All language subtitles for 5. Curves part 1 Color Tab Kolder Creative

Okay, so this lesson is all about curves

and the curves tool can be found
right here within Da Vinci.

If we hover over top of it,
we'll see that it says curves.

Now this is our curves graph over here.

And in here we can make
very similar changes to our images.

What we can do within our primary color
wheels over here.

Now, our primary color
wheels are split up into three groups.

We have our lift gamma and gain.

Our shadows are mid tones are highlights,
and then we have the ability

to make overall adjustments
over here with our offset.

And as we learned before,
if we want to make even

more specific adjustments,
we can head over to the log wheels

and kind of isolate our shadows,
mid tones and highlights even more

so that they don't

bleed over into each other so we can make
more specific adjustments in our color.

Wheels are great,
especially because we have

all these additional options up here,
like changing our temperature tint

we could change the color, boost
the saturation, even our hue.

We have a lot of functionality within here
and we can access all of these controls

very quickly and easily.

Now when I compare the curves to the color
wheels, curves stand out to me

because they allow us
to make much more precise adjustments

to any specific luminance of our image
or even hue or saturation of our image

in a very specific way that doesn't affect
other parts of our image.

This is also a different way

for us to view the changes
that we're making in our image.

To me,
I really like the visual of the curves

graph a lot more than the log wheels.

So I do find myself

using curves a lot of the time, especially
for any kind of contrast adjustments.

A lot of the time I'll use my log wheels
for primary adjustments.

So changing things like temperature, tint,
making sure skin tones look good.

But then when it comes to contrast,
I do like to jump over to the curves

and play around with them here.

And another thing to mention is the curves
graph is not only

to affect our contrast of our image,
we can also affect individual

red, green and blue values
within the highlights shadows Midtown's.

It's a very powerful tool

and we can make very custom grades
just with this graph over here.

And there's a bunch of other types
of curves, graphs within the curves

palette as well,
and we can access all of those

by pressing these little icons over here.

We'll be diving
into each of these later on.

So let's take a look at our curves
graph over here

and just get an understanding
of what's going on.

So first of all, I want you guys
to understand that the left

part of the curves graph represents
the darkest parts of our image,

and the right part represents
the brightest parts of our image.

So as we can see,

there's a line that goes directly
through the middle of our graph over here.

Now, the bottom left corner
represents the black point.

That's the darkest parts
of our entire image.

The top right represents the white point.

This is the brightest parts
of our entire image.

By moving these two points on our graph,
we can change the contrast of our image

by manipulating the darkest
and brightest points of the image.

So if I grab this bottom point over here
and I raise it up, what's happening?

We could see that we are bringing up
the darkest parts of our image.

We are raising the luminance
of our shadows.

So those blacks that used to be pure
black are no longer black,

and we are starting to get
this washed out.

Look, now, if I take this point,
I bring it all the way up.

We can see that
we are losing a lot of that contrast

because we are no longer
allowing for those black values

to be below this point here,
which obviously does not look good.

But this is just important
for us to understand how this works.

Now, if I bring this point over here

to the right,
let's take a look at what's happening.

We can see that we are crushing our blacks
and our blacks are getting even darker.

Now. Why would that be?

Well, the reason for this

is because we are increasing
the incline of this line over here.

What we need to understand

is that the incline of this line over here
determines the contrast of our image.

So let's say this line goes
straight up and down.

What's going to happen?

Well, our image is going to

look like this and it's just as contrasted
as it can possibly be.

So at this stage, it's
just a straight line.

We literally just have white and black.

It is contrasted as it can possibly be.

Well, what's the opposite of this?

Let's bring this so that it's straight,

so that it runs across straight
across our graph over here.

And what do we have here?

This is called a flat line.

And what we are
seeing here is just pure grays.

So this is as minimal contrast
as we can possibly have in our image.

There's no contrast.

So we pretty much don't
really see anything.

So it's the incline,

it's the slope of the line that determines
the actual contrast of our image.

So let's reset this by pressing the reset
button in the top right over here.

Now, in this area,
we don't just work with these two points

over here at the top and bottom.

We can add points anywhere along this line
and move those points.

So let's add a point over here
and we can bring it up.

So what we've done over here is we've
selected the brighter parts of our image.

We're not moving the brightest,
brightest parts of our image.

That would be this point up here.

We've kind of selected a point
that's above our mid tones are mid

tones would be here in the middle.

