Rapid Resolve - Introduction to the Primaries Palette

DaVinci Resolve is the gold standard for color grading and correction. Those are two different things. Correction is when you fix a color problem in an image. Grading is when you are going for a specific look and feel.

The Primaries palette is where you do your basic color adjustments that are the foundation for the rest of your work. You want to do as many of the corrections in the Primaries before moving to secondary color correction/grading.

Note that, in this video, I do not use the scopes. Scopes are fundamental tools to help in color. Make sure that you use them because our eyes can fool us.

Primaries Palette Modes:

1. Wheels. The default mode in Resolve. The Wheels are broken down to YRGB (Lift, Gamma and Gain). Lift, Gamma and Gain correspond to Shadows, Midtones and Highlights if you are coming from another NLE such as Final Cut Pro. You can control each of these areas independently, but there is overlap. Colorists will recommend that you adjust Lift or Gain first, then adjust the Gamma.

Offset adjusts the entire image at one time. For example, if the entire image is too dark, you can adjust that here. It’s like an elevator. Everything goes up/down at one time.

The dot in the center of each of the Color Balance Controls can be moved. If you want to add a color, move the dot toward that color. To remove a color, move the dot the other way. Careful. A little movement goes a long way.

You can reset any of the changes that you make by clicking on the hooked arrow that corresponds to that change.

Directly below the Color Balance controls are numeric parameters that let you drag them to adjust, or type a specific number directly into the field.

The Master Wheels are located below the numeric parameter controls. You can drag to the left/right to adjust the tone of that region.

2. Bars. You can do all of the same things in the Bars but the interface is different. With Bars, the values are adjusted using vertical sliders.

3. Log. Log mode adjusts the values linearly. This is designed for use when working with log footage.

What method do you use? It is going to be up to your workflow and what you are needing to adjust.