Not being happy with the native tools like “Color Warper” and “Hue vs Hue”, I developed a tool to shift and manipulate colors in a broad way. I was very inspired by FilmLight’s Baselight “Hue Shift” tool, where you have the option of first shifting hues into neighborly colors and then, in a second step, adding more saturation, changing the brightness or desaturating a specific hue value. It focuses exclusively on 6 main colors and is therefore very reduced and clearly designed. Here is an interesting video about the “Hue Shift” tool in Baselight. Other inspirations were “Capture One” and “Photoshop”.

I built this DCTL package called “COLOR SHIFT” to create different looks in a broad way by adjusting the main colors red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow.

HUE SHIFT

Shifts hue values to neighboring colors.

VIBRANCE

“Vibrance” increases the intensity of muted colors, leaving saturated colors alone so that clipping is minimized.

DENSITY

“Density” will lower the luminance while slightly increasing saturation in a subtractive way.

DEEP

Adds more density to the colors in the shadow area, while leaving mid-tones and highlights more untouched.

DESAT

Desaturate selected color values.

On the left we have the original image. In the middle, we use “Hue vs Hue” curves to shift the blue more towards cyan. But instead of cyan, the blue color becomes greenish. As you can clearly see on the wall. In the image on the right, I’m applying the DCTL, which shifts blue more linearly toward cyan, resulting in a more pleasing result.

“Vibrance” increases the intensity of muted colors and leaves saturated colors alone, minimizing clipping. Compared to the “density”, the colors are hardly darkened. Darkening is performed only to prevent color clipping. Here are some examples.

“Density” reduces luminance, while saturation is subtractively increased to avoid greyish colors. This results in “film style colors” where colors appear deep and saturated. The results are very similar to the PowerGrade methods available in my “Film Emulation” package. The advantage of this DCTL is that we can apply density and intensity individually for red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Directed by Wes Anderson
© Focus Features

Anima (2019)
Directed by P. T. Anderson
© released for Netflix

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) by Eliza Hittman / © Universal Pictures

Buffalo ’66 (1998)
Directed by Vincent Gallo
© Lions Gate Films

Her (2013)
Directed by Spike Jonze
© Warner Bros. Pictures

“Deep” DCTL adds more density to the colors in the shadow area, while leaving mid-tones and highlights more untouched.

In this example I demonstrate the differences between the “Vibrance”, “Density” and “Deep” look. “Density” compresses the colors more evenly, resulting in less color contrast, while the “Deep” look gives us more color density in the shadow area, leaving midtones and brightest areas more untouched, resulting in an image with a higher contrast and very nice depth rich colors in the shadows.

VIBRANCE

The “Vibrance” sliders allow us to add more saturation to our image, leaving saturated colors alone so that clipping is minimized.

DENSITY

“Density” will lower the luminance while slightly increasing saturation in a subtractive way. This leads to “film like colors”.

DEEP

The “Deep” sliders add density to the color in the “Shadow” area and affect the lightest part of the image less. This results in a slightly higher contrast image than the results obtained with the Density sliders.

As I wrote in the beginning, the main inspiration came from Filmlight’s Baselight tool, where we have the possibility to make adjustments in a very broad way. With this tool I wanted to create something similar, so that we can make adjustments in a wide range with a focus on 6 main colors. First, we can move a specific color to neighboring colors, and in the second step, we can decide whether we want to increase or decrease the vibrancy or add more density to a color.

Use “Hue Shift” to create an overall look. Decide if you want to shift your greens more towards yellow or more towards cyan. The blue more towards magenta or more towards cyan.

The DCTLs are designed for “DWG / DaVinci Wide Gamut” color space. Input and Output is DWG. You can work in a CST-color managed workflow. You can find more information on the topic in my blog post about color management. The DCTL also works in LogC and other large color spaces, which leads to slightly different results.

The pack comes with “PDF user guides” for installing the package. It also includes some tips on how to use the DCTLs and how to set up the node tree.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/r1jWbMqwCwg
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/787062778

COLOR SHIFT

DEMO VERSION

Test the DCTLs before purchasing the “full version”. The “demo version” will have a watermark – You can still see the color transformation and get a feel for the sliders. Make sure you are working in DWG color space, not Rec709. It also includes a 10,- euro discount code for upgrading to the FULL VERSION.

COLOR SHIFT

FULL VERSION

One-time payment.
No subscription.
Free updates.
Format: Encrypted DCTL

“Color Shift” works with PC, Mac, Linux.
You will need the STUDIO VERSION.
DCTLs are only supported in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
Version 17 or 18.

Minimum Requirement:
CPU: Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 7
RAM: 16 GB
GPU: 4 GB VRAM

Recommended Requirement:
CPU: Intel Core i9 or AMD Ryzen 9
RAM: 32 GB
GPU: 8 GB+ VRAM