(gentle music) - What's going on, guys, this is Quazi. Welcome back to another epic video. Today, we're gonna be
looking at three mistakes that beginner colorists make, while recovering their highlights. I'm gonna show you all
the wrong ways first, and then we're gonna jump
into a pro way to do it right. Now, let me just say this, not handling your highlights properly, is the fastest giveaway
that you're an amateur. It's not easy, it takes practice, but before you even get to that part, you need to know the right way to do it, because there's definitely
right and wrong way when you talk about recovering highlights. I should also mention that the techniques that you're gonna be picking up here, are not exclusive to DaVinci Resolve, these concepts will be directly applicable if you're in Final Cut
10, Premier Pro, Avid, whatever have you, so
just keep that in mind. And also, I wanna encourage you guys to go back to your last project after you watch this video
and apply these techniques to some of the shots, and the results are gonna
be drastic in a great way. If you're a beginner filmmaker who wants to make their work stand out, color grading is one of the
most effective ways to do that. If you're coming from
Premier Pro or Final Cut 10, then looking at a node based software like Resolve will just
confuse the heck out of you. In this free training, you're not only gonna learn
everything about nodes, you'll also learn to build
the perfect node tree regardless of the project
that you were working on. I will end the session
with an extended Q&A. These questions came from you guys, click the link in the description to sign up for this free training. And guys, if you're enjoying the content, it will mean the world to me
if you smash that like button, subscribe to my channel,
if you haven't already, share this with friends, if you can. Make sure you're
following me on Instagram, and let's roll the intro. (upbeat music) All right, guys, let's
get this show on the road. First thing that I'm gonna do, is I'm gonna go ahead and cover my nodes, so we can actually see
what's happening here. And before we jump in and
look at all the mistakes that beginners make,
and then how pros do it, let's just analyze some professional work, and see how they deal with highlights. So, this is from "Hacksaw Ridge." And if we look at this shot,
this is what's going on. Okay. So, I wanna break
it down for you guys, so it makes a lot more sense. This right here, are our blown out highlights. They're not coming back, even when they were captured in camera, they were just beyond
the point of recovery. Then you got these right
there, that can be recovered. So, when you look at this right there, it's that right there. So, this is what's going on over here. Okay. And you can read it on the scope. These are recoverable,
they're living more over here. Okay. So, that's, what's going on. Now, that's our first example, right? I wanna show you this one right there. Then you got a scenario like this. So, what's happening over here? We got our sky, and our
sky is living right there, there, and there, and that's
the beauty of shooting with a high-end camera where
there's tons of dynamic range that you can have your
subject looking beautiful, and then your sky could be just perfect. It looks gorgeous. And that right there is
what's creating that cyan that they got going on in the sky to portray this warm day feel. Okay. Now, what I wanna show
you is this guy right here. What does that? And what can we see it on the frame? It's the specular highlight
that we can spot it right there. Now, specular highlights
are blown out highlights, and it's usually appears on shiny spots. So, especially on a skin like
the light is reflecting off, and we can see it. I mean, think of like headlamps on cars, like the headlights. Think of a practical in a movie or a show where you just see it in the
frame and it's all blown out. And it's not blown out in a nasty way. Like this is not, it doesn't look bad. I mean, that's what actually
shows the dynamic range of the entire image. So, you just need to know that anytime you see a specular highlight, know that it will be
impossible to recover it, and it's not the point to
recover specular highlights, you gotta let them blow out to create that range in
our entire image, okay? So, be aware of that. We got our recoverable highlights,
and we got our specular, and our blown out highlights, that, you know, you don't
wanna fight that battle, you're not gonna win. Let's look at some
examples from "The Boys." So, what's happening over here? Once again, if we look
at this shot right there, look at what is going on
all the way over here. It's this right there. Okay? These are highlights that are
beyond the point of recovery, so you'd let them go. What's happening over here? These are recoverable highlights and they're being recovered right here. So, that's something that
you need to understand, you don't wanna bring these down, because what's gonna happen, is that your footage is gonna look muddy, and it happens all the time. I see amateur grades where
that is just a common theme. What is happening over here? What is this right there? It's that specular highlight right there. And one thing that you need to realize, is that with specular highlights, you want to keep them as white as possible because this is how our eyes perceive it. So, if you look at the
