How To Adapt A Photoshop ‘Channels’ Technique to DaVinci Resolve

Answering a plea from the Mixing Light Forums: “Help me simplify my node tree!”

In the Mixing Light Forums, member Overture recorded a screen share showing his color grading technique that he’s been using in After Effects. As I watched this video play down, I quickly recognized it as an adaptation of a common Photoshop technique from the mid-1990s. It’s still very popular among still photographers and uses Photoshops channels.

Here’s the node tree that we’re tackling today:

Photoshop Channels – A quick backgrounder

Before we had digital color grading tools for video, there was Photoshop. And early on, Photoshop introduced ‘Channels’ and ‘Blending Modes’. Very quickly, Photoshop artists started using ‘Channels’ to isolate non-contiguous pixels and apply Blending Modes to them to create amazing-looking images. In fact, the description for the most famous of these books, Photoshop Channel Chops, says it all: