Understanding DaVinci Resolve’s Parallel Mixer Node (and when to use it)

Nice insight, Patrick; and, excellent clarification of the differences between serial, layer and parallel node arrangements. It would be interesting in one of the follow-up Insights on this topic to talk about the utilization of, and indication for, attaching a serial node (or string of nodes) to a select node level in a parallel mixer set-up. For example, making an adjustment on one node, say the second node in a parallel arrangement, adding another serial correction at that level, and returning the output of that level to the parallel mixer. I’ve seen this set-up before (it might be one of Walter’s node trees if I am not mistaken), but curious about the indication for such an arrangement. I have never done this before. Playing around with an RGB parallel venn diagram on a gray scale background and adding serial node color washes at different RGB levels produce some interesting cancellations. Curious if you have any thoughts about this and under what conditions you might implement the addition of serial nodes at any given parallel node level.

Thanks Patrick! Slightly off topic. But where those keynotes / interviews recorded from
the BMD Conference? Say for those on the otherside of the globe?

Hi Scott – Great question. And a great idea for a follow-up Insight. Personally, I’ve shied away from multiple serials feeding into a single input on the Parallel node. It tends to give me unexpected results, and not usually in a direction I like – so I’ve avoided it. IFIRC, the later serials negate the initial effect of the earlier serials. But I will dig into this further.

In fact, while I’m at NAB next week I’ll wrangle one of the developers and see if they can shed additional light on this specific scenario.

But thanks for pointing me in this direction! And if anyone else has thoughts on this type of setup, I’d love to hear them.

Unfortunately, no. None of the sessions or the Keynotes were recorded. And there were quite a few I wanted to attend but couldn’t!

Yes! I found that some of the cancellations and results were a little mind-boggling and kind of disorienting. I’ll be at the Mixer and NAB and looking forward to some interesting discussions and seeing friends. See you there. I might catch up with Walter and ask him about this.

Enjoyed the two episodes on the parallel / layer mixer. Very good refresh on how to use them.

As I was playing with it on Shadow of Giants and your tri-color test node, I also got reminded that when in the layer mixer (but not parallel mixer) a composite mode selection appears. The Layer mixer can apply different modes, similar to what Photoshop has for layer modes that affect the way the layers are combined. The normal (default) mode is a basic hard overlay, whereas there are many other options.

If I recall, that is a key element to the frequency separation node trees, but I’m sure it has many other advanced uses as well.

And in Resolve 15, the composite modes now do a Live Preview as you scroll over them. HUGE timesaver, since even if you understand the math you can’t be completely sure what the final result of many of those modes will be without actually seeing them applied to the specific images you’re working with.