So we're moving the brighter parts
and making them a bit brighter.

If we wanted to make them darker,
we can grab that same point

and bring them down like that

and we can see that we are primarily
affecting that one luminance region

within our image,
which is closer to our highlights.

So we are affecting our highlights
by doing this over here.

And what we can do now is create
another point down here

to affect our shadows, our darker parts
of our image, and we can bring this down.

So we're kind of crunching the shadows,
making them darker.

And by creating this S-curve, we have
increased the contrast of our image.

We've made our darks darker
and we've made our brights brighter.

So this is typically the way that most
people use the custom curves over here.

And this is a great way for you to make
very specific contrast adjustments.

Now, you don't have to work with
just two points.

You can easily add another point
as many points as you want.

So let's say
we like the look of our image over here,

but let's say we want to crush
just the blacks even more.

So what we can do is grab this point down
here, bring it over to the right,

and we can very precisely
make the shadows a lot darker.

Now, that's too dark, in my opinion,
but we can make those adjustments

just like that
to very specific parts of our image.

Let's say we wanted to make those shadows
even brighter.

We can do that as well.

Now, take note
that when I am changing this point down

here, the point next to
it is staying in its place.

So we are modifying the line
between these two points.

We can see how that line does change

and we are changing the way that
the line moves after this point as well.

You can see that we are affecting the line
past this point as well

by moving this point down here,
but not as abruptly over here.

We're kind of really making big changes
and then everything pass.

This point
kind of slows down, doesn't move as much.

So we can add points to hold values

as well on here
so we can use them like placeholder years.

So if we want a certain part of our image
to stay the same,

we can add a point there and treat it
like a placeholder so that it won't move.

And that will allow us to make
more precise changes to the other points

without worrying about affecting
the rest of the line over here.

Now I'm just going to reset this.

So that's generally how people use

the custom curves over here
as they create those curves.

Now we can see behind this line
we have a histogram over here

and the histogram just tells us
information about our image over here.

Now we can see when we make a change

to our line over here,
the histogram is in updating.

Now the scopes over here to the right,
they are updating

as I'm making these changes,
but the histogram back here isn't.

That's because it's just showing us
our input.

It's just showing us
what the original image was before

we've made any changes
and we can actually change that

to update in real time by going to
these three dots over here in the top,

right, going to histogram
and changing it from input to output.

This way when I make any changes
to my line over here, we can see that

that histogram back
there is updating in real time,

which can be useful in some situations.

Another important thing to note is
we can very quickly delete points

anywhere on our line over here by right
clicking on them.

So we can left click and drag

to move them around,
right click to delete them very quickly.

So in this situation
the shadows are almost clipping.

And what if I wanted to
just bring those down so that they weren't

as intense?

Well, what I could do is create a point
right here on the line

and treat it as like a placeholder.

And what I could do is grab that
bottom point, bring it up,

and we can see

how the histogram behind me
updates in real time.

And I've successfully been able to move
that line further away from the left side

over here without affecting
the rest of my image too much.

Now I can go in here and make my general
curve play around with it a bit,

but now I'm not as worried about my blocks
being too far.

Over here on the left of the histogram.

I've moved them over to the right a bit,
so I'm gonna reset this

and I want to show you guys how we can
manipulate our individual red, green

and blue channels
within our custom curves over here.

So over here to the right
we can see we have white rugby.

When we have white selected, we're
basically making changes to everything.

It's like an overall change
if we select R over here,

which is our red values,
we can make specific changes

to our red values
anywhere within our image.

If we're looking at our scopes
over here to the right,

we can see that our red values are much
lower than our green and blue values.

And that's pretty obvious
because we're underwater.

It makes sense.

There's not as much red data down here.

We don't have red light down
here. It's very blue, very green.

So what we can do in this case,
if we want to level these out, is

we can bring up the reds in the shadows
over here and kind of line

things up within our scopes.

Now, in this situation,
just because our reds are lower

than the greens and blues
doesn't mean we need to even them out.

But if we wanted to,
we can do that over here

and we could see
if we're watching our scopes,

we could see that now

we kind of have

a more of an even playing field
with our red, green and blue values.

Now I am primarily
focusing on the shadows here,

but what if I move this point up and down?

Well, take note on what's happening
within this red area here in the scopes.

If I move this to the left
over here, notice

how that red channel is changing.

We're kind of moving through

what area is getting stretched out.

So it doesn't matter
if this point is up here or down here.

