Get Beautiful Highlights in DaVinci Resolve

[@John1960Video]

Just sooo helpful. I wish I had known half of the elegant methods you present so clearly. Every time I absorb your stuff, it seems like I eliminate another secondary node!

[@RDRvideoprod]

Thank you for sharing this! I didn't know about the "pressing the Alt" so the spline sticks to the unity line. such a big help!

[@joenicklo]

Game changer for me. I already use curves but still get frustrated often. This is gonna help.

[@AhesTheDre]

Each of your courses are straight fundamentals, explained as principles. Its then so easy to retain and apply. Thank you.

[@grahamf695]

Really interesting tutorial, thanks. I love the use of curves to reduce the highlights. I wonder whether it would also be possible to achieve the same effects using the HDR wheels?

[@The_Idea_of_Dream_Vision]

Isn't it a good to make your video smaller and let your students see the scopes as you do adjustments?

[@antelopesurf]

@Cullen 8:20...wooh!! Love it. Subtle... great insight into your methods, thankyou for sharing this.

[@hunter8980]

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Lot of new things to learn in this 10-minute video. You are the best!

[@joenicklo]

Great video as always. One question. At what point, if at all...would you use the Highlights slider/knob?

[@motopixelz]

Great teaching as usual!! This one really needed the scopes though. Would have greatly benefited the explanation.

[@hactrain]

Hey Cullen, I'd love if you talked about any common ranges for exposure specifically (if any) for things like skin tones, shadows, hihglights, etc.. when it comes to objective measures such as waveform/vectorscope. This being before any creative adjustments are done. Just curious on how you feel about that!

[@antelopesurf]

Only reached 1:10 and already love your ethos. So exciting after just 2 or 3 videos, to know I've found a good teacher. Grateful! and will check out your book. A colorist who talks in terms of 'nuance' and 'sculpting our tonality'? Yes, I'm in!

[@jonathanmacc281]

Hi Cullen This seems to work with CST workflow only. When I tried to do it in Davinci WideGamut and select input color space accordingly, it functioned and went like adding CST node in the very beginning, I was not able to pull the highlight back even there are few more stops to work with the media shot on FX3. It's like baked-in and locked expourse. Relatively, it works totally fine with CST being the last node but it look less contrasted comparing to input color space workflow.

[@frankinblackpool]

The more I watch your stuff on repeat, the more I like your KISS Principle. (Keep it simple, stupid) I'm just a happy hobbyist who has fallen down the rabbit hole of colour correction and grading of my little KZbin projects, for personal amusement and pleasure. Its Darren Mostyn's fault that I found you 🤣 Not too sure if I like your Rembrandt style of lighting in the studio, however I really do appreciate your depth of knowledge and teaching style.

[@william_chidube]

Cullen is just a great, great teacher

[@Ureta93]

Greetings Cullen! i have a question, what difference makes working with the shadows and highlights sliders (under the color wheels) or working with the HDR wheels instead of this method? i can appreciate visual differences of course, but i don't know what should be best or at least, know what to choose to fit better one particular clip. It's curious how i've never seen a pro colorist use the sliders before, are they not recomended? Thanks you very much for sharing your phenomenal knowledge!

[@memcrew1]

@Pourang Kay “unadjusted midtones” means the mid tones are left alone.

[@zrgardne]

@Pourang Kay you can always test for yourself what a dial does by using the gradient generator and then playing around and seeing what it does to the scopes

[@otaythen]

the alt click for the unity line is such a good trick!

[@odtrace369]

Thank you sir

[@NativeEarthlingAI]

Solid video Cullen 🤙

[@joyoffilming9500]

Awesome! Didn't know much of it before.

[@PhillipRPeck]

Wondering if you could clarify the node order of the CST. If CST is like Color Management, why does it go at the end? Whereas, if you did Resolve Color Management, that goes at the beginning. Just curious. Great video. Super helpful as always!

[@PhillipRPeck]

@@CullenKelly I'm not sure I understand, but I'll rewatch the video and see if I can figure it out. Thanks for responding, though. I've always wondered about the placement of the CST. I see Waqas Qazi putting it at the end of his tree but I didn't understand why it should be opposite a Color Management workflow

[@PhillipRPeck]

@@CullenKelly OK, thanks. I really appreciate the info. Super helpful

[@torreymerritt]

You're an excellent instructor, to say the least. Thanks for the awesome video.

[@natepotter6911]

This is awesome! So much to learn. Thanks, brother!

[@dex7378]

as always, perfect timing - thanks cullen

[@SereneBobcat]

Always beautifully explained. Thanks!

[@eddyjuillerat835]

Great way of viewing the job. thank you.

