CDL round-trip

A CDL round-trip is how color set at dailies comes home to the final grade. At dailies you export the CDL color metadata alongside the editorial proxies — an ALE (Avid Log Exchange) or EDL carrying the CDLs, plus a companion CSV of clip metadata. Editorial cuts; months later you conform and need those balances back on the right shots. You run ColorTrace from the CDL/EDL, and Resolve matches each timeline clip to its CDL by reel and timecode and re-applies it — clips go green when matched. The result: you start finishing from the DP’s on-set intent instead of a blank slate. It’s the same “color as portable data” principle that makes CDLs valuable in the first place, extended across the whole post timeline.

First used in: 3.9 · Dailies & VFX interchange