lamp or a bulb straight on, it will look bright white. But if it is a 3,200 Kelvin light, then the room is gonna look warm, but if you just stare at the bulb, it's gonna look bright white, and that's exactly what's
happening over here. So, you have to be careful of that because too many times I've
seen people create their grades, and then they will take this with it. So, it will have like
the green sitting here, and the blue sitting here, and then the red channel up
there, that's not how it works. Now, what is this right here? That right there is this right here, this right here, and this right here. So, it is again, creating that teal, and these are recoverable highlights, because that's the beauty of
shooting with high-end cameras, so they were easily
able to pull these down and make it look really gorgeous. Okay. So, I wanted to kinda bring that up and give you some examples. So, when we get into our shot and look at what are the challenges? It will make a lot more sense. So, now, let's just do that. So, what do we see when
we check out our shot? What is this right here, that right there, and that right there? What that is, is this right there. So, that is what you see
on these spots, okay? And look at the sharp curve
or the sharp little line that you see right there? That just means that it's
beyond the point of recovery. It's blown out, okay? Now, you might go, but it's not blown out because we're looking at this
and everything is in control, but we're looking at the log image. As soon as I apply a rec. 709 conversion, this is gonna be blown out, and that's what we're seeing here. Now, the recoverable highlights here, are this right there, that right there, you know, this right there, and that's what we see in all these areas. These are recoverable highlights, that right there, is this right here. These are recoverable highlights
that we can work with. So, that is the first
thing that you need to do, to understand what you're up against, and what should be your strategy. Now, let's jump in and look
at one of the three mistakes beginner colorist make. Now, there's a couple of
different ways to grade this. One would be, to just use
your primaries and graded. That could be a way that people can do, but most of the time, beginners want as much
help that they can get. So, what you wanna do, or what you probably have
seen on YouTube videos, is to convert your image rec. 709. So, in this case, the
fastest way to do that, would be to just drop on Arri's LUT that is provided, and is
inside DaVinci Resolve, you don't have to pay for it. So, as soon as you do that, now your image is properly
converted rec. 709, and it looks pretty dark. Another way to do that would have been a little bit more advanced way, that color space transform, which I would recommend
instead of the LUT. But again, if you're an amateur, and let's assume that you are a beginner, and if that's the case, then you're not gonna
be going the CST route, you're gonna be probably doing this. So, as soon as you apply
that, look what just happened? Look at what happened to
our window right there? It's gone, it's blown out. Okay? So, the beginner colorists would do this. They'll start off with their gamma, so they can see more of their image. They'll take their lift
and they'll bring it down to keep the contrast nice, and then bring their gamma
up a little bit more, something like that. And then something like this, and then they'll give it some saturation. So, not too much, let's just
not exaggerate too much, but something like that,
that's what they're gonna do. They will have limited skillset when it comes to color grading, so they just wouldn't know what to do or how to control that at all, so they'll disregard it completely. So, that's one of the three mistakes a beginner colorist would make. Let's check out the second
of the three mistakes a beginner colorist would make. Now, the first type of colorist, didn't care about his highlights. Now, the second type of colorist,
is gonna do the opposite. He or she is going to suppress
their highlights too much. So, first thing that I'm gonna do, is I've already created a version, or I'm actually going to create a version. I'm gonna go ahead and reset this. And this time I'm gonna show you a second type of beginner
colorist perspective on this, which is gonna be
suppressing your highlights. So, he'll drop a lot and
he will freak that out, checking out he's scopes and be like, "Oh my God, this is blown
out. I can't do this. This is just a biggest no-no." So, their first response is gonna be to take their gain and pull it down. Okay? And they'll bring this down, and then they're gonna go
in their gamma and lift it. And then they're gonna take their gain and keep bringing it down. And then they're gonna take their lift and bring it down, okay? And then they're gonna lift
their gamma up more, and then, somewhere around here, and then keep their gain somewhere around here because they're just really afraid of blowing
out their highlights. Okay. And then they're gonna
give it some saturation. Now, when you look at this, this definitely looks better
than the first example, right? 'Cause, I mean, if I go
back and show you this, this just looks too
digital, it looks too weird. This at least looks "somewhat film-like." That is somewhat true, but there's so much of our image that we're not taking advantage of, like all this detail... I mean, look at the contrast. I mean, the contrast is gone. SDR already is giving you
only six to seven stops of effective dynamic range. Now, if your camera shot at
