The "master painter" technique for better color grades

[@JimRobinson-colors]

I brought this up in one of your color grade school sessions, but couldn't explain it in the amount of characters given in the chat. I spent my teenage years selling oil paintings as an afternoon job while at school. So my life was all about color and painting back then. Master painters used the Purkinje effect to add realism to painting where in the daytime the rods and cones in your eyes pick up more on the reds and other warm coolers 
 As shadows have less light , this reverses - Greens and Blues become more dominant. Painters of course needed to add the pigment to the paint and mix in the warm and cool hues. The result being that we become nearly color blind under low levels of illumination. As the light dims, the rods take over from the cones, and before color disappears entirely, our color perception shifts toward the blue-green spectrum. With cameras we have an advantage over painters because they have to add the tones in to make the colors look natural. With skin there is also reflected sky that because the sky is so bright that it gets reflected into shadows and especially on the shadow side of skin. So direct light hits one side and the reflected light goes to the shadow side. That effect is sometimes graded out of the frame by keying the skin, and thinking there should be no blue in the skin that we see on the vectorscope so people push yellow into the face shadow, or use the color compressor to compress the different hues. In my opinion, it tends to make the people look phoney. Master oil painters that were looking for realism, would be adding blues into the shadows. Anyway great video topic Cullen. Split toning can make things look more natural and the Purkinje effect is a detailed explanation as to why we use it.

[@narrativasavulsas]

Very interesting and useful comentary, Jim. I was using the split toning technic using curves taught by Cullen in a scene inside a boat and got to realize this Purkinje Effect you are talking about. While I was grading, the effect of the blue/cyan on the fill side of the subjects face got pretty evident and the whole Gestalt felt really better and beautifuly organic.

[@cactsai]

Awesome video, Cullen. I have learned SO MUCH from your videos. I'm very much an amateur at all this. My wife has a YT channel that she films on her iPhone and I wanted to improve the look of her videos and found my way into Resolve. It has drastically improved the look and feel of her content. I've always been fascinated by film and how those films were colored, but never dove in headfirst to learn more. I got my start watching a bunch of Qazi's videos and while I learned a lot to get started with, it wasn't until I landed on your channel that I REALLY started understanding the concepts of all this fascinating stuff more than just the "do it this way" approach of other teachers on the platform. And just a side note, I genuinely appreciate that you don't hard-sell your Contour DCTL. You're clearly making a case for it in this video but it doesn't come off as "salesy". You're showing us alternatives to Contour but really making a good strong argument for purchasing the DCTL. That is the proper way to do a sales pitch. Watching Qazi do a sales pitch is brutal because his toolkit is apparently the "greatest thing ever", and while that could be true, the sales pitch is tough to watch because it is a HARD sales tactic that feels arrogant and definitely car salesman-like "salesy", and it makes me not want to purchase his toolkit. Other channels could learn a thing or two about your approach.

[@movie-trailer19]

An amazing explanation of the split toning, which is a realistic vision of the image with a subtle "aftertaste". It looks great

[@l6rich]

Easily the best video (or up there) on split toning on youtube thus far 🔥

[@joshpickup2581]

I don't know whats wrong with me but in almost every example you give at the beginning - the non split tone image looks so much nicer. For example the image of the woman reading - the before shot has so much lovely colour variation in the background,- then you add the split tone and all of a sudden the entire background goes green and the neutrals have lost all their punchiness. look at how rich the table and carpet are before you add the split tone - then it just turns muddy green. I feel like sometimes we are conditioned to split tone because of the principle of colour separation rather than trusting what our eyes are actually seeing.

[@MasamitsuKai]

I completely agree! Though I think it's important to note that Cullen has made this split tone especially aggressive for demonstration purposes, and if you were using split toning in a real life situation you would finess not only the strength but the neutrals around middle grey and the purity of black levels.

[@maxinfilms8893]

He states that its an aggressive lut for us to see the what's happening in the image.

[@joraphpictures]

For the fact it does support the story, they are cool with it.

[@joshpickup2581]

@@maxinfilms8893 I get all that completely - but its the confidence with which he assures the split tone as 'appealing to the eye' - where I genuinely believe if you show the before and after of all these images to 100 people and ask which is more visually appealing you would get a different answer. Now whether you care what people think is a different topic - but I genuinely believe split toning is applied poorly in most instances because we just assume it will enhance the image

[@joshpickup2581]

@@MasamitsuKai also Cullen has always been very adamant that he doesn't agree with neutral blacks so whilst I agree with you im not sure he would adjust those!

