u/Eddie_Haskell2

I have been grading for a number of years in resolve  but never on a steady professional basis and especially never under  time demands. Although I bought a mini panel a few years ago I never bothered  with it . However  on a current project I decided it was time to start playing with it . I like it and its been easier to master than I expected. However it has also caused me to wonder about reevaluating  how I label my nodes and my node tree altogether.

While i’ve experimented with different node trees I never settled on any single one and often for small projects just  stay very simple, but I’d like to find a couple to stick with for clarity.  Here’s where the panel is changing my thinking.

Previous: So far on more complicated projects I created trees that use  separate labeled nodes for many of the basic  primary functions: CSTs, Lift , Gamma, gain, Highlights , HDR highlights, Contrast, Saturation , Temp, and different ones for  DCTLs which I like a lot . Its time consuming and cluttered but this way I felt I could go back to  something I wanted to revaluate quickly . Because i was using the mouse for each function separately it wasn’t too much of a pain to switch  nodes for each .

Panel: However playing with panel changed how i wanted to work .  Instead of apply the primary tools separately I can just fiddle with a lot of them  at once  and quickly get a basic grade without bouncing between 4-5 nodes.  So that’s made me want to simplify the tree a lot more . So far I just reduced a bunch of those to “Primary” and  left that for almost everything in the “good old  fashioned” Primary color wheels panel. 

Its also made me question some of the common advice to go out of the old Primary panel for stuff like  exposure and color sat because they aren’t “filmic”, linear and precise ( i.e.   ‘Offset  affects  black levels & Sat) . If I’m  quickly  adjusting  a bunch of  parameters all at once - who cares if they affect one another if its faster than jumping around among nodes?

Also I was starting to use some DCTLs that allow you to adjust a lot of those parameters in one DCTL- exposure, contrast shaping , saturation etc. Most of these do remain linear,  but they don’t always use  wheels and knobs that are at your fingertips  so even though they’re in one place the sliders are separate.  ( Some can show up in the panel screens with knobs but its still slower than the old primary panel.

All of which leads me to wonder what do you guys with panels find to be an effective  use of nodes and the primary panel?

Just curious especially among professional colorists how many routinely look at a histogram vs a waveform and within the waveform - parade vs luminance only vs colorized. And of course when and why you would check any of those tools.

I grew up old school before DSLRs so our only tool in the field was the waveform. Consequently I hardly ever look at a histogram. But I notice for instance that Cullen Kelley always references his histogram though honestly it looks wanky to me. Of course he's probably got good reasons so I'm wondering what those might be.

Thanks

Lenny

• Posts: 187
• Joined: Sun Feb 02, 2020 10:46 am
• Real Name: Leonard Levy

Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:07 pm

I’ve been having difficulties cleaning up audio interviews with camera mic in a noisy environment with Resolve 20 that are driving me nuts. (Please don’t tell me that I shot it wrong - I’m interest in salvage now.)

I'm working at a clip level importing my effects from the effects list not working with track level Fairlight effects not using that many effects- Fairlight equalizer, Vocal channel compressor and gain . Often using Voice Isolation also

There are 2 main problems I’m having .
1- When playing a clip to listen to an effect, It sometimes takes a long time before the effect actually pops in so its very hard to alter while listening . I think I’ve made a lot of headway on this by changing the preferences latency from auto to 64 and turning Chrome off while editing video. So it seems to have something to do with processing power or settings. I don’t know if 64 is correct or not though.
I’ve usually left Chrome on and it didn’t seem to affect most color work . Does that mean audio work is generally more processor intensive?

2- The latest problem is far more annoying though. To deal with big vocal level changes and annoying background conversation I sometimes have been editing the levels by using keyframes on the volume line ( is that line called the volume envelope.?) But I still need to adjust the overall volume of the clip after that and have tried using the Fairlight “Gain” effect for that. In theory it works great but when I try to play back (in loop mode) the effect sometimes simply turns off by itself or it suddenly gets much softer while still showing its on. Then if I stop and start playback it gets back to where it should be. Makes it very hard to adjust while listening and watching meters.
Is this some kind of memory problem , a resolve glitch, a settings issue I can fix.?

BTW I tried switching from a UHD timeline to an HD timeline and it didn’t help.

