Six years ago Blackmagic Design expanded its line of color correction control panels by adding the Micro and Mini panels to the full-size Resolve Advanced panel. At the time I reviewed the Mini panel. I typically split my duties between editing and color correction, so much of my grading work is done with a mouse. That includes full sessions in DaVinci Resolve, as well as Lumetri color when the project stays totally inside Premiere Pro. However, now it was time to finally buy and use the Micro panel on a real project.
The challenge
On a recent a grading project the thought of doing it all with a mouse seemed taxing to me. I was fortunate to get the production company I work with to purchase the Micro panel. We service a major international cruise line with creative content used for marketing, corporate communications, shipboard videos, social media, and travel-related entertainment content.
Over the years, the company has accumulated and curated quite a lot of B-roll footage from destinations all around the globe. This project involved building new presentations for their shipboard sales centers. We created 11 hours of edited content (Premiere Pro), that is split into 22 30-minute blocks, set to music. These blocks represented ten worldwide travel regions, plus an hour of sunrises and sunsets. The source footage came from a wide range of sources, cameras, and file formats, along with some additional stock footage.
In order to be consistent and efficient, we opted to run this through Resolve for the final look, instead of tackling it with Lumetri tweaks in Premiere Pro. Although the amount of footage was comparable to several feature films, the budget and delivery times weren’t. Grading had to get done as quickly as possible. In total, there were over 5700 clips across the 11 hours. Grading time (excluding scene cut detection, exports, and quality-control checks) took roughly a day for each region (one hour of content).
Why the Micro was the right panel
As I previously wrote, if you are an editor/colorist and grade in Resolve less than 50% of the time, then the Micro is probably the right choice. More than 50% and you should look at the Mini. If you are a full-time, successful colorist, then the investment in the full-size Advanced panel is likely the right decision. We opted for the Micro for two reasons. First, I fit into the first category. Second, I have limited desk space and need to operate the panel, keyboard, and mouse within a comfortable space.
The DaVinci Resolve Micro panel is just a control surface without any integrated displays. It plugs in via USB and comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable. That connection carries minimal power and control data. The packaged version sold through most retail outlets is bundled with a license of Resolve Studio, but the panel doesn’t need to be paired with it. So if you already have DaVinci Resolve Studio installed, simply plug in the panel and you are ready to go. Unlike other panels, such as Tangents, these Blackmagic panels will only work together with Resolve. However, there is no set-up required. You can tweak the gearing of the knobs and rings within Resolve, but if you like the default feel, then it’s ready right out of the box.
The panel layout
The Micro panel is designed with three trackballs and rings. These trackballs control the lift/gamma/gain values for the standard color wheels. However, there are two modifier controls. Press the “log” button and these controls change to log wheels. Press “offset” and then the left and middle rings control temperature and tint, while the right trackball/ring controls the offset wheel. By toggling the offset button you can control all four values: lift, gamma, gain, and overall. Through this configuration, you can control two of the three sets of Resolve color wheels – just not HDR wheels or color bars (color mix sliders). Across the top of the panel are knobs for Y controls, contrast, pivot, saturation, hue, and more. The right side consists of navigation, recall, and transport control buttons.
Since the Micro panel covers a smaller subset of DaVinci Resolve color controls, you cannot totally do away with the keyboard and mouse (or pen and tablet if that’s your interface preference). For example, camera raw settings, curves, noise reduction settings, and setting up power windows all require use of the keyboard and mouse. The same is true for saving and loading memory positions.
Micro permits you to save a still to the galley. In Resolve these stills are thumbnails plus an embedded grade for that clip. You can recall a still from the panel, preview the grade onto a new clip, and apply it. But if you’ve grabbed several stills, then you have to go through the gallery and select the correct clip.
What you can’t do from the panel – and I find this a huge design oversight – is to save a grade into one of Resolve’s eight memory buckets and then recall and apply that grade by number. It would be great even if only one or two were made available through the panel, or you could recall and apply the grade from one clip or two clips back. This should have either been integrated into the panel design or been a function that could be custom-mapped unto one of the other buttons. For know, you simply have to perform these tasks with the keyboard.
Use encourages discovery
The more functions you can perform within a single node, the more you can make use of the panel’s controls. However, if you create additional nodes with the keyboard, you can navigate between them using the panel. The majority of my clips only required one node, but some used more for power windows and tracking. Once I had created qualifiers and/or masks with the mouse, color adjustments could proceed via the panel. And you can step back and forth between the nodes from the panel.
When you work with a panel you tend to use controls that you wouldn’t normally use with just a mouse. Maybe you stick to the color wheels when working with a mouse. But, with the panel you might reach for the knobs more often. Internal Resolve color science is based on YRGB and not just RGB. When you rotate one of the trackball rings to affect brightness, it changes the YRGB values equally. At the top of the panel are Y-Lift, Y-Gamma, and Y-Gain knobs. Adjusting these is the same as changing only the Y value under each wheel in the user interface. Adjusting a Y-Gain knob versus the trackball ring will have a different impact on the saturation of the clip.
As with most control surfaces, you build up a muscle memory after working with it for a while. Your hands intuitively know where to go without the need to look up at a screen and see what your mouse is doing. The panel is an inherent way of working faster, but it also reduces the potential wrist and hand fatigue caused by constant mouse use.
For us, getting Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve Micro panel was definitely a good investment. When I’m mainly editing and not grading, then I simply unplug the panel and set it aside. Need it again? Plug it back in and it’s ready to go. Sometimes a little bit of kit makes you better, more creative, and fresher at the end of the session.
©2023 Oliver Peters
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