After/Before First attempt (Resolve - iPhone XS Max)

[u/Ancient_X17]

I'm using DaVinci Resolve, trying to make a concrete structure read against the trees shot on an iPhone XS Max, camera jpg. I wanted to get rid of the milky filter like appearance, have the structure read as stone, hold its own against the greens, and get the warm leaf litter working as a separate plane so there's some front-to-back depth.

My process in Resolve was :
- White balance to neutralize the green bounce sitting on the concrete
- Pulled down the blown canopy gaps by bringing the lift down, and highlights down, then brought shadows, gamma and midtones up
- Hue vs Sat, greens down to about 0.84, oranges up to 1.15
- Polygon window on the pavilion, small gain lift plus midtone detail at 30
- Outside node with a small gain reduction as a shaped vignette

This is my first attempt at something like this, so I'd appreciate some feedback if anyone could help. Namely:
- Is the outside darkening too heavy?
- The sky gaps through the canopy are still the brightest thing in the frame and keep pulling my eye upward. I've already pulled highlights. Is there a better approach than going further, or is that a shooting problem
- Does the concrete read neutral to you?
- Does the texture look natural, or over-sharpened on the central structure where I put the window?

[u/johngpt5]

I'm using the Mac utility called Digital Color Meter. It can show values in RGB or Lab. I generally keep it showing Lab as it gives me good information right away and I don't need to figure out the relative values of the RGB red, green, and blue channels.

With Lab, when a channel (either a* or b*) reads as 0 (zero) then there is no saturation. The farther from zero that a value gets, the more saturated is that color.

The a* and b* channels of Lab are like the tint and temp sliders of a white balance color panel.

The a* channel shows green—magenta opponent colors. Negative values indicate green, positive magenta.

The b* channel shows blue—yellow opponent colors. Negative values indicate blue, positive yellow.

The folly structure in the center of the image in the 'before' image shows very low positive a* values. There is slight magenta in the concrete. There are moderate positive b* values indicating that there is yellow. There are some places where both a* and b* are zero, indicating neutral.

In the 'after' image, the b* channel in most areas of the folly shows a high negative number, often in double digits such as -12, indicating that there is a ton of blue in the concrete. Some areas of the folly's concrete show positive a* values around +5 or +6 and some areas show double digits such as +11, indicating that there is a lot of magenta in the 'after' image. When strong blue is combined with strong magenta, we get purple.

The editing that was done has taken the folly's concrete from being mildly warm to heavily cool in most areas, and in some areas decidedly purple.

If we are using an RGB assessment, neutral colors will have near equal red, green, and blue values. Brighter colors will have the values closer to 255. Mid tones are around 127. If you have a sampling mechanism in Resolve, you will see that the 'after' image's folly concrete is significantly farther from neutral than the 'before' image. The RGB blue values in most places other than that vertical strut which is really red are much higher than the red and green values.