Hi John,
Glad you posted.
So in the other thread they discuss an online/offline type workflow. Where you do a 1 pass or just simple lut conversion, and then your edit, and then go back & do a final grade after you edit.
Another way is as I think you're suggesting. Grading once and then using that as your master. This is a perfectly valid workflow for most projects. In fact the BMDCC allows you record directly to ProRes & DNxHD for just that purpose.
[john stewart] "If i shoot in RAW then take footage into DaVinci Resolve do final grading then output it as LUT 709 which I'm guessing that is a Prores file?"
So in DaVinci you would add a LUT to the raw footage, to get it into 709 space (709 is the standard HD color space), then you have your choice of codecs. Almost any of them really. The two most common are ProRes and DNxHD.
[john stewart] "Then I can open it up in FCP7 and edit is this correct?"
Yep, at that point it's just a regular QT movie like any other.
[john stewart] "What type of compression, and how heavy of compression is it?"
It's whatever compression you choose when you export from Resolve. Could be very little or non, like Uncompressed or ProResHQ. Could be a heavily compressed offline codec like ProRes Proxy or DNxHD 36. The choice is yours.
[john stewart] "so exporting it as a LUT 709 it's no longer Raw file correct? "
That is correct. RAW formats (red r3d, or ARRIRAW for examples) are very processing heavy, and aren't very good editing codecs. But they give you lots of options for grading. So RAW is good for DaVinci, not so great for FCP.
You can choose to edit in prores (for one example) and then finish with those same files. Or you can edit in prores go back to davinci (or take your edit and raw files to a colorist) and then do a more detailed color correction on just the footage in your edit.
Hope that helps.
online editor | colorist | VFX | BD author
http://JuanSalvo.com
