All language subtitles for davinchi color skin tones

Today I have this skin tones masterclass
for you. I'm going to show you as much

things as I can on skin tones and as
always if you have any questions let me

know in the comments. This video is
sponsored by artlist .io but I'll tell

more about that later on in the video.

By the way, I'm working here in a
DaVinci YRGB color managed timeline.

So that's why you will not see any color
space transform nodes throughout this

video. But all of these techniques, all
of these adjustments, everything I'm

showing you in this video can be used on
a DaVinci YRGB color managed timeline

or in a scene referred timeline where
you use color space transform nodes in

your note tree. You guys already know I
like to get straight to the point. So

let's go ahead and get started.

So I have got this image here and we've
got pretty much every skin tone

represented on it.

and what i want to do is take you
through each range of these skin tones

we take a look at the waveform and at
the vectorscope so the first thing i

to look at is the luminance ranges of
these skin tones and i've got my

set up to show me the luminance channel
and i'm going to turn on the colorizer

this this is where you can expect to
find any skin tone at any point when

grading in the context of primaries once
you get into the look development

section of your color grade you can sort
of abandon these rules or expectations

there's no one -size -fits -all advice
for that because your look development

a creative decision you can make a
tutorial on how to create a specific

you can't really give one piece of
advice that works for all look

that's right so i can tell you okay no
matter what look you're creating your

skin cells need to be this no that
doesn't apply because it's just too

subjective so here we got our lightest
contours right and check out this range

that they exist in I wanted you to look
at these ranges just so that you can

know more or less where these skin tones
sit on the waveform.

You can use your skin tones as a
reference for exposing your shot when

setting your primaries. And if you're
working with fair skin tones, this is

or less a good range to have them at.
These peaks up here represent the

highlights of the skin tone, the
brightest areas of the skin tones, like

forehead, sometimes the cheek, sometimes
like the clavicle here.

And that can sit for fair skin tones.

Somewhere in between 70 and 80 IRE. Some
of the darker areas, places like under

the chin, maybe the sides of the face,
they can sit somewhere between 40 to 50

IRE. Take a look at the next range of
skin tones.

Just to get rid of the hair, just so we
can get a more targeted view at just the

skin tones. Now our luminance range is a
little lower.

And for skin tones that are just
slightly darker, you know, still pretty

skin tones, they can sit somewhere
around here. The specular highlights,

brightest parts of the skin, can sit
somewhere between 70 IRE and 80 IRE,

probably closer to 70 IRE. And then the
lower areas can have a floor of around

30 IRE and can range somewhere between
30 and 40 IRE.

These skin tones here on the left are
slightly lighter than these skin tones

here on the right. And we can see just
that gradual progression down the

waveform. Again, I'm just showing you
guys this so you get more familiar with

these ranges. As we get darker here, I'm
going to turn off the colorize so I can

better see the waveform.

Again, these skin tones here are a
little lighter and then they're

to darker. This subject over here,
brightest parts of his skin is sitting

around 48, 50 IRE.

and then the darkest parts like you know
the chin he does have a bit of a five o

'clock shadow here but these darker
areas will fit somewhere around 15 to 20

and as we get darker and darker you know
darker areas may range again somewhere

between 15 20 re but then the brighter
parts of these skin tones might fit

40 ire and so it's good to see these
differences because what happens a lot

someone may understand oh okay i can use
skin tones to set a good exposure but

then they get like a dark skin tone
let's say like this they'll set a

like this for their primaries they'll
set that range up here and then they

wonder well why is my shot overexposed
so why does this look washed out and

that's because they've probably missed
out on getting to know skin tones on

technical level here we have the darkest
skin tones right and you can see just

where they're sitting right And then
I'll just refine it a little bit.

That's fine there. So this subject over
here, the absolute brightest part of the

skin is sitting at 35 IRE, 34, somewhere
around there. And the darkest part of

his skin is down at around 10, even a
little lower than that. And then, you

know, again, that just ranges. You can
see this gradual darkening here and can

sit, you know, somewhere between 6, 7
IRE to

to like 20 somewhere between 20 and 30
ire getting to know the skin tones on

this technical level is really helpful
and it's a bit of a shortcut to getting

more familiar with skin tones and better
at adjusting skin tones you can spend

endless amounts of time just color
grading skin tones and working on them

working on them and building that
intuitive knowledge but that's going to

lot of time and a lot of practice so now
let's take a look at our skin tones

through the vectorscope i'm going to go
over to the vectorscope skill style

As you can see, these lines here, which
represent the six main vectors, they

sort of fade out, right? And it fades up
into 75 % saturation.