BTW - 2021 16" Macbook Pro M1MAX (18,2),
64G RAM, 8T internal SSD, 10 Cores CPU, 32 Cores GPU,
Apple Display Pro XDR, Apple Thunderbolt Display
Flanders Scientific BM211, BM UltraStudio Monitor 3G

I originally asked this in a video editing group and someone suggested posting here, so what the hell. I don't want to have to learn any whole new programs though.

I'm in Davinci Resolve 20 cutting a wedding video I shot as a one man band with FX6 and a little  shure mini shotgun on camera. I have 2 questions re trying to make the sound decent .  (Can’t afford an audio sweetener  and  wasn’t allowed to bring a 2nd audio person into the event .)  I know a little about sound but not a lot. I have used the  Dynamics tool to good effect in bringing loud and softer  voices closer in level, have used basic graphic equalizers and at least read up on the Fairlight EQ though I barely remember  what I read. I know it won’t be perfect but I’m just looking for some advice that might be within my abilities. Always good to learn a little more about sound . 

 The ceremony is Ok because I used a lav on the  officiant and recorded separately , but  I also walked around and grabbed a lot of  off the cuff interviews with people just using the on board mic.  The background noise is horrendous as it was a small place with lots of talking  around me So

1- The biggest problem is isolating the interviewees voice from background. I've been trying to the 'AI Voice Isolation" and the "AI Dialogue Leveler " in the edit page . They are helpful but the sound quality can get pretty weird fast ( esp with "AI Voice Isolation" ) and the levels tend to bounce up & down . 

- Are there any tools in Fairlight that are better or reasonably priced  third party tools that are better ?

- Would I do better with the Dynamics tool? I own Audacity - would that help? 

2- The other issue is just the voice quality itself which sometimes gets  kind of thin and nasally especially with women.  I see 4 different equalizers in resolve the  Fairlght EQ,  AUGraphicEQ, AUParametricEQ and the AUNBandEQ. 

What's the basic difference difference between a graphic equalizer and parametric?

Would any of those tools be good and not too hard to learn to use ?

Any other tools that might be better? 

Thanks.

Lenny

I'm in resolve 20 cutting a wedding video I shot as a one man band with FX6 and a little  shure mini shotgun on camera. I have 2 questions re trying to make the sound decent .  () Can’t afford an audio sweetener  and  wasn’t allowed to bring a 2nd audio person into the event .)  I know a little bit about sound but not a lot. I have used the  Dynamics tool to good effect in bringing loud and softer  voices closer in level, have used basic graphic equalizers and at least read up on the Fairlight EQ though I barely remember  what I read. I know it won’t be perfect but I’m just looking for some advice that might be within my abilities. Always good to learn a little more about sound . 

 The ceremony is Ok because I used a lav on the  XXXXXX and recorded separately , but  I also walked around and grabbed a lot of  off the cuff interviews with people just using the on board mic.  The background noise is horrendous as it was a small place with lots of talking  around me So

1- The biggest problem is isolating the interviewees voice from background. I've been trying to the 'AI Voice Isolation" and the "AI Dialogue Leveler " in the edit page . They are helpful but the sound quality can get pretty weird fast ( esp with "AI Voice Isolation" ) and the levels tend to bounce up & down . 

- Are there any tools in Fairlight that are better or reasonably priced  third party tools that are better ?

- Would I do better with the Dynamics tool? I own Audacity - would that help? 

2- The other issue is just the voice quality itself which sometimes gets  kind of thin and nasally especially with women.  I see 4 different equalizers in resolve the  Fairlght EQ,  AUGraphicEQ, AUParametricEQ and the AUNBandEQ. 

Would any of those tools be good and not too hard to learn to use ? Any other tools that might be better? 

Thanks.

Lenny

I'm used to using the Key Output Gain control in the color page key palette to modify how strong an effect is but I'm mystified by all the other controls. I've tried to search the manual but can't seem to find it . I'd be happy if someone could point me to the right page. Very difficult to search that manual and I've tried the TOC's
BTW so far I have not been using a Key mixer so maybe most of these controls are for that?

Are any of them useful for control an ordinary color effect i.e. :

The Key Input controls?

The other Key output controls : the output offset, the invert or mask button whatever that is?

The qualifier invert & mask buttons and gain & offset controls ?

As a secondary question I'm wondering if there is any universal way to control what part of the luminance of image a color effect will affect - if I want it to affect say only the brights or the darks (say saturation or a diffusion effect). I try to use the luminance only slider in HSL Qualifier but it doesn't seem very sensitive .