[@davethedaygames2899]

This man is a wizard

[@rodrigo8269]

great tip!

[@paul-travels]

Hello - Two questions regarding White Balance correction: 1) Is White Balance correction (the camera incorrectly set up) what you refer to as Color Balance (as in Exposure, Ratio, and Color Balance nodes)? 2) Given that the CST is at the end of the node graph as in this video, assume that I need to fix the White Balance, would I do it as the first node in the node graph or place it just before the CST then do all the Exposure, Ratio, and Balance corrections before it? Similarly, if I'm working in a Color Managed environment, where should I fix the WB, as the first node or the last node in the clip node graph? TIA

[@saikatchattopadhyay8263]

Great video as always,I have one question related to CST.There is an option called apply “forward/reverse OOTF “. Now with the limited info I got from forums I realized that option is enabled automatically when you go from scene referred to display referred or vice versa. Is that the only thing that option do?

[@he.smile_]

Great and simple technique to shape the highlights, thank you!

[@TheEli008]

Another great video. I also have a question for you. I shoot and edit a number of real estate videos mainly shot on the BMPCC 4k. I feel like I have to go through some really heavy handed grading technique to retain highlight detail in windows while keeping a bright interior. Often times the result of keeping window views as well as bright interiors looks muddy and unusual. I end up just letting some highlight details blow out in preference of the brighter interior views. I can see in my scopes though, that the original raw footage hasn't blown out any highlights nor shadows. I'm also getting a lot of noise by lifting the interior luminosity if the footage was shot underexposed in order to keep highlight detail. Is there a better way for me to grade these high contrast scenes while preserving as much detail as possible and not creating a muddy, noisy or unusual looking image?

[@TheEli008]

@@CullenKelly Thanks again for the great info! I'll try to use the god as my gaffer technique in the future or see if there's a possibility of using some diffused lighting to bring the interior ratio closer to the window views.

[@Resolve_This]

Great tips. Alt sticks the points to the spline, but I can’t the qualifier to show the points on the curve (works in scopes). Could that be a Beta 18, ver. 5 bug or do I need to do anything else?

[@Resolve_This]

@@CullenKelly My bad. You used the qualifier on the highlights on the door to find the corresponding point in the Curves tool. I can’t get the qualifier to show anything on the Curves tool. It works on the scopes. Do I need to do anything else for the qualifier to show on the Curves tool?

[@Resolve_This]

Tried on a different clip and it worked. Must have been a bug. But thanks for doing these shorter videos with tips. They are very helpful and I’m always amazed of how many ways you can do the same things in DV, so seeing how other colorist does things is great, and either way I always learn something new.

[@truemoments427]

So much simpler nodes that I'm used to see on KZbin, which is great. I got a question: I work with HLG , should I go for : tweaking primaries and then use a lut în small gain percentage, just like you do with the color space transform? Also what do you prefer, HLG or S log 2 ? Thanks a ton!😊

[@andrewmason8691]

Thanks for another great video. I would like to clarify something with you, if I may. It looks like what you are doing with the curves is similar to what you would achieve in the HDR section, but with a little more control with the curves. And if people struggle with curves, HDR is another option to achieve a similar result. Is my understanding correct? Thanks

[@ErikOlsen]

Love your videos, I learn so much, thank you!! Unrelated question, when I output to a second monitor with video cleanfeed, the image has lots of banding, what must I do to get rid of it?

[@ErikOlsen]

Excellent. If you have any suggestions, I wd be so grateful... but keep it below $500.. :)

[@guifuchsss]

Hi Cullen! One question, why you use this third node after contrast and exposure nodes? im using before this nodes, have some difference?

[@crazymook591]

Thank you kind sir. Happy 4th.

[@brown2840]

I have had great results many times just simply adjusting the highlights dial. I am very surprised it gets overlooked so often.

[@brown2840]

@@CullenKelly I’ve wondered myself what’s happening under the hood also, but at the same time I have been extremely impressed with the results! Love your channel my friend. Keep up the great work! :)

[@classiqxiv_reactions]

Don’t you have a full course in color grading ?

[@flochfitness]

Awesome work as always Cullen! Question: As you worked through clip 3, I see you are adjusting the upper most signal in the curves to smooth out the highlights. Would this be consider the roll-off that makes it feel more cinematic/filmic? Would this be the same for shadows? Thanks!

[@flochfitness]

@@CullenKelly thank you!

[@mazefaer]

Is this high requirements for the material?

[@mazefaer]

@@CullenKelly Sorry,my english is bad.... I mean is this method applicable to 8bit videos?

