Mastering The Multiple Personalities of Resolve’s Contrast-Pivot Controls

Interesting topic.
I think that the gray scale ramp to show the s-curve is really good – but when using the old conventional contrast, someone who may not have worked that way before, might wonder why it was ever used.
But if the example had shown something where the blacks were elevated and highlights were low, that the use of increasing the dark and the light would be more obvious.

But the HDR tool to date I haven’t seen anyone explain it as I see it for functionality. And it seems that a lot of time that it is explained that we tend to look at it by using the comparison to the Primary tool or Log wheels. To my mind it is making the actual use of the HDR tool more confusing for users to understand how and why to use it.

The photometric design of doubling light per stop and blacks not changing – is a good perspective and might even be surprising for some. But it is really easy to see when using the exposure adjustment on the HDR tool and comparing it to using the Offset.

But for me the utilization and power of the tool is to set up a tonal balance, and then pinpoint areas to smoothly edit and blend back into the look.

Using an audio analogy, people understand the use of using parametric eq and doing a frequency sweep on top of a tonal curve and narrowing the Q factor to zero in on a tone then adjust it by broadening the Q factor and reducing the frequency. You can then blend smoothly the pinpointed frequency back into the mix.
So I approach the HDR tool with the same idea of setting up a broad area of a tone, by using the “Shadow” and “Light” wheels to set up the overall curve, then pinpoint areas that I want to adjust. By pinpointing in the “Black” or “Dark” areas to edit on top of the “Shadow” region or above middle grey, or adjust the “highlight” and/or “Specular” regions, then setting the roll offs to blend the edit smoothly into the tonal regions previously set by the Shadow and Light areas.

Not sure If I have explained that correctly – would be easier with a graphic or demo.
But the idea is that we need to look at the HDR tool as something that is not just another version of the Log wheels. It, in my opinion is written off too quickly by some of us. The mindset is to jump in and start spinning the wheels and then when not being happy with results, jump right back into the way we always have done it.
All curves need to be gentle in audio or in the video tools – the HDR tool is to smoothly make adjustments and keep the transition of those adjustments in the smoothest controllable manner.

Reducing contrast in the HDR tool will increase saturation, and vice versa. Perhaps this can offer a new way to create a bleach bypass look without having to use a layer mixer for example.