{"id":43091,"date":"2014-07-16T11:55:59","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T15:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/?p=43091"},"modified":"2016-09-13T15:11:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T20:11:00","slug":"video-tutorial-using-chroma-dark-in-davinci-resolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/video-tutorial-using-chroma-dark-in-davinci-resolve\/","title":{"rendered":"Video Tutorial: Using Chroma Dark in DaVinci Resolve"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s one DaVinci Resolve feature that I keep in my back pocket for dealing with footage with messy blacks. In this video tutorial learn Chroma Dark!<\/h2>\n

\"Chroma<\/p>\n

There are a lot of hidden features in DaVinci Resolve<\/strong>, and some that are downright confusing. The average Resolve user may have little use for \u201cPrinter Lights Hotkeys,\u201d the \u201ceasyDCP\u201d tab, or the Resolve Live features. However, there\u2019s one feature called Chroma Dark<\/strong> that I keep in my back pocket for dealing with footage with messy blacks, often found in the blue channel.<\/p>\n

Chroma Dark is a preset in DaVinci Resolve<\/strong>, but it\u2019s different from the presets found in the Gallery page. This preset serves to modify part of the image as opposed to applying a stylized grade to an entire shot. Think of it as a node, not a look.<\/strong> To see what it does, go ahead and perform a primary correction on your shot, and create a new Serial Node. Assuming you\u2019re in the Color page, Chroma Dark is under the Color menu, then under Presets, and then \u201cPreset – Chroma Dark.\u201d This applies to both Resolve version 10 and 11.<\/p>\n

Chances are you won\u2019t like what the resulting image looks like, and that\u2019s fine…in fact it\u2019s normal. Good practice dictates we should always tweak a shot after we apply a general preset. You can see what Chroma Dark does at the middle bottom of the screen inside the Qualifier tab. The preset pulls a luminance key on the bottom half of the image, and desaturates that bottom half completely. For Chroma Light, this effect is essentially reversed, although the cutoff point for the luminance is a little different. The effect is simple, but we also only want it to do one thing: control that volatile, noisy blue channel. The saturation at zero is not going to help in most contexts, but it allows us to analyze what the effect is doing.<\/p>\n

The blue channel has always been the weakest of the three color channels, based on the way camera sensors are constructed and capture imagery data. This is part of the reason why professionals shoot using greenscreen more than bluescreen. Check out the video tutorial below for a demonstration of the preset at work. I use a clip from Gramatik<\/a>\u2019s music video for \u201cSolidified\u201d which you can enjoy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n