How to set up DaVinci Managed Color for Nikon N-Raw

[@kunaljankee3361]

Finally, a professional explanation with no stupid long intro and no nonsensical matters.Would love to see other videos on how to work with Nraw, thank you for this.

[@jeastmon]

Clearest explanation I’ve seen to date. Hit some real hidden land mines and even threw in some subtle tricks without missing the main workflow. Hope to see more from ya. Thanks!

[@ZuZusGramp]

Thanks! Is there anything in particular you'd like to see?

[@acbcfoto]

Thank you so much for the very clear explanation! Just what I've been looking for.

[@markusschlevogt]

For all M1 users who are interested in: With the new Davinci Resolve 18 Beta version, N-Raw is supported natively. You don't have to run Davinci with Rosetta anymore :)

[@CLARKEIMAGERY]

Awesome! What I’ve been waiting for.

[@drleobarco]

Superb video David, many many thanks! Cheers!

[@Tarnway0412]

Very helpful! My Z9s just arrived last week, so I'm trying to get a feel for grading N-raw log. I'm switching from Sony, and used Slog3 sGamut3 for almost everything, including a fair bit of HDR. N-log raw HDR handles very differently, and I suspect that I might not be setting it up right on the Reslove side. This film might help solve some of that. In trying just a couple of test HDR grades, rendering to DNxHR HQX work well, however rendering the same clip to h.265 results in terrible banding in the blue sky. Again, I suspect it's something I'm doing wrong in the settings. Of course, Resolve has never been known for its fine h.265 rendering abilities, so it might just be a matter of mediocre compression causing banding artifacts. H.265 N-Log recorded directly from the camera doesn't have the banding, but does if I re-render it to h.265 again, and doesn't if re-rendered to DNxHR HQX.

[@the5amkebab971]

Rendering in "Main10" should solve this.

[@carrollgodro9780]

Thanks. I was using my z8 for photo only. I want to eplore the video side of it. I was looking for the Nikon setting. I guess with this setup I do not need to use the Z_8_N-Log-Full_to_REC709-Full_33_V01-00.cube in the project input lookup table. Because when I switch the color science from DaVinci YRGB to DaVinci YRGB color manage and I keep the z8 LUT, the clip does not look good :-) I just started to experiment with the resolve color page and watching tutorial a few days ago. You video is a great help !

[@ZuZusGramp]

That's correct. Resolve's color space transform (CST) is automatically applied by Davinci Managed Color. It does the same thing as the LUT (but much better, IMO) so if you also use the LUT, you are double-correcting.

[@rgsauve]

This is awesome!!!

[@ryanowen1118]

Thank you so much for this! My z9 footage looks so much better. But now my drone footage looks nuclear! How do I use my DJI footage in the same timeline? or is that possible?

[@OkiPixelFinders]

Good stuff, very helpful!

[@dannyellinger7132]

Hi David, this was very helpful a while ago. But what setting do you use with pro res nlog? before the update I used it. but It is not clear what the Colorspace is: also rec 709? Maybe you have the answer. Thanks

[@canphoto]

Great video! Thanks! =)

[@Tarnway0412]

Well done!

[@ignorantboxing]

I did everything you did and when I go to color to find the raw clip and stuff its greyed out I can't select anything. why is that? I shot 4k 120 fps in Nikon z9.

[@Yupthereitism]

Same for me, did you figure it out?

[@ignorantboxing]

@@Yupthereitism nope.

[@sb4photos]

have you found any other profiles that work well for noise in shadows which i find can be noticeable in nev .. Cheers

[@rgsauve]

As a Resolve newbie, my biggest question is what are the advantages of DaVinci YRGB Color Managed with your settings vs DaVinci YRGB with a timeline Color Space or Rec.2020 (Scene) and "Same as Timeline" Output Color Space and just adding a Color Transform node back to rec709 on the clips under the Color tab. I see to "see" the exact results when comparing both.

[@ZuZusGramp]

Using the unmanaged DaVinci YRGB, you have to manage all the transforms from your source files' color to your timeline color space. That means either using LUTs or tweaking the color settings until you get what you want. Tweaking the color settings is likely to give you lot of variation in the result, and LUTs clip. Resolve uses mathematical input transforms in 32-bit color space, so they can render overbought images without clipping (assuming they were not hard-clipped in camera). You can then bring the overbrights down on the color page, which is downstream of the input transform. A LUT will clip in this situation, and there will be no data to retrieve downstream.

[@lolerie]

@@ZuZusGramp you do need to use either. There is Color Tranform and when you activate YRGB color manged you can even set input space per clip. On the other hand I think that is not needed since N-LOG is tagged. Just set camera metadata as you described.

[@rajdeepchakraborty3259]

rendering raw with noise reduction is taking huge time. Kindly suggest how to render fast. Thanks

[@gordonmoore4174]

My Nicon NEF files are importing looking totally nearly totally green dominant and low quality when in fact they are not appearing that way in a photo viewer. How can I fix this?

[@陈宗横]

hi ，can you upload some nraw footage ？ thanks。

[@MadManTnT]

Thank you!

[@WalkingStones]

Hi David. I'm not able to import the Prores Raw files (from Nikon/Atomos Ninja V) as video files. They show up as audio files. I don't have the 'open using Rosetta' check box. I'm working on MacBook Pro (2018).

[@builtman2]

Resolve does not support pro res

[@prestenbrooks7142]

did you ever figure out a solution

[@WalkingStones]

@@prestenbrooks7142 Yes, but I decided to stick to log files. To work with prores raw you need to use paid program RAW converter (90$ if I’m correct) which converts raw files into a series of DNG photos, which you then import into Resolve. The problem is the file size of DNG which are even bigger than ProRes raw. You would need huge hard drives to work in such a setup.

[@jwleemedia]

No matter what I do I can NEVER get the Camera RAW box to not be greyed out. I can't figure out what in the world I'm doing wrong

[@Yupthereitism]

Same here, did you find a fix for this?

[@jwleemedia]

@@Yupthereitism I did, I found out that because I use Lightroom to import all of my files from my cards, Lightroom does not import N-Raw files. You have to manually import them. If you use Lightroom you'll only import the MP4 sidecar files.

[@HustleHarder_]

same for windows11?

[@julesc8054]

As of resolve 19 the user manual is just over 4300 pages. 😮‍💨

[@glacierfilmco]

My M1 Mac crawls running Rosetta and Davinci.

[@ZuZusGramp]

I can’t really help you there. I’m running an M1 Max MacBook Pro with 64 GB RAM. In Rosetta, it positively smokes my 12 core, maxed out 2013 Mac Pro. Rendering 8K Nlog to 4K, I’m seeing 35 fps or so. Rendering 4K N-log ProRes to 1080p, I’m seeing 120+ fps.

[@markusschlevogt]

With the new beta version of DaVinci 18 you don't have to use Rosetta anymore, to run N-Raw Footage :)

[@ArtUniverse]

I think I'll stick to still photography lol