Learning to grade before investing in proper setup.

Hi all,

I'm looking to step up and get into grading to supplement my editing skills.

At the minute, I can't invest in any kind of additional grading hardware (as I'm in Brazil where electronics are quite literally double the price of the UK and US) and probably wouldn't wish to do so anyway until I'm confident that it's something I want to pursue more seriously.

So is my top spec 2017 MacBook Pro sufficient for me to go through the Alexis van Hurkman book with? Or is practicing and learning on it actually going to be detrimental for when I have access to a proper setup?

From what I can tell, if I don't have to output anything publicly, it shouldn't necessarily matter that the screen I use to learn isn't calibrated beyond using one of the provided apple colour profiles.

Thanks,
Ian

I think it's fine to work that way, since you're already aware that you can't rely on the viewer for anything but how it looks on the viewer.

It should be fine; I did the same thing for about seven months with an i5 Mac Mini, and I still use it for experimenting. The main thing to be aware of is that you may start to experience jerky playback with frame drops once you start adding nodes for secondary corrections, or if you experiment with Resolve's built-in "looks" (most of which have multiple nodes). Not an issue if you're just using your footage for learning, of course.

Excellent guys, thanks, feel more comfortable committing my time to it now.