15 stops, which this did, you're only left with six
to seven stops to work with, and then you are crushing
your image even so much more, and only taking advantage of this space. I mean, that's just not
the way to go about it. So, neither of these ways
are really doable, right? 'Cause, I mean, we just overly
compressed our highlights, and now, everything just
looks muddy and weird. If we do a playback and we look at it, it just doesn't look or feel graded. So, that is the other type
of a beginner colorist who would overly suppress
his or her highlights. Now, let's jump into the third
type of beginner colorist. Once again, I'm gonna
create a new version. I'm gonna go ahead and go back to my base. Now, I'm gonna show you from a perspective of another beginner colorist, who is a bit more advanced
than the other two colorist, but still doesn't know how to
properly work his node tree. So, he will do this. He'll go ahead and just
bring up his gamma, bring down his gain a little
bit, bring up his gamma to keep his image looking pretty good. He'll bring down his
lift, bring up his gamma. Okay. So, our contrast
is looking pretty good. He's gonna leave somewhere around here, he's gonna give it some
saturation, let's say, and everything is looking fine. And now, what he's gonna do as he's like, "Hey, I know a few tricks to
recover these highlights." So, he will go under his qualifier, and he will go ahead select this, and then look at his qualifier, and he's gonna go, "Okay, this is great. Now, I can just bring this down." And then, he's gonna take his gain and he's gonna bring this down. Okay. So, this is what's gonna happen. It's gonna look really weird, and he's gonna be like, "All
right, let me go finesse this because this is not really working." So, he's gonna go ahead,
open this up a little bit, and he's gonna try to mess with it to see what needs to happen for this to look a
little bit better, right? So, I mean, I'm given that, you know, beginner a lot of credit that he will know how
to work the qualifier. But let's just say, if he does, he will blur it out
and he's gonna be like, "Okay, you know, that is
looking somewhat decent. Like this is not looking bad. I've recovered my highlights somewhat." I mean, look at this right
there, they're all blown out. And now, he was able, to
pull this down quite a bit, so that does not look bad. Now, the most obvious
problem with this approach, is what we can see right there. I mean, this right there,
wasn't initially there, right? So, I mean, this little
halo around everything, like look at this? This is there and it's distracting, and it's very, very noticeable, okay? So, this is, and it becomes more visible when you kinda pull out, right? So, like this is before, this is after, and this is everywhere. I mean, that... I'm gonna move this over
so you guys can see it. Like that right there, and
if I do before and after, like look at this little circle? That is there, okay? So, that is one thing. Beginners try to use a lot of keys, and I just put out a
video where I show you one of the most common mistakes
beginner colorists make. But even this colorist who is
a little bit more advanced, and knows like how to use
qualifiers or what qualifiers are, I wouldn't go, you know, as far as saying, knows how to use qualifiers
but has heard of qualifiers, and he's trying to use it to
bring the highlights down, is still failing to do that. On paper, looks like
he is recovering them, but that's not the right way to do it. Now, let's look at how a professional would recover highlights
in this particular shot. All right. So, for the sake
of keeping our node tree pretty simple, I'm gonna
stick to the basics. So, first thing that I'm gonna do, is delete this node and delete that node. Okay. So, once we apply
our LUT to our image, what we wanna do is
instead of making changes after the node, which we will, we wanna make our primary
changes before the node. So, I'm gonna go ahead, and now the node tree
sequence is everything. I have a one-hour long webinar
that you guys can check out, and link is in the description. node trees is everything,
how you properly set that up. Okay. So, here we are,
I'm gonna go before, instead of after the node,
and making these changes. Now, here, why is that? Why am I doing this instead
of like making changes after the LUT node? Because I want to borrow as
much as I can from my log image, which is this right here. I would rather manipulate this, than what happened after applying the LUT. Because after I blind the
LUT, what's gone is gone. But before we had all of
this information available. Okay. So, that's why I'm
going to my primaries first to build my base grade. So, first thing that I'm gonna do, is I'm gonna go to my primaries, I'm gonna take my offset
wheel and I'm gonna raise it. I'm gonna raise it to a point
where my dude looks good. My focus is on my hero, and in
this case, that's my subject. He's the main dude. So, I'm gonna keep it
somewhere around here, everything is looking good. What's the next step? The next step is taking my left and bringing it down a little bit. So, I still have some
of that contrast going, and I'm gonna keep it
somewhere around here, I'm not gonna do too much of that. I'm gonna take my gamma, I'm gonna raise it up just a tiny bit. I'm gonna take my lift and
I'm gonna bring it down. And now, what I wanna do
is I wanna take my gain, and I wanna try to pull this
down, not too much though. I wanna keep it somewhere around here. Again, focus on the dude, as long as he's looking
