore in Baselight...oh for the days when picture lock actually meant that and not “we’ve run out of money in offline” [emoji1787] The fact both are in essence layer based ways of grading meant it was a easy transition over to Baselight for me. I’d be curious to give Mistika another whirl and see what’s changed...I think I can still remember a few gestures [emoji23][emoji1787] 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Jan Maarten de Wit August 28, 2020 Share August 28, 2020 @Mark Mulcaster Mistika has changed a lot in one year, and I really curious to see the full Mistika 10 Release. Right now they did a big overhaul on the colour-grade side of the software. 8 minutes ago, Mark Mulcaster said: Hands down though Baselight colour management is head and shoulders above any other tool I’ve tried ( I’ve not tried them all though). I newer played around with Baselight 'yet' and I am really curious about the differences in colour management compared to Mistika. What I like in Mistika that I can put a node on top of my timeline doing a trim pass quite easy. The canvas is super flexible to create all kinds of setups to make your life super easy. For instance put a framing node on top of your stack, reframe and export a 1:1 version, or 9:16 version and keeping the original 16:9 version intact with the original grading. This way I don't have to create 3 sequences with the same grade and corrections are super easy and clear. If you want the 9:16 version just bypass the node see screenshot. Since Mistika is node based and layer based you get the best of two worlds. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Anton Meleshkevich August 31, 2020 Share August 31, 2020 (edited) On 8/28/2020 at 4:21 PM, Jan Maarten de Wit said: For me, Davinci Resolve feels like a dead end, with a big focus on hardware sales. Totally agree. Tons of bugs in color tools aren't fixed from one version to another. Nodes colorspace work wrong in ACES: timeline colospace is rec709 gamma 2.4 instead of ap1 acescc(t). Node AP1 color space change white point which is useless. Gamut mapping works wrong in ACES. Canon Cinema Gamut have wrong white point in CST plugin. Unusable WB eyedropper and colorchecker matching in ACES. I reported most of these bugs with no luck. Hope someone from blackmagic read this post and finally add these bugs to a schedule for fixing. Finally they added a possibility to type in numbers for color mixer and to generate 65x65x65 LUTs. But most of improvements are for the new cut page. When Scratch will have groups for grading, more intuitive edit page and will give more freedom with color spaces, I probably switch to it. I've tried Scratch some time ago. It reacts IMMEDIATELY when I adjust color wheels while playing the footage! Edited August 31, 2020 by Anton Meleshkevich 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Tom Evans August 31, 2020 Share August 31, 2020 Now that Flame included Lustre, I'm tempted to go that way. Pricey though, but you can't beat that finishing package. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
