Don't use parallel nodes like this...

guys I made a really big mistake well not that big of a mistake nobody died it's just a color grading mistake it's just a da Vinci resolve mistake give me a chance to explain before you judge me seriously this is an oversight that I've been making in my color grading practice and in the technique that I teach here on YouTube that I wanted to give you a glimpse into and share what I'm going to do to remedy it so that we can all continue to grow as colorists and I want to thank dronie for bringing this issue to my attention in a comment on a recent video and giving me the chance to share the mistake and share the fix with all of you guys today this basically involves my template node graph and my use of the parallel node structure before we dive into resolve if you haven't had a chance to subscribe to this Channel Make sure you do I'm putting out two new videos every single week on color grading inside of DaVinci Resolve as well as a live AMA style uh session that we do on Friday mornings grade school where you can ask any question that you like pertaining to the subjects that we've been exploring in that week's videos we always have a blast so make sure that you turn on your notifications and make sure you subscribe especially considering that most weeks I don't think I make that many mistakes I've been on betting 90 95 most of the time this week I made a mistake actually in weeks past I made a mistake this week we're fixing the mistake let's take a look here inside of resolve and get a look at what in the world Cullen is talking about what's this big bad terrible mistake you've been making so I want to show you something right now I'm looking at my template node graph you might be familiar with this node graph if you've been hanging out here on the channel for a while this is basically just a template structure for me to fill out as I move from grading shot one to two to three Etc and you can see that right now as I go option D and turn these nodes all off and all on simultaneously nothing's happening in these nodes right now it's just a structure for me to fill out once I do begin to grade my shadow and if you've really been hanging out here on the channel for a while you might even remember when I adopted the parallel node structure that you see in this template node graph and what this does is a couple things for me first of all it allows me to pull keys in such a way that even if I go back and revise my primaries my key doesn't stand any risk of getting bumped or feeling weird because my key is not being pulled off of these nodes it's being pulled off the original image at the head of the node graph that's number one number two it just helps me to delineate primaries from secondaries they each have their own track and their own path and it also helps me to make better vertical use of the nodegraph real estate that I have available to me here inside of resolve so I do not plan on ditching the parallel node structure I've really liked incorporating it into my grading workflow but there is a tweak that I need to make and I'm going to show you what that tweak is now I'm going to go over to my ratio node and I'm going to do some negative contrast and I'm going to go kind of far just for the sake of demonstration and now I'm going to go down here to node number four and I'm going to crank up my blur this could be any spatial operation but right now I'm going to go with blur because it's the most obvious check out what I'm getting here you see that kind of like fringing or haloing that is happening around my edges that's happening because in one branch of my parallel node structure I'm softening or blurring the image but in another I am not and sooner or later these branches have to come back together right that's the whole point of a parallel node is that you do stuff in one branch you do stuff in another branch and they magically come back together after you've done those individual adjustments but in this case because I've done something spatial the way that those things merge back together is problematic and this doesn't just apply to blur blur is simply a way of making a nice clear example of the problem but this is going to apply to mid-tone detail this is going to apply to texture pop this is going to apply to noise reduction this applies to anything spatial or textural or blur or sharpening based that you would do in one branch of your parallel node graph we really don't want to do those kinds of operations within a parallel node structure so what do we do instead well it's an easy fix all all that we're going to do instead is reset this blur here and we're now going to go Downstream of our parallel node structure and do the same thing and you'll see that the results are nice and clean so it's an easy fix but it's one that I'm going to implement right away in my grading practice and in my videos here on YouTube and I wanted to share it with you guys so basically anything spatial anything textural anything involving blurring or sharpening I'm now going to do not here in my parallel node structure but Downstream after my parallel nodes have been merged back together and that's going to prevent that ringing or that haloing or that edging from occurring so that's it there and Beyond this specific mistake and the fix for it something else that I thought today's video would be a really good opportunity to remind myself of and to remind you guys of is that it is not a sign of incompetence or weakness to make a mistake recognize it and then come up with a better approach in the future in fact that's a sign of maturity as a professional and as an artist I make mistakes all the time or I identify things that I feel like maybe aren't actually the best way which leads me to ask a great question how could I do it better what could I change in order to get better results and as a result I've had the opportunity to really grow a lot in my professional color grading practice over the years because I'm always looking for the better approach a superior way of going about things and over time that's really just a great way to ensure your growth as an artist as a professional as a crafts person okay so it's not a weakness or a sign of stupidity to make a mistake and then to say ah I made a mistake what can we do better how can we improve on this so I wanted to share that lesson with you as well in addition to the particular lesson of why we generally don't want to use any type of spatial operations inside of a branch of a parallel node structure so I hope both of those things are useful to you guys certainly things that we can discuss in more depth in our next episode of grade school would love to see you there if you want to come in there and join us and if not I'll see you here on the channel for our next pre-recorded video

Channel: Cullen Kelly

Views: 21,086

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Id: uMok7IUT4Ho

Length: 6min 16sec (376 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2023