These dark areas here represent like a
global average saturation. This is not

like an exact average, but just more or
less, right? So these darker areas sort

of show you like where you want to be
sitting in terms of saturation.

And you can see that the skin tones
here, the saturation for the skin tones,

every skin tone, doesn't go past that.

area right so it sits somewhere in
between 75 and zero percent saturation

that is the absolute most saturated part
of the skin tones right because the

saturation for let's say um just one
skin tone let's grab a skin tone here

say actually reset this let's just scrub
this skin tone right

just isolate here real quick and we can
see that it's a range right it's not

just one amount of saturation there's
low saturation which is typically the

brightest parts of the skin tone and
also the darker parts of the skin tone

then like the main body of the skin tone
probably the most saturated area that's

what you can see here it's not always
one saturation value it's a range right

this is in terms of primary adjustments
in terms of setting a good foundation

for then later on creating your look
right if you're creating like a a really

bright saturated commercial look like
you might find your skin sounds a little

you know more saturated than this right
it just depends on what type of story or

what type of emotion you're trying to
convey through your color There's a link

to this image in the description of this
video if you're interested in

downloading it and bringing it into
Dimitri Resolve and taking a look at it

yourself. So the second thing I wanted
to go over is node placement.

And this is a common question with a lot
of beginners. The way a basic workflow

for color grading is set up is you'll
have your primaries, you'll have your

secondaries, you'll have your look
section, then you'll have maybe your OFX

section, right?

And then...

if you're working in a scene referred
timeline where you're you know taking

of your color management in your node
tree you may have a cst at the end and

then sometimes you may be working with a
lot and you'll have that after your cst

node this can vary it's not always like
this but this structure represents a lot

of color grading workflows right and
then some colors may have a separate

for everything in their primaries just
let each of these nodes represent

whatever amount of individual nodes you
may have for each of these sections in

your color grade so i place my skin
tones node right after my primaries node

there are two reasons why i do this
number one is after your primaries node

assuming you've done a good job on
setting your white balance you have a

here with a true skin tone going on and
that makes it very easy for you to get a

good mask with your qualifier if you
feel like you need to know once you

adjusting secondary secondaries being
things like power windows or hsl

adjustments it can be easy for you to
muddy up the signal and you know

on your look you definitely will lose
your true skin tone here because that's

when you start to introduce color cast
or split toning and things like that

are going to muddy up your skin tones
and so you won't be able to make a clean

selection downstream so if you keep your
skin tones out here you can avoid all

of that The second reason is a bonus tip
that I'm going to share with you

towards the end of the video. Alright,
so let's go ahead and get into the first

topic, which is skin tones and white
balance.

good white balance generally equals good
skin tones you can adjust the white

balance of your shot using the skin
tones as the reference point and i'm

to show you how to do that with the
temperature and thin controls which are

most basic controls that you can use for
white balance so we're going to use

this right here to see how white balance
and skin tones are related to each

other got here my primaries node and
what i'll do is bring down my exposure

Right as I mentioned earlier when we
were looking at the luminous ranges of

tones I've got here a very fair skin
tone and that's being represented on my

waveform here So I've got the brightest
part of her skin tone

And we can see that these being the
brightest parts of the skin right

we want to focus here on the face on the
shoulders so the brightest parts of her

skin are right here this spot on her
forehead i can use that as a reference

point for setting my exposure and i know
again like i showed you earlier in the

video for fair skin tones the specular
highlights can sit somewhere between 70

and 80 ire so i'm just going to keep
that somewhere around there and i'll

that you know a little bit on the
brighter side So, you know, you don't

really be so conscious of everything,
right? You can use one part of the skin

tone knowing, okay, preferred skin tone,
the brightest part sits somewhere

between 70 and 80 already. Just use that
as the anchor. And you can just trust

that if you're using a macro adjustment,
which you should when you're adjusting

primaries, you can trust that everything
else will just sort of fall into place.

during your primary section you don't
want to get into breaking apart the

you can also use your gain gamma lift
wheels these are pretty wide adjustments

which do affect the entire image but for
example the gain wheel affects mainly

the highlights the gamma wheel affects
mainly the mid zones and the lift wheel

affects mainly the shadows but the lift
wheel does affect a little bit of the

highlights vice versa the gain wheel
does affect a little bit of the shadows

these also work for primaries but if you
can set a good foundation for your

image with just the offset wheel, that's
generally a good practice.