I've got a weird electrical problem (intermittent main fuse failure) with a 2001 Toyota Corolla that my longtime mechanic can't find. Any suggestions for a local shop that is more reasonable than the dealer and known to be good with electrical problems. I know those are hard.

Just discovered an annoying twist on the old Vimeo washes out my video story . I work in Resolve on a Mac and apply an adjustment layer with a CST that applies a reverse 709-A ( gamma 1.96) for my web exports . Thus Vimeo looks exactly like my Flanders grading monitor set for Gamma 2.4 - All good. However I just noticed a problem I've apparently missed for years .

I use Wix to make my website and have pages there that simply link to my videos on Vimeo. However the gamma or maybe just the saturation is a little washed out when played through Wix. I guess i noticed it this time because I'm working on a color grading reel so I'm being especially picky . Anyone else having this issue? I don't really want to send people to my Vimeo page directly as I like the clarity of the website.

I don't like the idea but I guess I could try an additional adjustment layer that just added a touch of saturation, or dropped a point of Lift or maybe a touch of additional contrast to the export for Vimeo. Off hand I don't know how to slightly change the gamma other than 709-A (1.96) and 2.2

I don't want to switch to a different website software - that would be a gigantic PITA.

Ideas?

I have a Mac and grade to a Flanders BM211 through an Ultrastudio monitor 3G . (I'm saying this because I'm getting a message from the "Mod" that I need to post the hardware interface. )

Lenny

I'm trying to do some radical surgery on an interview shot in a cave of a guy with blond hair that has bright wispy elements that are hard to key . Shot at HD in 709. I've tried to use magic mask and get close but its very hard to stop the hair from breaking up. I need to change the color temp of the background and additionally draw an irregular window to make some of it darker.

I've tried doing it with 2 magic mask operations. First time I separate the talent from BGrnd with MM and then cool off the BG with an outside node. Render that out to 709 again so that I can fix the MM. Next I do a second pass , again making a MM and again using an outside node to darken just a portion of the BG using a power window.
The first pass is difficult enough due to the wispy hair but even when I get it close to good enough the 2nd pass for some reason is much harder to generate a decent mask. I would expect it to be easier since the BG is a much different color.

I haven't tried using the alpha output from the MM because i don't know exactly what to do or if it would help. Any suggestions?

I'm pretty familiar & comfortable with resolve for basic grading but am just getting into look Dev and have a number of questions . Hope there aren't just too many here.

Consistent final look : I see a lot of tutorials where people suggest creating a 'look" before doing individual clip grading and making it part of a consistent unchangeable final node group or adjustment layer. So:

- How do you decide on a look before you've experimenting a great deal with your individual shots - doesn't that make it kind of arbitrary?

- Couldn't that look sometimes be inappropriate for specific shots or scenes in a movie and wouldn't the fact that its in an untouchable final group or adjustment layer make it difficult to adjust for those shots?

- Is this something more appropriate for narrative than docs because the shots are more similar and hopefuly already art directed?

- Could you only do it only on a per/scene basis if some varied a lot?. i.e. how important is it to have that consistency throughout?

Split toning - This is a related question re a consistent "look" - I see a lot of tutorials ( esp Cullen Kelly) where they choose a warm/teal split as part of the look from the get go. However to my eye teal shadows can look terrible when imposed over a scene where the shadow colors are warm - brown clothes, wood walls, dark skin tones in shadows, a lot of nature scenes with lots of trees. I've noticed this especially in some of Cullen's tutorials. Sometimes it works but others it sucks.

Likewise it seems to me that even if you like a warm/teal consistent look that how much you want it applied could vary alot depending on the colors of the shot

- Can you create a reverse split tone to modify what that final one is doing just on clip basis . If so how? I tried to do this with a split tone DCTL I like but it didn't work .

- To me it seems more flexible to make it part of your basic node tree than as an untouchable final adjustment . What do you guys think?

Re Film Emulation:

- What is the point of having both a Negative and a Print emulation ? What kind of "magic" does the Negative add to this mix? Again I wonder about how much of this is kind of arbitrary since you'll be adjusting colors in the grade anyway .

- With different DRT's ( including JP 2499 & Cullen's "Referent" which I really like) already available- what's the point of also adding a Film LUT emulation since some of those DRTs are already trying to do much of what they do at least colorwise ( other than halation and grain which could be added separately.) Can't this just start to get redundant?

BTW - These are just questions in my mind - not opinions.

Thanks. Sorry if its too many

Lenny