[@danibutini]

Hi Cullen, thank you for all the useful tips, I'm learning a lot with you!! As a quick question: how would you deal with shots done with Sony A7R2 in Cine 4? I can't find an option for color management, I guess those clips should be treated directly as 709??

[@leebrandt8597]

I prefer to grade with HDR wheels under wide gamut + highlight recovery, so this method doesn't really work for me

[@zrgardne]

I am interested to hear why the method shown in the video will not work for you

[@leebrandt8597]

@@zrgardne Because the highlight recovery tab is a huge advantage, and when used with wide gamut + HDR wheels it gives me the most dynamic range available

[@zrgardne]

@@leebrandt8597 What is the 'highlight recovery tab'? The only reference I find to 'Recovery' in the manual is the highlight recovery checkbox on the raw tab. "A checkbox that lets you include additional highlight sensor data that’s usually clipped by the standard decoding matrix. In cases where you have extremely clipped highlights, you may obtain additional image detail this way, although it may contain unusual color artifacts." There is of course a highlights wheel on the HDR tab. You will see this has essentially the same impact as the curves adjustment Cullen made if you are in a 709 space. if you are in DWG you will see it does kind of strange things of bringing down the 70-95% range, but leaves the 95-100% where it is at, unlikely the behavior you want.

[@leebrandt8597]

@@zrgardne I meant highlight recovery check box. Ok, so when I'm in wide gamut, I'm not in rec709 space. Very different. Wide gamut gives me a lot more room to play with than rec709, both on the high and low ends. I don't have issues playing with highlights and specular, I just usually push and pull until I get the desired look. Going back to standard wheels just doesn't give me all the benefits of wide gamut

[@leebrandt8597]

@@CullenKelly No worries man. I should have phrased it a little different. I would love to see if there's any grading you ever do with the wide gamut color space and highlight recovery check box, or is that something you just never mess with? Cheers

[@nathancasey7712]

Sometimes color managed timeline looks horrible on my 6k pro though. It's unfortunate.

[@kirankiranmishra]

no more windows from todays 😍and no more masking 🔥

[@MRTM-kl5dd]

Ppl grade on Mac monitors often too dark..

[@classiqxiv_reactions]

I understand you are taking an in-depth goose on everything pretty awesome, but I mean a course to know how to be a pro from beginner

[@davescorneroftheworld1147]

Well, this video would make since IF I knew where you got this "saved still" at 2:36 into the video. If I knew that this video is worthless to me.

[@zrgardne]

It is a color space transform. He purposefully didn't go into the weeds on it, as he said 'a magic box' Color Management is a critical topic and really 30 minutes on its own. Cullen has a few videos on the topic. My favorite is the one he did for Black Magic and is on their YT channel.

[@StandOnAMountain]

I highly suggest you watch Cullen’s videos on Color Management but if you really want to follow along… let’s say you’re working with Log footage (Sony Slog or Panasonic Vlog or Arri Log C etc.) and your Davinci project settings are set to be ‘Not’ color managed (please look this up) then you would drag in a ResolveFx Color Space Transform node instead of the still image that Cullen uses in this video. This will give you the option to convert from Log to rec709 for example. Once that’s done you should be able to follow along with the rest of the video, assuming any of that makes sense 👍

[@benjaminmagambo3849]

Not as efficient as power windows in my opinion

[@travelwithroland2]

It is not about efficiency of speed but getting highlights really nice. If you do powerwindow stuff before this you are only fixing problems already created. I use the same node tree, and power windows come after this part so that I am only tweaking the better image. I find that when I start with powerwindow stuff if introduces artefacts into my colours that I am continually fighting to get rid of. The workflow matters. I found that the levels part … especially sliding down using the Alt and slide technique was new to me… and it is that creamy contrast difference that I really need for the highest quality results… I plan on using that tomorrow… I spend a lot of time trying to get the result he just got in seconds.

[@DeadReckoner]

Your content is great, but more light on your face, please!

[@DeadReckoner]

@@CullenKelly haha touché

[@theblacktruth]

First I'd like to say I enjoy and value your channel and I feel I have improved in my art as a result of my subscription. Thank you! However, what had been really bugging me, is why your videos are so obviously poorly exposed??? Your talking head shots look awful but it seems the fix is easily within reach. At first, I literally thought it was a joke or to be used as an interactive example of how to fix exposure the first time I saw you. I fight off the feeling, but this feels kind of like the obese doctor lecturing the patient on diet and exercise - he's not wrong, but it's just "cringey". I'm not throwing shade. I plan to remain subscribed and share your work, but perhaps you are missing out on subscriptions because others clicked away after seeing what I saw....just a thought.