Pro Colorist explains HDR tools in DaVinci Resolve

At a glance the HDR Zones and Primaries tabs in the Resolve Color Page can look pretty similar, but even if you know the differences, what are the keys to knowing how to use each and when to use them?
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[@JeiShian]

Playing the highlights vs gamma is such a great idea! Thanks a lot . You're really so far ahead of everyone else who teaches this on KZbin.

[@TroySmith25]

One trick I like to use with the HDR tools is to turn on the “Highlight” button and it will show you the matte of what is being adjusted. Ot helps me fine tune to select what I want to adjust.

[@he.smile_]

We need a Cullen’s analogies book

[@stosto3]

The true gems of the hdr pallet are not the zone controls which indeed are very limited. It's the photometrically correct exposure, tempt, tint, sat that you get with the global and white balance controls.

[@MaximoJoshua]

I was just saying the same thing!

[@VictorRiley]

Would love another entry in this series about the highlight, shadow and log tools and how to best utilize them in a photographic-oriented workflow!

[@Kenflyer]

Would really like to see your color space/gamut transformation from the brand new GoPro Wide Gamut (GWG) to DWD with a raised log base like 200.

[@chrismierzwinski1398]

Would you ever want to do an episode or Q&A episode about which tools that don't exactly exist in resolve or are underneath many hoops for look designing. It would be great if not only resolve had some amazing tools specifically for that on top of it's existing tools but to have them be fairly easy to use.

[@UriShavitFineArt]

Great job Cullen ! Love your videos. Explanations are always so clear. Love your workflow. Learning alot, keep it up.

[@grahamf695]

Cullen, than for this interesting explanation. There are several points it would be interesting to explore further. The Resolve manual says that the HDR wheels are colour space aware and operate in a way to maintain a constant level of saturation regardless of contrast. That sounds really important, so it would be helpful if you could explain the implications of this please. I have found that saturation adjustments using the HDR Wheels and Saturation control are much more natural than in the Primary palette.

[@ODHunte]

I don’t think I’ve never learned one thing from watching a tutorial on this channel… Nice one Cullen

[@johnbeck2020]

Very well explained, thank you very much!

[@abagatelle]

Thanks Cullen, very useful tutorial.

[@hamark_videography]

Hi Cullen! Thanks again for a great video! Could you make a video explaining the difference between the Color wheels and the Log wheels?

[@flochfitness]

I HATE using curves. I just can’t get an image to do what I want when i use them. so I actually exclusively use the zones for working exposure and contrast of the image and I really like the results. That being said the contrast/pivot dial is zones DOES NOT give me great results so I use the primaries contrast/pivot instead. Great video Cullen!

[@movietrailer4113]

The HDR palette is great to use on the example of a disassembled shot. He's doing a great job. The main difference from Primaries is a clear impact on a certain area of the image without affecting neighboring ones. This is their peculiarity

[@A5ids]

One thing I personally like using on the HDR panel is the Global saturation, which seems way more subtle and less negative impact across the spectrum. Is this just me? haha

[@MaximoJoshua]

I totally agree about simpler vs complex, but I tend to like doing exposure adjustments in the hdr zones because global lets me say “minus 1 stop”. I don’t really know what “25” means in the primaries. I’m sure this might just be preference, but in my use case, does that make sense? So first pass, exposure, I just use the one knob, global, instead of offset.

[@WillStreets]

This is very insightful! Thank you. What would happen if you further finessed the HDR Zones by bringing down the Specular? Would that recover a little more of the brightest part of the image?

[@bustedbehera]

I have gone through a lot of color grading and balancing videos but I learned the most beautiful concepts from Cullen. The one I religiously follow is to use the global offset to get as close to what you want and then move on the fine tune other things with shadows/mids/highs if needed.

