Colorboy: One More Node for Resolve?

For those who don’t know the tool: Precomp makes Colorboy, an OpenFX plug-in for the Color page of DaVinci Resolve. It groups camera conversion, grading, creative looks and texture in one node. Resolve supplies its own grading tools, while Resolve Studio’s Film Look Creator and plug-ins such as Dehancer Pro cover some of the same creative ground.

What goes into the node?

Colorboy receives the image at its position in Resolve’s node tree. Precomp says the user chooses a camera footage type, selects a look and adjusts it with sliders. Built-in camera-log conversions use the OpenColorIO SDK. The developer describes a shared ACES-based pipeline, naming ACEScct as its intermediate colour space and ACEScg for part of the processing. Its changelog says the linear-gamma balance controls were changed to operate in ACEScg before ACEScct.

Precomp says individual adjustments operate in colour spaces suited to their tasks before returning to the plug-in’s pipeline. It does not publish a complete processing-order diagram, transform list or specification for how Colorboy’s input and output interact with every Resolve colour-management configuration. A camera transform inside the OFX therefore deserves careful setup alongside any transforms already applied by the project or neighbouring nodes. Two conversions do not become more correct by meeting in the middle.

What can you adjust?

The Tunerboy section handles colour and tone shaping. Precomp also lists tone maps and Creative Prints, which it describes as responsive treatments inside the image pipeline rather than fixed LUTs. The practical difference claimed is that the user can select a look and keep adjusting its parameters instead of accepting a baked transformation. The published product material does not enumerate every control, define the underlying tone-mapping functions or provide measurements for the print treatments.

The texture section includes grain, halation and film softness. Precomp says grain controls cover texture, colour and its behaviour across the image; it also calls the grain light-responsive. The site describes the halation as a custom pipeline, but does not publish its mathematical model or validation for the claim of physical accuracy. These are developer descriptions, not results from a DP test.

Vintage lens simulation adds distortion and edge softness. The three built-in models are Brie, Cheddar and Gouda. They appeared in the developer’s earlier changelog as part of its FXdaddy effect. We can confirm the names and the stated effects; we cannot tell from the documentation which real lenses, if any, they model. The dairy counter is well stocked, but it is not a lens specification.

What does the hardware do?

Precomp says Colorboy uses Metal shaders for GPU processing and interactive playback on Apple Silicon. Its changelog claims a roughly 40 percent playback improvement after cache and shader optimisations with all effects enabled. It gives no hardware, resolution, frame-rate or comparison setup for that figure, so it cannot predict performance on your timeline. A later changelog entry records a fix for contrast-slider caching when switching clips.

The current build is listed for Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 12 or later and needs 300 MB of free storage. Precomp says the installer places the effect in Resolve’s Color page, where users can search for it. Both free Resolve and Resolve Studio are listed as supported hosts. The site does not provide a detailed matrix of tested Resolve versions. Intel Macs are excluded; Windows and CUDA support are development plans, not current features.

And why use it?

Resolve’s existing nodes can handle colour shaping and transforms, and Resolve Studio’s Film Look Creator combines film looks with grain, halation and other effects. Dehancer Pro offers a broader documented collection of film and camera profiles alongside grain, halation and print treatments. Colorboy’s specific proposition is to bring its chosen conversion, controls and effects together in one adjustable OFX, including for users of free Resolve. That is a workflow and look-design proposition, not evidence that its output is inherently better than either alternative.

Precomp lists a limited USD 99 launch price against a displayed USD 149 regular price, without an end date for the offer. It describes the purchase as a perpetual licence with updates included and simultaneous use on two devices. The unlimited trial includes the full feature set but permanently watermarks its output. Try that version on representative camera footage, highlight transitions, skin tones and your target Mac before deploying Colorboy in an active grade.

https://www.precomp.co/colorboy