natural, everything is good. Now, I'm gonna go, after my LUT node, and here, I'm gonna go in my log wheels. I'm gonna take my shadows
and I'm gonna pull 'em down. Okay. And once I pull that down, it gives me a lot of very nice contrast, but that's too much. Again, focus is on my dude. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna go under my low range, I'm gonna open that up. So, I still get to have all my
detail and focus on my dude, but still, I get tons of contrast. So, this right there is
looking pretty good. Okay? Everything is looking pretty good. Now, what I wanna do, is
I wanna create a new node, I wanna give it some saturation, and I'm gonna keep it
somewhere around 60-ish, nothing too much. So, let's just start naming our nodes to keep it organized. This was my log, this is my rec. 709, and that's my conversion LUT, basically. And then this right here
is my primaries or my CDLs. Now, the trick to
recovering your highlights, the best way possible, is to make the highlight
recovery corrector before any other corrector
on your node tree, okay? So, I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna create another node right here, which is gonna be before my primaries, I'm gonna call it Highlights. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna go under my qualifier and instead of, you know,
dragging and grabbing all of this, which is the amateur way of
recovering your highlights, What I will do, is I will go and just focus on my Luma qualifier. Okay? And I'm gonna hit Shift
+ H, so you guys can see what we're selecting. And basically, look at the softness here? Because I want everything
to blend really nicely and look natural. And I'm just going for my
highlights, nothing else, right? So, I'm just gonna go
somewhere around here, and I'm gonna just keep it really, really limited to
the high end of my image. Okay. Just like I want
to only affect that area, I don't care about anything else, okay? So, this is where we're at right now. Once I make my selection, what I wanna do, is I still want to open
it up a little bit, so there's more room to breathe, right? So, I mean, I will probably
do maybe something like this, and let's just keep it at that for now. What's the next step? What do we need to do to really
control this now, is this. First of all, we need to
remember, this is blown out, so we're never gonna
bring it back to a point where we're suppressing
our highlights, okay? So, I'm gonna go under my gain and I'm gonna start pulling this down. I'm gonna be pretty aggressive, and I'm gonna bring it down
to something like that. And you might go, "Dude,
this looks like garbage. What did you just do?" And it does. But remember, when we were
looking at "The Boys" example where they kept their blown out part pretty neutral in color, well, that's not what's
happening here, right? Like, look at the colors here
of that highlighted area? So, what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna go under my gain and I'm gonna start
moving this around. Okay? Until we balance it out just a little bit, I don't wanna do too much. I'm not looking for too much,
I'm just looking for enough. So, even if I do something like that, and if I do before and after, look at how far we've come? And now, I'm gonna go back
and I'm gonna make sure that it is right at the
cusp of like blowing out, because that's where it
feels and looks natural. So, the beauty of this, is that if you're working on this scene, and there's a bunch of shots in this area, you can copy paste this node
tree on all of those shots, and it's gonna translate, because you've already seen set it up to like, if you're
gonna nail your exposure from shot to shot, as soon as you get to that point, this will come into effect
and start doing its thing, and protect your highlights
and even 'em out, and make 'em look proper like this. Like look at what we just did? And we protected our highlights. All right. So, now what I'm gonna do, is click on this little guy, so we can look at all our versions. I'm gonna go ahead and hide this guy, and let's make it bigger. And look at all the different
versions that we got going on? Okay. And again, the
focus of this exercise was to work on our highlights, and get the most out of our image. So, if you look at the first
amateur choice, which was, you know, just blown out highlights, then we got our second grade. Like I said, it does look
pretty filmmaker and cooled. But look at the contrast
difference, right? Like, look at the contrast difference between this shot and that shot? I mean, just look at
the contrast difference in like how much detail we
have here and the pro-grade? I mean, look at this right
there, the dot right there. How much information we got
without really losing anything, we're gaining everything
by doing it the pro way. And then, look at another variance of a beginner colorist
trying to recover highlights. What's happening here compared to what's happening to our highlights, and how gentle they are,
and how they're reacting. And this is probably
the smoothest transition in our highlights to shadow
areas, than all of these. Like, I mean, even this one
has a little bit of edging, and we didn't even qualify anything. And then, obviously, this one
is just overly suppressed, it doesn't look right, it's way too flat. I mean, look at this right there to look at that right there? Okay. So, this is the right way to do it, but, you know, we're never done, right? I mean, we're never done at this. Like, I mean, now that