[@brown2840]

I wonder what would happen back in HDR zones if you took the specular marker and moved it way to the right giving you more of a gentle curve transition essentially expanding the highlight zone even further and then do that on the opposite side with the light? I personally have never been pleased with the HDR as it always seems to introduce that crushed washed out plastic feel especially on skin tones. The highlights dial as you showed earlier has almost always helped me to tame the "blown" highlights best, but I'm so surprised at just how little it's referred to. So thanks for pointing that out. I will say I shoot mostly braw and so that def helps a bit when having highlight recovery on in combination. If it's too extreme, power windows might come into play.

[@JimRobinson-colors]

Sorry, Cullen but totally and respectively disagree with this one. You are looking at the tool with a comparison to using the Primaries or LOG - just because they resemble each other. And then the tendency to most to associate "zones" with Ansel Adams type zones is the next expectation. But the actual use of this tool is different. You will notice that the Shadow and the Light fall off overlaps and are different than the rest of the zones. Using an audio analogy - it is the difference between a graphic EQ and a parametric EQ - The HDR tool is the same way. Using Shadow and light we set it then using the other zones ( one or many ) you can find the actual level ( audio would be a frequency ) and dial in on it - then make the edit and with the falloff blend the edit back into the curve. On a parametric EQ you would pick a band and then using the gain raise it and sweep the frequency by raising the Q factor which narrow the band and then find the offensive frequency- then pull the gain down below the curve and and then smooth the Q factor back to blend the audio back into the mix. The hdr tool works with the same principals - you highlight and find the offensive luminance area and make the edit ( add color or pull down in exposure ) then using the fall off you blend back the area back in the mix. Now the speed of that is totally dependant on your workflow and familiarity with the technique. Same as an inexperienced sound tech might think that using any thing besides bass, mid or treble knobs takes way too long. But a seasoned sound tech would sit behind a console and sweep the eq to the exact frequency for removing or adding. Take note that on the HDR tool that "Shadow" fall off goes forward and "Light: falloff goes toward the bottom. The fall off is the key. Especially if you are using saturation or blending hues. The smoothness of those curves once located allows you to do things that would be a lot harder using other tools. The HDR tool in my opinion hasn't been taught or used correctly in any youTube video that I have seen so far. People should maybe start by using it to zero in on specular highlights first and try fixing them, then using the falloff, blend them back into the skin. This will get you used to the tool and you can then start trying other parts of the image.

[@cfazio]

Thanks for the explanation Jim.

[@Crimbtw]

Hey Jim! I would absolutely love to see this done in action.

[@thornnorton5953]

@@Crimbtw truly. Jim should be on a live one day or post videos on his channel. Absolutely a gem on this channel.

[@Stefan_Heinrich]

Great video. I think it would have been nice to mention how contrast works differently in the hdr tools.

[@shadowgold1]

I would to see a topic about how to set resolution for color grading 🙏🏽

[@monagranat1280]

Would have been interesting if you compared the HDR highlights correction to using LOG highlights as LOG is more similar to HDR in the way you can isolate a certain luminous area then the primaries are.

[@dalegend5924]

Thank you

[@TANZANIAFILMMAKINGTV]

thanks a lot

[@VideoAve]

Thanks for the explanation! However, I’ve been using the custom YRGB curve to tackle this kind of things that require more precision. What’s the difference and pros/cons between using the HDR wheels and using the custom YRGB curve?

[@CullenKelly]

Great question! You can certainly use curves to address this. Use whichever tool is simpler to accomplish the task. The benefit of the HDR wheels is that you can make the targeted adjustment without having to fiddle as much as you would with curves.

[@AdalbertNiksha]

So I can't get max range without masking? To make outdoors look like at 3:29 but to keep person at mormal expo?

[@dronyfilm]

what we see at ~7:20 is what I really dislike about the HDR palette. And it's not because of working with zones, but because of the way they built the tool. If you compare it to Baselights basegrade operator for example or some of the DCTLs that try to mimic basegrade, you can see that with some better math you could build a way better zone tool. Sadly BMD went for this solution and will probably never change the code for it, so we are basically stuck with that. And you're right. With this tool you always have to tweak several parameters to make it kinda work for the shot. You simply don't have that much time.

