Control the dark parts

[Sascha Haber]

I found that too..
You either need to use old fashion lift, use a curve or other isolators.
The only thing I use on the Log tools is the Contrast slider 🙂
By the way, I wonder if those controls will make it in a mapping one day.

A slice of color…

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[Dmitry Kitsov]

Curves.
Side note: Stig, please do not take it personally, but I think you are in need of some fundamentals, may I suggest great book https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques/dp/0321713117/ref=la_B001IODHRA_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347124415&sr=1-1.
Between that book, owners manual and the warren eagles training series (some of wich are free) most of your questions that you have asked here (which are truly really basic) would be answered in a very systematic and logical manner. I have found above sources to be a great asset in my training.
Good luck.

[Stig Olsen]

Hi Dmitry,

Sorry if my questions are too basic.
I have seen the FXPHD series and the I have also read the latest book (2. edition).

I cant see that none of those resources cover the limited resolve log grading tool in a proper way – as they were done before the log tools was implemented in Resolve.

I know how to achieve this look the old fashioned way that Sascha is describing with curves or by isolation (although its harder).
My question was how to do this with the log tools.

Stig

[Chris Hall]

stig a small note on the teal/cyan shadows look. You are right on where they fall (not deep blacks but roughly 5-20 ire on the waveform, typically, not a hard/fast rule). I find that HSL qualifiers (using all values, hue, luminance, and sat) usually give me the most precise control of throwing shadow tints to specific areas. Using luma only is a bit broad sometimes. I’ll usually pick a tonal range (say green-blue) and throw my tints in there only in the shadows. Give it a try and you might get some more refined strokes in those “dark parts”.

As with anything, there’s a million ways to skin a cat, so there’s no right answer here.

Chris Hall
Colorist – Basher Films
Pasadena, CA

[Teo Rižnar]

Sometimes you can get nice results with doing a bit of over chrominance and than use next node to de-staturate only shadows (there is a preset “chroma dark” but it is too strong, just tweak the lum key and do not desat completely).

I think there is 100 ways of achieving similar looks, it is just a case of material and colorists habits. hope it helps.

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Cofounder of https://nuframe.si postproduction

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[Dmitry Kitsov]

“I have noticed that in a lot of movies, the colorists keep the darkest parts completely black while the area between shadows and gamma are colored. Like teal/cyan in the Transformers case.”

So, my point precisely. I do not understand why are you trying to use log controls for what, as Alexis described in his book, curves are pretty effective.

[Stig Olsen]

Thank you guys! I was hoping to find a way to block the darkest parts of the image without using qualifiers with the log controls. As it is possible to change the parameters for where the low/mid and mid/high meet I find it a bit strange that I cant set a limiter for the darkest part. But ok, then curves and/or isolation it is.

[Chris Hall]

well, remember, you can assign the “mids” wherever you want in log mode using the high/low settings, so if you want to make a swath from about 5ire-20ire using the mids you can (will keep your darkest blacks unaffected this way). If you use a grayscale ramp you can see the effect pretty clearly. But yes, curves does it well, and HSL does it to. So many ways.

Chris Hall
Colorist – Basher Films
Pasadena, CA