The overall height of the red spectrum
here stays the same.

I'm just manipulating
the actual different parts

of the red channel here.

Now, in this situation, it doesn't really
make sense to add any red to our image.

We're underwater.

I'm totally happy

with the greens and blues taking over
and not much red coming through.

That's totally fine in this situation.

I'm going to right
click on this dot to reset it.

And of course, we can do

the same thing with Green
and we can do the same thing with blue.

We can change all of these values.

Now, one thing to keep in mind with color
theory is with reds.

When we are increasing the reds,
if we do the opposite of increased reds,

we are actually increasing the cyan.

So by bringing it down,
we're increasing our cyan values.

But with green,

if we're increasing green, we're obviously
increasing the green levels.

But if we bring it down,
we are increasing the magenta levels.

So we're kind of doing the opposite
of bringing in green.

We are taking out green
and making things more magenta, which is

the opposite of green and for blue,
the opposite of blue is yellow.

So when we bring in blue,
we're obviously adding more blue in.

When we're taking blue out,
we are making our image more yellow.

I'm going to bring this back to Y over
here.

Now, over here to the top left,
we can see that we have this thing here.

Now, what does this do?

Well, basically,
this allows us to set our overall range.

So if I bring this down, we can see that
we are highly limiting

the area of which
we can make these contrast changes in.

We are darkening the brighter values
and we are brightening the darker values

by doing this.

And this isn't something I personally do,
but just know that this is a tool

that we can access
right here in the top left.

It basically just limits the range
that we can work with here in the curves.

Now, with custom curves

selected, if I go over my preview window,
you could see that we have an eyedropper.

Now, why would we have an eyedropper?

Well, we can use this eyedropper

to select very specific points
on our line over here.

So let's say I wanted to make changes to,

you know, only the parts of my image
that are this luminance over here.

Well, what I could do
is click on this area with the eyedropper.

And what happens in our graph over here,
we are presented with some points

and it's created points for our Y, r, g,
and B, now we can't see the red.

If we go over to red,
we'll be able to see it.

It didn't create one for red
because there is no red in that area.

So now I know that
this point is for this area over here.

So if I wanted to make
a very specific change to just that area,

what I could do is create placeholders
next to this. Right.

So I'll create one over here.

I'll create one over here
so that we're not moving the entire line.

And now I can make a very specific change
to just this one range within my image.

So if I want it to darken it,
I can darken it.

If I wanted to brighten it,
I can brighten it.

Now here we can see
we're getting a ton of artifacting

and that's because this is eight bit
phone footage.

This is not the best type of footage
to do this kind of specific color

grading with
because there's not as much information.

Something like Red or A7'S
even would have a lot more information

for us to work with.
But right now that's not important.

What's important is for you to understand
that you can use the eyedropper to select

very specific parts of our image
and have that area shown to us on the line

over here
so that we can make specific changes

to just that one area.
We can also make changes

to the green values
and blue values in this area as well.

But we would have to create

those same kind of placeholders
on each one of these lines as well.

So that's all cool.

I'm just going to reset this now
and go back to the Y over here.

Now we can see we have some sliders over
here to the right personally straight up.

I don't use any of this stuff over here.

You can use it if you want.

Basically what
these sliders allow us to do is change

the intense ity of the changes
that we've made in our graph over here.

I kind of like to think of this
as like opacity almost.

So let's say we're making an ass
curve over here.

Okay,
so with this point selected over here,

I can now decrease
the intensity of that point.

And I don't know
if intensity is the right word to use,

if it's like the technically right term,
but that's kind of how I see this.

And once you bring it to 50,
then we're basically bringing it

to 50 is basically like zero.

Once we go below 50,
it starts to do the opposite effect.

So in this case, we should be adding
lots of contrast.

But by bringing it down below 50,
we can see that we are now

doing the opposite.

We are subtracting contrast from our image
and that's what's giving us

this really weird
like grayish effect over here.

So these sliders are available to us
to play around with and feel free to do.

So I just think it's not the best
because then this line over here,

you can't like really use this line
anymore to get an exact visual

representation of what's happening
because you're making a modification here

which does update the histogram
in the background

and we can always view our scopes,
but then this line, it kind of like

doesn't make sense
because now we're decreasing the intensity

of what we've done in the line,
but the line isn't updating itself.

So in my workflow I don't really use
these sliders, but feel free to do so.

Feel free to experiment.

Get crazy in here, find out what works
best for you and stick with that.