Re: Colorgrading Round-Up

Thank you for a very interesting assesment.
As a Smoke, Avid, FCP, CS 5.5 and Resolve Lite user, I just wanted to mention that for me, it is horses for courses. I often use the Avid / Resolve round trip for TV work because the quality of the camera files (5D, XDCAM etc) does not need more and clients want fast turn around. Contary to common belief, unless you shoot flat gamma, there is virtually nothing to grade on a 5D. For commercials, this workflow is not a real option, but that is often more of a client issue than a technical one.

Dedicated grading apps let you compare between shots very easily and for me, that is the principal difference between SFX / editing apps like AE / Smoke and Resolve. Secondary grading in Symphony is cumbersome to say the least, as is shot comparison except if the shots are next door.
Lastly, Smoke currently does not have an autosave archive probably because of the architecture. Timeline is saved as part of a clip in a library and FXs / actions and the batch are saved as XML style files called Setups. The system is very modular, allowing to easily exchange with the flame (if you have the same version). The smoke is actually quite cluncky in comparision to an avid of FCP but it is this clunckyness that forces you to save regularly. As an Avid user, I found this terrible at first but with time, I understood that it is an advantage because it forces you to lock things down. An Attic style idea would become difficult in my opinion when you start adding 3d geometry into your project (the 3D space is the real force of the Smoke. It is 3D for idiots like me). To be honest, Smoke has a very powerful grader but for compositing / FX work. I used a Artist Color control surface with it, but it was a gimmick. The same interface on Resolve was just primordial.
To conclude, even if it is all colour grading, each tool has a reason to grade but not for the same reasons, it just depends on the workflow (and how much you wanto pay!).