And now if I come over here to my
vectorscope, I'm going to turn on the

indicator line again.

I can see that my skin tones are very
yellow, right? You might have looked at

this and thought, oh, well, the skin
tones look natural. But actually,

little too yellow.

If we were creating a look, then, you
know, maybe we could say subjectively

skin tones are fine.

right if we wanted to create a warm look
but because we're creating primaries

and one of the purposes of adjusting
your primaries is to get good color

separation we want to make sure that our
skin tones are sitting a little closer

to this line so what we can do is come
over to the temperature control because

we can see okay our skin tones are a
little too yellow so let's bring it

blue we'll go too far and bring it back

And you can see already, just with that
small adjustment, we can see this

beautiful color separation, which
separates the subject from the

And once I've done that, I might adjust
my tint.

So there you go. We've adjusted the
primaries of our shot, just focusing on

good exposure and good white balance.

And our skin tones are taken care of
because we use the skin tones as the

for adjusting those primaries. Skin
tones serve as a neutral.

floating around a specific hue and in
the digital world that is this view here

that's what this skin tone indicator
line represents the better your camera

right the more dynamic range your camera
has the better it can capture the the

little intricacies of the hues in the
skin tones if we go back to this image

can see that we have some skin tones
that are a little bit more red and we

some skin tones a little bit more yellow
and actually if we were to grab any of

these skin tones and that's actually
let's grab a rain here

right we can see that the skin tones
aren't completely on that line right we

have slightly reddish deviation and
slightly yellowish deviations so this

tone indicator line serves as a sort of
lighthouse to guide you to let you know

more or less where your skin tones
should be From there, depending on the

you're creating, you decide, okay, these
skin tones could be a little bit more

yellow, maybe a little bit more red. It
also depends on what your client wants.

I've had clients tell me, yeah, I want
the skin tones to sit a little bit more

on the golden side, basically be a
little bit more yellowish. And I've had

clients request that skin tones be a
little bit more reddish. I wanna show

what would happen to this image if I
tried to line up the skin tones exactly

this line, right? So I'll grab this
temperature slider.

And I'll bring it down.

And you can see that if I'm keeping to
these macro adjustments, which affect

entire image, I can't really do that
because the skin tones have this sort of

diagonal range in relation to the skin
tone indicator line. Considering this

image that this is a daylight scene, I
would leave this maybe a little bit

leaning more towards the yellow side.
When you're working with fresh skin

they do generally tend to lean a little
bit more towards yellow.

As I mentioned a little earlier, one of
the reasons and benefits for good

primaries adjustments is getting good
color separation.

This is important because if you want to
use the HSL qualifier to grab a mask of

the skin tones, you're going to need
that color separation to get as clean of

selection as possible.

So just remember that when it comes to
skin tones, good white balance equals

good skin tones.

and you can sort of shoot two birds with
one stone some people think that you

know you set your white balance first
and then you adjust the skin tones no

can take care of both of them with a
good white balance adjustment now let's

over how to get a good selection of the
skin tones using the hsl qualifier and

we're going to do that with this shot
here if you're working with 8 -bit

it's not recommended that you use the
hsl qualifier the hsl qualifier can very

easily reveal artifacts that you have
going on in your image if you're working

with 8 -bit footage that doesn't mean
you can't adjust your skin tones

you just should not use a qualifier
here's how i would go about making a

selection of my skin tone this image
here already has a good white balance

just going to assume that we did a good
primaries adjustment so we'll just

have here are skin tones now. So I make
a selection.

If I select 58, that turns on this
highlight control here. And this is what

generally do. I go down the HSL
qualifier and then I go to the matte

section and then I go back to the HSL
ranges if that matte finesse didn't do

for me. I'll select my skin tones and
then I'll come here to the hue and I'll

bring down the width.

until i remove basically everything that
is not the skin tones and i go as much

as i can and then i'll bring it back and
because i know what i'm going to do

here in the matte finesse i'm
comfortable leaving these little specks

something else i might do is affect the
center and just try and make sure that

I'm just selecting the skin tones,
right? And I might find that in moving

center control here, I'm getting rid of
things like hair or other things and

selecting more of the skin tones. So
generally in the hue range, I'm only

working with the width and the center.

