Davinci Resolve: Ditch The "Video" Look

In this video, we're exploring some of the characteristics and concepts that often accompany the "video" look, and what we can do to improve them.
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[@kevin8360]

As a novice, I was overwhelmed when I first started watching your videos. Actually scared that your methods were way too advanced for me to learn! But with applying each lesson one by one, I must say that you videos are way better tutorials than those other videos that try to give you a quick, simple, one size fits all grade. Thank you, from a family video editing hobbyists.

[@AbcAbc-br5uz]

I agree with you, as a beginner you are way to overwhelmed with all the aspects of color grading. I‘ve been able to learn some basics over the past few years but really want to advance my knowledge to some extent so I can build some looks I am happy with. Can you recommend any topics which make the biggest difference / are the best way to start out? Thank you!

[@kevin8360]

@@AbcAbc-br5uz The more I edit, the more I realize that simple is better... Especially for amateurs like us. If you want to go pro, that's a different story. What I do now... I color correct all of my shots and match the clips that need to be matched. That's the basics: Exposure, contrast, white balance, skin tone, etc... Then I switch to the timeline tab of the color page. That's where the magic happens. I find the scene in the timeline that I want to work with and play with colors. Push teal into the shadows, orange into the highlights... or green/yellow... or extreme contrast... you get the point. That way I can see what those changes do to multiple clips (or all of them) without touching my basic color correction nodes. When I get it looking like I want... You can copy/paste those nodes to your regular node graph. Or if you want it to apply to the whole movie... just leave it in the timeline.

[@JimRobinson-colors]

Thanks for that Cullen. I really enjoy these videos as they open up my thought processes. I have in the past, taken the concept of contrast and thought about mixed contrasts in footage - it seems that most people go for the overall S- curve and add all that rich contrast into the footage but the eye trace then in my opinion is a little harder to guide the viewer's eyes and we tend to then add that vignette to help with that purpose. I did some testing with actually using a power window on the outside of a subject and going the opposite way with the contrast on the background. It of course makes the exposure rise, so then compensating with the offset, and massaging the background back to a reasonable exposure, I was able to get characters to pop pretty well without bumping the saturation or raising the lighting on them. Like most things, it doesn't always work, but it is an interesting concept and is outside of the box approach. Looking forward the June 26th, you are in some serious company there. Congrats.

[@mpell66]

I found this really useful. I already use two of the approaches mentioned, often in an ad-hock manner. Going through a video like this helps me increase my understanding about the broader context to the processes and techniques being used, which I can see helping to develop a more informed approach to the grading I do. Many thanks!

[@marcwielage4678]

Yeah, I had that on a project from about 6 weeks ago, and suggested to the client that we introduce a lot of diffusion filters to cut back on the heavy "video" look they were stuck with from an older Canon C100. Scatter helped us immeasurably -- that plus about 50 hours of relighting did wonders. Bucketloads of work. We didn't do film emulation per se, but we got as far away from a video look as I could push it. It was enough to take the curse off ithe look, and the client was thrilled.

[@joyoffilming9500]

Again - just awesome because of its simplicity and easy-to-get explanation!

[@adsmithtx]

I am so glad I started watching your Videos , each seems to answer a number of questions I have had

[@gueroloco8687]

I didn’t even know Davinci could do this. What an awesome program I am glad I bought it!! Great video by the way and I subscribed

[@alexandersakharov4446]

Very useful as usual. Thanks a lot!

[@sega2511]

Your topics are wonderful ... Can you give us a series on lighting and how its importance for filmmakers and hiw to use it? Thanks

[@davidevalentiofficial]

Thank you for sharing this gem!

[@photobritain]

So glad I found this channel. Thanks a million.

[@LateGreatHenry]

I'd not seen someone handle saturation via curves before, as adjusting with HSV sat nodes seem to be in vogue right now. Would love to hear more about this method and how you arrived at the adjustments you made in this video.

[@johnnystanley2264]

I think this is just an out of date video, more recently his go to is HSV saturation with gamma adjust

[@brendanclark.8059]

Excellent video! Thank you! BTW - "Masters of Light" is an excellent read!

[@RichsBrainless]

Didn't get that split toning gotta check out your videos on that :p Very inspiring as always!

[@CmpcuracaoDotCom]

Dear Cullen, great videos, Would you consider (depending on the footage) to use the curves tool instead of the primaries (or as addition to)

[@ianharper6015]

Really helpful. Thank you.

[@smatos69]

Hi, Nice video, good and clear explanation. The first clip you work on is clearly 'green-ish'. How would you think the best way to get rid of the greenish tone, but without loosing the overall colour balance? Thank you.

[@BelinskiyDesign]

As always in the best manner. I really like your presentation! I look forward to hearing you on TAC on June 26

[@inderjithk4796]

@@CullenKelly what would be the concepts you're covering sir?

[@inderjithk4796]

@@CullenKelly damn❤️, but I'll be missing it😭

[@inderjithk4796]

@@CullenKelly that's so good to hear, thank you ❤️

[@johnlipscomb7381]

Hi, Cullen just subscribed to your channel looking forward to learning new skills. I have a question what if any hardware controller do you use for grading

[@ErrickJackson]

Am I correct in thinking your curves maneuver in the last example can similarly be done in LGG? I’ve been doing something lately where I shift a channel on Lift or Gain and compensate after in the opposite direction with Gamma. (ie. Push Green in Gain, pull it in Gamma to a balance; then pull green in Lift, push it back up in Gamma). I’m essentially establishing low and high end color biases for separation and using Gamma to provide a balance, almost like how you’d use Pivot for Contrast. It kinda seems like what you were doing with curves.

[@glen-draketoolworks7186]

Pure joy.

