How to Build a Manual Color Matching Node in DaVinci Resolve, Part 3

I’m curious why you choose to sample the swatch and remove the points vs using the color presets at the bottom on the hue vs hue?

Good job, Patrick. One minute into the thing, I said, “hey, why not just increase overall sat and then adjust sat on each vector in hue vs. sat…” and 12 minutes later, that’s exactly what you did — pulling back red to compensate. This was a standard dailies trick we did for years. I just wish more DPs shot charts.

Because I want to manipulate the actual color points the camera recorded for each of those colors. If I used the presets I would have been manipulating where they *should* be vs. where they *actually* are. Make sense?

Marc – While recording I was asking myself… would it make more sense to kick up Saturation first, then adjust the vectors? Probably, it would result in less back and forth.

Marc – did you find it was cleaner doing the overall saturation move and then pulling back the vectors where needed? Or did you do the overall saturation move because it was easier when aligning the hue vectors?

yeh thanks

you could also zoom the vector scope and align the sats up then after add a LAB sat to you taste

To Marc’s comment ” I just wish more DPs shot charts.” It would be great to have a discussion on a colorist’s perfect world scenario from pre -> post production including in set coloring and requiring charts. Including maybe hardware strategies like supplying wireless transmitters to pipe a live feed though a resolve live session to video village.

Yes, just for speed we’d kick up Sat first, since typically we’re under the gun in those situations. In the film days, you had to be careful because the blue layer tended to kick up the highest, being on the top. I still see film negative shows on today where the blues are way too intense, showing that even film did not have uniform saturation, even in Rec709.

RE: Zooming the Vectorscope – remember, the test chart we’re using in this example is specifically designed to put saturation at 50% distance from the targets. So a 2x zoom is a precise amount we want to zoom that sets not only the Hue Vectors but also the precise amount of Saturation that the OneShot is designed for. Any other zoom amount won’t set the saturation properly (though it will help with aligning the Hue vectors).

RE: LAB – Certainly, using a LAB node to expand contrast could work as well. That’s the beauty of grading… something as simple as aligning a test chart can be done a dozen different ways to achieve similar results.

Well, I think the request I’m hearing from you is having Insights on DIT work and on-set rigging? If so – we’ll put that on our To-Do and find the right person to handle that specialty and offer up those kinds of Insights. But like all things, it’s not enough to find a good DIT. We need to find a good DIT who is aware of their workflow choices and is willing to share and not hold anything back… so it might take a while.

I was more interested in a discussion about the role of colorist(s) in a perfect world scenario from pre – post production including a little discussion of on set lut creation with resolve live. I wasn’t looking for gear specifics as much as a general discussion.

True, also we saw that adding saturation potentially changes a points hue as well. So you might get in a situation where at 2x you set you matched your targets then when you go to reduce the saturation and your targets could be off axis. If you set you desired saturation first then zoom to balance your hues/color saturations to the targets at least you know where you left off is correct. The zoom remains constant between shots unless you change it so then you can match the other shots to you zoomed targets.

Very good idea, and not one I would have thought of. Excellent tip, Patrick.