[@graemetowner7257]

fantastic explanation, thanks for sharing

[@tomasz9806]

I have had this exact problem many times over. I ended up finessing split tone point for all clips that I thought look wrong. It's a lot of work but I think it's worth it.

[@outdoorsinontario3037]

Right on Cullen! Awesome stuff, as per usual!

[@contentbytrent]

Thanks Cullen for explaining this.

[@mrpeff1364]

Great tutorial as always, didn't see the link do the Middle Grey LUT

[@timmylima]

Crazy good

[@Axxonal]

At last , a real and depth explanation about Split Toning....I believe it was only for the post photo with Lightroom..

[@RandomBrendon]

Great video as always, is fun how you say something on your channel and then suddenly every other youtube channel is using the same techniques, Linear gain for balance for example we all appreciate the knowledge you pass. PS: could not find the Grayscale ramp link 😕

[@tyler_cine]

I was actually a little surprised to see Cullen taking on linear gain when he did. The technique was making the rounds back in 2016/2017, I've personally been using it ever since. It might have its roots even before that time but has certainly propagated since!

[@memcrew1]

Excellent video on split toning.

[@samagyepong8209]

Thanks Cullen for great tutorial on split toning. I don't see the link to exposure chart dctl please.

[@CullenKelly]

check the description now, should be there

[@RallyAddict]

And what do you think about mixing the custom curves method with a simple luminance qualifier for some fine tuning of where exactly the color starts/ends instead of making so many little points on the curve? Thanks a lot for showing the difference when using primaries and curves. No I know why it looks so different. My first subjective choice without that knowledge was to create two separate nodes - one for highlights and one for shadows. In the shadows I pushed the color with lift + luma qualifier for shutting it down where I want and the same with gain for the highlights node. That gave me the best ease of use and control because it was easier for me to push a direction on the color wheel than "calculating" the curve. The qualifier was also handy because you can exactly see where the color lives on the image with the mask on. Now I think of using the same method but with two curves :). Some might say it requires two nodes instead of "one to rule them all" but that really doesn't bother me much. This way you can also easily use the mask gain to fine tune the strength of the push not touching the RGB sliders on the curves.

[@YogeshRajKumar]

you rock!

[@NotMisterX]

thanks for the awesome content but the link you provided for download is actually the grayscale chart not the exposure chart

[@jonas_-1682]

great video cullen! (as usual) ...BUT WHERE IS THE PROMISED GREY SCALE RAMP DCTL :(

[@CullenKelly]

hey Jonas, my apologies, check the description now

[@manisphotography6775]

Thanks a lot sir

[@haroldmorganTulsa]

How did you get that curve to show on the waveform at 13:26? I've never seen that & cannot reproduce.

[@shinzychan5117]

thanks very informative but u didn't put free dctl download link below as you promised in the video

[@CullenKelly]

Apologies, should be there now

[@memcrew1]

Hello Cullen, how is the 2 day course administered(live in class, zoom or pre recorded videos)

[@beargeistdesign5174]

I don't think it hurts the value of anyone's work to demo the use of two custom curve nodes, fed into preservation stacks (an opacity slider control for achieving what your talking about). If anything it provides an introduction to valuing these details. Concepts and techniques I've learned from this channel never seem to make it back into the conversation when discussing Resolve vs "Film system" videos.

[@josuecovenas1164]

its the power grade middle gary available?

[@memcrew1]

Whats middle GARY?

[@CullenKelly]

the gray scale ramp DCTL has a download link in the description

[@paintedbylights]

could you send me the link for your free ramp dctl? would love to try that out sometimes :)

[@CullenKelly]

check the video description for a link

[@MuhammadAli-ny6ni]

Where is the link to free dtcl?

[@CullenKelly]

Hey Muhammad, check the description for the link

[@IlyaPodnebesmiy]

Thank you. This is a very important topic. I see that colorists have been using this technique more and more recently, but sometimes the image turns out to be strange. Instead of depth, they just add a cool color and even in contrast with a warm color, it just looks like a green or blue space.

[@joshpickup2581]

completely agree

[@JimRobinson-colors]

It works better and looks natural if it is used subtly. It is an exaggeration of actual natural hues in shadows and light.

[@leeevans1874]

Who are your favorite painters ?

[@sandrotsomaia7332]

how can i make that curve appear on my waveform?

[@luciadcolor]

you need the greyramp dctl