[@aryandev2749]

canu grade v log footage plz it ll help me a lot

[@koushikbhattacharya832]

Thank u sir

[@Joshua_S]

Hello Cullen, you said you have like 20 sec per shot. Do think we should school our clients that good colorgradeing work needs more time? I feel like 20 sec is to little to open the shots up to their full potential.

[@Visethelegend]

I think the meant the first pass of grading, not doing a whole look of it. That said, 20s is still too far from my reality :(

[@InTheKnow855]

Primaries is typically useful when you balance an image so it is wrong to say to avoid using it. When you do creative look that's when you use other tools like HSL, HDR, warper etc.

[@Fireandagrill]

Can I ask, if you were editing in davinci wide gammut why do you need a final node to Rec 709, Gamma 2.4; why not just deliver in Rec 709?

[@inspyremusicnl5826]

Somehow this guy always touches on the topic im searching for exactly at this moment. I used to dislike davinci wide gamut because it looks less saturated but my eye is seeing it in a diffrent way now . Im statring to perceive dynamic range diffeent

[@rumorscameras]

Hi. Question. What is the point of the colorchecker video? Does it make matchkng cameras simple or is it for somethjng else. Do we need kne?

[@k-qp2nv]

8:14 why not justa power window?

[@stefanocson6237]

great

[@LuckeGabriel]

Me before this video: Hey you know what, I think I might be a colourist one day... Cullen: 20 seconds to colour each shot Me: Yeah nah forget it ;_;

[@PaulVoorberg]

I usually use the global exposure in HDR to properly expose underexposed people in my shots and then use a negative value of the light exposure in HDR to counteract blown up highlights from bright things in the background like for example a sky. Very fast way to fix underexposed subjects. Also exposure in the regular color panel looks like shit - it works differently it seems. Anyway, interesting video on on under discussed topic 👍

[@MustWorkWeekends]

So if the hdr panel doesn't produce organic results then why use it? Im sorry if i missed the point but how do you bring down the highlights in a natural way while maintaining the subject?

[@flipnap2112]

power windows ha ha

[@rgsauve]

I find Premiere's Lemetri Highlight recovers water whitewash a lot easier than Resolve's. Resolve's highlight recovery gives me milky details in comparison.

[@2424rocket]

Still not thrilled with how you made the background look. Why not just use a power window and bring the background down with your primary? That seems the simplest answer.

[@eddyjuillerat835]

Jeeze, 20 seconds per shot seems like working at the mine...

[@2424rocket]

Cullen, I’m somewhat disappointed, you never made the shot look good. The background is still too bright, like way too bright. And I know it’s certainly fixable. And if you can’t fix it, nobody can, so why did you stop there? I also agree with some of the comments that your videos are all under exposed.

[@rustytaco8412]

No offense, and I mean this, but as a professional colorist, why are ALL your videos and thumbnails.....SO UNDEREXPOSED. Like, I literally prefer to watch your videos at night when I'm in bed and it's dark in my room because your videos are so dark. Iattend USC, and my friends and I watch your videos, and we all have the same criticism. Please fix this. It's antithetical, and weird.

[@MatthieuDelattre]

frérot, tu vrilles là

[@Crimbtw]

edit: there's no right or wrong exposure

[@426Studios]

My guess is that Cullen is focusing on his tutorials rather than his face so he isn't grading his face that much so he could get out his tutorial videos ASAP... anyways he properly showed how to grade stuff and his explanation is on point so I don't think its much of an issue. He is still an active colorist and most likely he do this tutorial stuff on his free time so I think that's the reason why so he could have a quick turnaround for his tutorial videos.

[@allenpayne9182]

There are a lot of KZbinr that spend days, week, month years to light themselves perfectly in their studio. If you watch any course by a pro colorist or pro DoP they do not often care how they look on camera. Light, audio, camera, done. No need to get the perfect 3-point-lighting setup on their face to talk about color grading. On the other tside, those youtubers are often only good on grading their on face and nothing else. - Don't overthink. It is also a stylistic choice. I don't see anything wrong with his setup.

[@joyKafka]

I think it's the right exposure that won't distract the audience from the viewer.