I've gotten to this point, now, I just got the itch to keep enhancing this shot and making it a little bit better. So, I'm gonna create another node, and this is again, just extra curricular, you don't have to do it. Now, let's just make this
shot a little bit better. So, first thing that I'm gonna do, is I'm gonna go under my log wheels again. This time I'm gonna call
this node, "My Skin Node." And what I wanna do is I
wanna go under my log wheels, I'm gonna take my mid tone,
and my focus is my dude. I wanna give him a little bit more life. So, I'm gonna go ahead, and just start pulling that
over a little bit like that. Not too much. I don't wanna exaggerate anything, just wanna add a little bit more life. And what that's doing is a
couple of different things. Look at what it's doing
over here to this light, is giving it that "Joker" thing. It's bringing that in and
making it look really cool. More importantly, look at how
much nicer the blanket looks than this weird yellow? So, it's doing that. Look at her skin? So much more life is coming into her skin. And then look at our dude? Subtle change, but goes a long way, not to mention then it
increases the color contrast between this to that. So, all that is happening with so little, like all we're doing is just this. Okay. So, again, I just
wanna touch it a little bit, I don't wanna do too much so that's all I'm gonna be doing here. And then what we can do, is
just create another node, and we can just go into
our editable splines, and then this could be our pop node. And I'm gonna try to do
this and see if I like it. If I don't like it, I'm
gonna go back. Okay? So, let me see. This is where we were
and this is where we are. I mean, honestly, it's
not the worst change, it's not the best change. I don't wanna go too far with this though. So, I kind of like it. What I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna grab this too, and I wanna open this up a little bit too, because I really wanna open up
the bottom part of my image. So, something like that is
looking pretty good now. Right? So, I just really wanted
to bring my dude up a little bit more. Now, since we have this already created, we can go back in here, and go back into our gain, and just try to bring
it down a little bit, like don't over do it, and
just something like this. So, now, remember what I said? Like, once you make changes, if you have this recovery node up here, that's the beauty of it. We can always go back and make it better. So, like look at it without the recovery note,
how everything is looking? And then, with the recovery node. So much detail is back, and
it's just embedded in our image. And then after that, let's top it off with our grain, because we just, we must. I mean, nothing is ever done,
like I said, without having, some sorta grain. So, I'm gonna throw the 16
millimeter archival on it and it makes it look so nice. Obviously, it would be
impossible to see on YouTube. So, let's just do even archival print, which is really thick. So, if I go, hopefully, you guys
will be able to see it. So, if I pause it here, and do before, and then do after, you should be able to see it hopefully. But this is where we are. And let's do this. I'm gonna come out of here, and I'm gonna kill all of this, and we're gonna start with the top. So, this is what we had, and then we started with
just a rec. 709 LUT. And after that, went
back, did my primaries, went under my log wheels
to keep the contrast up, added some saturation
to just give our image a little bit more pop, went and showed you the right way to recover your highlights, worked on the skin just a
little bit, nothing too drastic. And then, added a pop,
let's call this pop, and then finally added the grain. And that is our final grade. And before we check out the
final look in full screen, if we do one more comparison. And now anybody, if you
guys are going well, this is not fair because you
added more love to this node. Well, the thing is that I
couldn't have added more love to any of these because they
were not set up properly. So, the foundation is the key, and building up your node tree
the right way is everything. And once it was handled properly, and set up the right way from the start, we can do a lot of push and pull, and I'll just go back and
just re-adjust certain things. So, just look at the
big difference, right? I mean, just look at the
colors, and the skin tones, and everything that we have here. Everything pops, nothing is
blown out, and it's all natural. Now, this is just... I can save this as a power
grade, and there you go. This is one of your grades for a project. You can just slap this on when you jump on a new project, and there is no hundreds
of qualifiers going on for skin tones, this and
that, and the other thing, nothing is gonna go out of whack. You can apply this as your base grade, make minor adjustments
and just go from there. So, on that note, let's
check out the final look in full screen.
(gentle music) Now, as you can see how important it is, to build a perfect node tree, and that's why I keep stressing on watching my free training, which will genuinely give you
the foundation that you need to start your color grading career. So, link is in the description
if you're interested, it is absolutely free. On that note, make sure
you smash that like button, subscribe to my channel
for more awesomeness, and I will see you guys in the next video. (upbeat music)
