I have loved the HDR contrast/pivot. It gives me great richness in my images without battling skin tones turning orange (like the contrast in primaries). Thank you Cullen!!!
I thought that the HDR tool being color space aware that the pivot would inherit the color space from the timeline setting and the pivot being set to 0 is preserving middle grey - and then as you did in this video increasing the pivot to .500 is raising the middle grey a half of a stop. I do like the contrast that Walter has shown where he shows it on a stepped greyscale and then puts the middle grey on a curve and counts 4 stops below and 3 stops above and places a foot and a knee that then rolls off the highlight and rolls in the shadows, using the contrast to preserve as many stops as possible in the dynamic range.
One tool I like is to use Gamma + Gain controls on a Linear image. With the combination of those two, you can preserve mid gray and make an adjustment where the same contrast adjustment is applied to every part of the tonal range. IE if two grey patches were one stop apart, you can make them 1.5 stops apart no matter how they were exposed (provided they're not in the noise floor). Downstream, it does require that you roll off your highlights via some kind of tone mapping curve though.
Great video, Cullen. Worth mentioning to other that if only a few select clips seem to be negatively affected (saturation wise) by the contrast controls then one can quicky switch the composite mode into luminosity for the node.
Am I right in saying that changing a node's composite mode is a Resolve 18.5 feature? What if you're still on 17? Is there a way to use curves to change the contrast without affecting the saturation?
@@RichB-78 layer mixer node set to luminosity would work the same way but that's just more steps than necessary when the HDR contrast works well, unless you're commited to the other contrast tools. And you're right, it's a new feature in 18.5
thanks a lot, great video as usual. quick question guys, what about the lift + gain contrast but using only the luma slider? not the overall one that moves together luma + red + green + blue, but only moving the white square under the name of lift and gain? usually ive been using it, I can understand that its like not effecting saturation, but does it effect something else in particular-? thanks!
I absolutly love your content. I startet watching your videos without any knowledge of color grading whatsoever just out of curiosity. Now i finaly want starting grading my self and because im a totaly beginner, i do like to ask wich content you would recommend to start into the whole thing. Beside watching your videos of course. Are there any good courses you could recommend? What could you recommend in general?
This might be off topic but would you happen to know why my video exposure lowers when I apply a title in Davinci resolve these days when I use your recommended color management workflow? Or is this an apple MacBook issue to lower video exposure every time I apply a title, motion fx, etc. on top of my videos?
Can anyone please explain how Cullen uses color space Lab to preserve the colors and only affect the contrast ratio in a node. I know that Cullen has brought it up in some videos but I cant find which ones. /Sebastian
Honestly, if you want lift/gain to behave as they do in directly grading rec709 footage, then that's not easily done in a color managed workflow where you're grading a log image. That being said, I think that while lift/gamma/gain in rec709 is probably more intuitive, the behavior of the tools in a color managed workflow will be different and make it easier to get better images. I don't think there are clear, good substitutions to recreate the behavior of tools in rec709, but working in the other paradigm is a large improvement that I'd recommend it instead. As a stop gap, in theory you can change the gamma of your node to Gamma 2.4 or rec709(scene) and apply lift/gain in that space, but that's kinda antithetical to color management.
I have loved the HDR contrast/pivot. It gives me great richness in my images without battling skin tones turning orange (like the contrast in primaries).
Thank you Cullen!!!
I thought that the HDR tool being color space aware that the pivot would inherit the color space from the timeline setting and the pivot being set to 0 is preserving middle grey - and then as you did in this video increasing the pivot to .500 is raising the middle grey a half of a stop.
I do like the contrast that Walter has shown where he shows it on a stepped greyscale and then puts the middle grey on a curve and counts 4 stops below and 3 stops above and places a foot and a knee that then rolls off the highlight and rolls in the shadows, using the contrast to preserve as many stops as possible in the dynamic range.
Interesting. Is this available on TH-cam?
@ryanpaulretouch I recall it being discussed in a video titled "Walter Volpattto Node Structure in DaVinci Resolve"
One tool I like is to use Gamma + Gain controls on a Linear image. With the combination of those two, you can preserve mid gray and make an adjustment where the same contrast adjustment is applied to every part of the tonal range. IE if two grey patches were one stop apart, you can make them 1.5 stops apart no matter how they were exposed (provided they're not in the noise floor).
Downstream, it does require that you roll off your highlights via some kind of tone mapping curve though.
As always we learned a bit more of this colorful world
Great video, Cullen. Worth mentioning to other that if only a few select clips seem to be negatively affected (saturation wise) by the contrast controls then one can quicky switch the composite mode into luminosity for the node.
Am I right in saying that changing a node's composite mode is a Resolve 18.5 feature? What if you're still on 17? Is there a way to use curves to change the contrast without affecting the saturation?
@@RichB-78 layer mixer node set to luminosity would work the same way but that's just more steps than necessary when the HDR contrast works well, unless you're commited to the other contrast tools.
And you're right, it's a new feature in 18.5
@@ryanpaulretouch Thanks, I'll give that a try.
Wow. I learn a lot. This is the first video I've watch in your channel. Thank you.
thanks a lot, great video as usual.
quick question guys, what about the lift + gain contrast but using only the luma slider? not the overall one that moves together luma + red + green + blue, but only moving the white square under the name of lift and gain?
usually ive been using it, I can understand that its like not effecting saturation, but does it effect something else in particular-?
thanks!
Perfect explanations Cullen. Thanks for sharing 🙏.
I absolutly love your content. I startet watching your videos without any knowledge of color grading whatsoever just out of curiosity. Now i finaly want starting grading my self and because im a totaly beginner, i do like to ask wich content you would recommend to start into the whole thing. Beside watching your videos of course. Are there any good courses you could recommend? What could you recommend in general?
This might be off topic but would you happen to know why my video exposure lowers when I apply a title in Davinci resolve these days when I use your recommended color management workflow? Or is this an apple MacBook issue to lower video exposure every time I apply a title, motion fx, etc. on top of my videos?
Can anyone please explain how Cullen uses color space Lab to preserve the colors and only affect the contrast ratio in a node. I know that Cullen has brought it up in some videos but I cant find which ones. /Sebastian
Is there anywhere I can download ARRI OR RED greyscale ramps
Lots to think about. Thank you.
I'm confused, when working in dwg how do you get the gain and lift to act linearly like in 709 grading?
@@robinwebster3690 No gain starts to act even more curvy and becomes the most close to an actual exposure slider.
Honestly, if you want lift/gain to behave as they do in directly grading rec709 footage, then that's not easily done in a color managed workflow where you're grading a log image. That being said, I think that while lift/gamma/gain in rec709 is probably more intuitive, the behavior of the tools in a color managed workflow will be different and make it easier to get better images. I don't think there are clear, good substitutions to recreate the behavior of tools in rec709, but working in the other paradigm is a large improvement that I'd recommend it instead.
As a stop gap, in theory you can change the gamma of your node to Gamma 2.4 or rec709(scene) and apply lift/gain in that space, but that's kinda antithetical to color management.
This is great! Thanks man.
Curves.
great
Legend