[@jonathanlennard2472]

It’s such a subtle difference in the end result, but I think your subconscious picks up on something being off with the video look

[@DodaGarcia]

This is amazing

[@rafabernabeu4611]

Great video as always. Didn't thought about the compressed curve for lower contrast looks, gonna steal that technique. Also, I missed the spacecraft music on the background!

[@rafabernabeu4611]

@@CullenKelly Is there a link to it? Now I can't keep it out of my head lol

[@georgenada6413]

I miss the spacecraft music too, made me feel like we were "on a journey". I was surprised to read many people couldn't concentrate with it in the comments. Shows how different we all are!

[@rafabernabeu4611]

@@georgenada6413 yeah! Gave me the same feeling! Is there any link to the song out there?

[@brycekhilton]

Another vote for spacecraft music

[@ChadtheFilipino]

Great explanation Cullen. I often find myself adding contrast in the first way you mentioned, or by using the contrast slider. But whenever I do that I find myself missing out on the mid tonal detail so I compensate by increasing the shadows/gamma. I need to find your split toning video, but I'm curious if you always or have projects wherein your floor color signal is not at 0 for true blacks? Like is it possible that some looks have their floor color at 128? I'm just trying to understand if some looks utilize some ranges of histogram data and how to affect the Blues and put them in a certain data range, while maintaining red and green at the floor if that makes sense. Thanks for the video!

[@ChadtheFilipino]

@@CullenKelly Hey! Thanks so much for replying. That definitely makes sense. I used to/am dogmatic about having my waveform touch 0 for true black, but I was watching a video recently that said "look at your image. If it doesn't need to be true black and makes the image 'unnatural' why do it?" So that is affirming to hear from you too, if I'm understanding that you also don't mind letting it sit ~128. Anywho, thanks for the awesome content. I'm not going to miss out on your course in the spring.

[@Lexington101]

I just discovered this channel and all I have to say is, FUCK YEAH!

[@thepropolys]

Hi Cullen, thank you so much for these videos! I’ve learned so much from them. I was going to buy your colorist book, but I was very turned off by the cover design combined with the “biblical” narrative. I don’t mind a biblical narrative, but the cover looked like I was buying a new age book. Anyway, just my opinion. Thanks again for the videos.

[@renatozanardo9648]

Hey Cullen, using aces IN and OUT nodes, if I were to insert a washing node, were and when is better to insert it?

[@ghanashyamkalita4249]

Thanks a lot for your great videos. I become interested in ACES. But there is some confusion, when I am going to set IDT or ODT, I get three types of ACES version 1.2, 1.1 & 1.0.3., Which one will be preferable.. and when I use to set output transform instead of ACEScct or ACEScc I get CSC-ACEScct and CSC-ACEScc. Is ACEScct and CSC-ACEScct same. I am using DVR studio 17(27.2).

[@ghanashyamkalita4249]

@@CullenKelly thank you for your response. You've been very helpful :)

[@chiscoarce]

Is better used another way to add saturation, the rec 709 Sat always have some videoish effects (luma), other ways is to change the node color model (color space in resolve) put luma mix 0, and channel 1 off, works fine with the gain gamma wheels.

[@chiscoarce]

I forgot completely, the node color model (color space) is Y’UV

[@TonysTravel]

Thank you Cullen - I am trying to shot in HLG with a Panasonic GH5 but I am still confused of what color management use in Davinci 18 can you help me please?

[@TonysTravel]

@@CullenKelly Thank you Cullen I will do some experiment today and yes happy to bring the question to the grade school

[@TonysTravel]

@@CullenKelly As promised I did my experiments, following your advice and I think the result is acceptable considering also the fact that the compression of the decoder on KZbin does not help the quality much. If it doesn't bother you I would ask you for an opinion on the result. You can see it in my latest video on my channel. Of course, if it doesn't bother you. Thank you

[@laurentiudll]

so by what logic im doing the split toning ? i dont just want to copy your curves if you know what i mean

[@figedx3338]

Hello Cullen, not totally related but, I grade on my MacBook and no matter what I do, the stills I grab never look the same after I’ve grabbed them. They tend to look desaturated and low on contrast. I tried screenshots and that looks just like what I see. Is there a way you can help me identify the problem here. It actually affects my exports and doesn’t look like what I graded.

[@figedx3338]

@@CullenKelly and is there a sort of fix to this? Cos it’s really daunting

[@ST7GOLDTRIDENT]

👍

[@GuanRytheFantastic]

Wow Cullen...you are one badass mofo. Man these tutorials are CRAZY GOOD!!!

[@evgeniyyavtushenko7653]

Maybe it's my screen but the final example looks cleaner before the correction.

[@m1nt9reen]

it's not your screen

[@m1nt9reen]

re: 3rd example, I'm really not a fan of adding blue to shadows in images that have no business having blue in them. Thankfully high end film and TV shows have gone beyond the 'just add blue to the shadows' approach and can get great looking colourful images while retaining realistic lighting. Also why are the intro and outro so dark?

[@WideEyedPictures]

Why can’t you use your lift and gain wheels but just not turn them as far? Just watch your histogram as you turn the wheels to avoid going outside 0-100.

[@WideEyedPictures]

@@CullenKelly Gotcha, thank you! Re-reading my comment, it's worded like I'm challenging you - lol, I am not! - was just confused as to the differences but the linear issue makes sense. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, and great work!

[@waynosfotos]

Some very good points, contrast i see soooo over used, especially in photography. They call it a look, with the blacks void of detail and the highlights completely lost. Especially if shot like this SOOC. People should focus more on exposure, lighting and editing rather than gear.

[@william_chidube]

I respect his techniques but I’m not sure I like his finished work. I prefer qazi’s style