Hello, everybody. This is part 4 of DaVinci Resolve tuts and today we are talking about Curves and finally starting to work with secondary color grades.

In DaVinci we have the basic custom curves that we know from Photoshop, AE etc. We also have soft curves where we can soften our high or low point and bring back the over ranged levels or use the clipping sliders to limit our range and make some stylish clipping looks if you like that.

Then we have our Hue vs Hue, Hue vs Sat, and Lum vs Sat. They all let you choose a specific range of the color palette and change it in a specific way. By using Hue vs Hue, you are changing the specified color into another one from the Hue. In Hue vs Sat, you are saturating the specified color. In Lum vs Sat you are saturating a portion in your highlight-midlevel-shadows.

As we begin with the Secondary Color Grades, we’ll see what the qualifier does and how to specify a color range and change it.

The Secondary Color Grade is the color grade for a specific part of your shot; Color, Object, Color Palette… You could make your entire color grade with secondaries, but you will end up with dozens nodes inside Davinci. My suggestion: Make first good primary balance – color grade, then if something is wrong or something feels like too much, make a secondary grade at that point.

Tutorial