Many editors feel that Apple has downgraded the feature set of its Final Cut program in the newly released Final Cut X, and are seeking alternative solutions. One of the most promising seems to be Adobe Premiere Pro, however this is somewhat lacking in color grading ability. Black Magic Design produces DaVinci Resolve, a stand-alone pro quality color grading package which retails at about $1,000. They have also recently announced the release of Resolve Lite which is a free version of the full package.

DaVinci Resolve Lite is a free download for Mac OS. The Lite version has many of the same features as the full Resolve program:

The free DaVinci Resolve Lite includes the same high quality processing as the full DaVinci Resolve, however it limits projects to SD and HD resolutions, two color correction nodes, a single processing GPU and a single RED rocket card. Stereoscopic 3D features, 2K, noise reduction, power mastering, remote grading and sharing projects with an external database server are features only offered in the full DaVinci Resolve and are not included in this free DaVinci Resolve Lite edition.”