Then I'll go to saturation and I'll go
to the low and I'll bring that up.

Generally, you can't bring it up too
much without affecting the skin tones.

And then I'll come here to the high and
I'll bring it down.

When it comes to skin tones, as you
start to remove the more saturated

you'll find that the areas that start to
get removed are like the inner parts of

this ear here and things also like
around the eyes. So just keep an eye on

parts so that you're not getting rid of
those sections.

After that, I'll come over here to the
luminance and I'll see how far, you

if I'm working with darker skin tones,
I'll make sure that I'm, you know,

getting.

That range in as well.

You might see these sections like the
eyebrows and the eyes being lost That's

fine because I don't want to select
those sections there this section down

is like a little beard that The subject
has going on so I don't mind losing that

at all. And again these little specs
here They're present in the skin tones.

You'll see why I'm fine with them being
there and then I'll just grab this high

and make sure that

I've removed as much as possible be
careful with the high control in the

luminance range because it can be very
easy to deselect the specular parts of

the highlights and not see it right like
if I bring this down a little bit you

can see how the the skin tone here in
the bright parts starts to become gray

it can be easy to mistake that as like
oh that's just the bright part of the

skin tones but then when you go to make
an adjustment

I'll just make this drastic effect here.
You have these sections that you missed

out on the mask and that down the line
can start to create some ugly artifacts.

So just make sure that you're not
missing them in the high slider of the

luminance range.

Also, if you want like a slightly
different view, you can choose the black

white highlight button and you'll be
able to see a black and white selection

your mask. Some people may prefer this
over the other view.

so after i've gone down the hue
saturation luminance ranges i'll go over

matte finesse and this is generally what
i'll do i'll set the post filter to 0

.1 and that applies just a very nice
overall softening and cleanup of the

then i'll come over here to my denoise
and i'll set it to one anywhere from one

to three or five depending on how far or
how close the subject is to the camera

the closer the subject is to the camera
the more denoise i can add and then the

farther it is the less you know that i
can add because the denoise is going to

sort of take away some of the sharpness
and some of the precision of the mask

and i don't want to do too much if the
subject is far away because the mask

might become this blur and whatever
adjustments i'm creating to the skin

might start to see it in areas around
the skin tones after that i'll come up

here to the clean white

and what this is doing is it's taking
the selection you made here and it's

removing the little parts remember those
little sections that were here present

in the in the skin tone actually i'll
turn off the post filter and the denoise

so you can see that a lot better these
little bits here it basically cleans

up and so i'll just bring up the clean
white until those are gone and then the

clean black creates a similar effect but
in everything that you didn't use

And I'll turn on these as well.

And there you go. So four controls.
Pulse filter, denoise, clean white, and

clean black.

You can use the other ones. Do check out
the DaVinci Resolve manual to read more

on what these other controls do in the
matte finish section. You can get a

really good clean selection with just
these four controls.

if i find that these four controls
didn't do it for me and in this case

i'll go back into the hue saturation
luminance sliders and further refine

selection so the hsl qualifier is a
great way to grab the selection of your

tones but you can also use the 3d
qualifier and let's go over how to use

real quickly when i reset the selection
In the 3D qualifier, you also have the

same matte finesse tools that you do in
the HSL qualifier. So you can apply the

same workflow that I showed you earlier
with the 3D qualifier as well. In the 3D

qualifier, you have four modes that you
can use. And they basically behave

differently when you're selecting a
certain tone.

The soft mode provides a nice fall off,
a nice soft edge. And this is the one I

recommend. But you can also use the
other ones if you feel you like the

it gives you. This is flat.

This is tight. Tight is a very strict.

selection whatever hue you select it's
only going to select that hue it's not

going to create a smooth selection but
if the conditions are right you can use

this to be very precise and then go in
and finesse that selection the luma mode

is the same as just using the luminance
slider in the hsl qualifier it's only

going to target specific luminance
ranges For skin tones, I recommend soft,

experiment with the flat and tight modes
to see if you like how they behave.

So for the soft, you can just come in
here and grab the range of the skin

and then use the post filter, denoise,
clean white and clean black adjustments

like I showed you earlier to further
clean that up. And these are the

here that you can use to further refine
the selection.

This button here is the chroma
tolerance.

And if you click and you drag to the
left or the right, it basically expands

contracts the range of the colors that
you selected. This control here is the

chroma softness. So if you click and
drag it, you're changing the sensitivity

similar colors. And it also helps in a
soft selection or a hard cutoff for that

selection. So if you look here at this
square, you can see that you basically

have the color wheel. And so if we move
up this way, we have red. If we move

this way, we have yellow. If we move
this way, we have green, cyan.

blue magenta if you move this to the
left and right you're moving the

this way right and i'll just show you
okay and then the y control does the

thing but it's moving up and down right
because this is the color wheel and it's

the same color wheel which the
vectorscope represents this is the warm

of the color wheel if this is the center
right we've got our skin tone selection

right here to the top left and that
lines up well with what the vectorscope

shows you so this control here is the
angle and what it basically does is it

sort of works like the hue right where
if you grab this view and it rotates

around like that it's creating a similar
movement right but

it's not the hue that's pivoting around
it's the selection if the skin tones

let's say were a little bit more yellow
deviated then you can swing it to the

left skin tones were a little bit more
red deviated and you wanted to select

that you can swing it to the right this
low control here expands or contracts

the darker areas of the skin tone this
area here particularly because we have a

subject here with dark skin tones we can
use that to bring those areas back and

then vice versa this high control here
does the same thing but for the bright

parts of the skin tones the low soft and
the high soft controls basically soften

the selection of the skin tones so these
are the tools that are available for

you to use with the re -qualifier you
might find that it gives you a much

selection in some scenarios than the hsl
qualifier all of the techniques all of

the tips i'm going to give you when
adjusting skin tones in the rest of this

video you can combine with a qualifier
if you need to be very precise and then

if you need to or if you want to take
that selection further you can add a

window selection along with your
qualifier selection if you need that

now let's look at how to adjust the skin
tones using the hsl curves using the

hsl curves is one of the easiest and
simplest ways of adjusting your skin

mathematically it is the smoothest it
can be pretty precise but not always as

precise as combining obviously with the
qualifier The three main curves that you

would use are the hue versus hue, the
hue versus sat, and the hue versus

luminance curve. In the hue versus hue
curve, you would adjust the hue of the

skin tones. In the hue versus sat, you
would adjust the saturation of the skin

tones. And in the hue versus luminance
curve, you would adjust the value or the

brightness of the skin tones. We're
going to go through each one of these

individually. If you don't see this
histogram here in the background of your

curves, you can come up here to the
menu, go to histograms, and turn on

And then that'll show you the hues that
are present.

in the HSL curves and it'll help you to
make more precise selects before I do

that let me adjust this image real quick
here's a quick tip for you if you have

an image like this where you know
naturally the tones are a little muted

you're having a hard time sort of
gauging the white balance obviously your

vectorscope is your best friend it can
guide you in making sure that things are

balanced but if you want to get a better
gauge for it you can boost the

saturation

and then as you're adjusting your white
balance you'll have a better view of

like okay oh this is too magenta this is
too green there you go let's say that's

good okay now bring down my saturation
to a level that i think is good for

primaries and that's good there so now
i'm going to

make my

skin tone adjustments, right? So if
you're working with 8 -bit footage, the

curves are how you generally want to go
about adjusting the skin tones.

In the hue versus hue curve, I can see
all the hues that are now present in my

image. And the HSL curves all come with
these six vector presets.

If you select them, they create anchors,
which you can use to affect the six

main hues. I just want to create an
anchor for all of those hues. And I can

create custom anchors by going anywhere
on the curve and then just adding an

anchor.

come down here let's say i wanted to
select these blues if i just click it's

going to bring down the entire image and
i don't want to do that so hold down

shift and go to the hue that's present
and it'll create an anchor without any

hue rotation applied to it so i just
want to set an anchor for all that and

i've got an anchor for my skin tones
which i can use

to adjust the feel of the skin tones and
i've protected all the other colors in

the shot so i won't be affecting them as
i affect the skin tones not only that

i'm keeping everything flexible you
don't need to be so precise always right

course you can be but you don't need to
be so let's say these are my skin tones

if i come here and make my anchor for
the skin tones you know if i if i go

away and make one selection here and
then let's say you know i brought in

anchor here by the way you can move the
hue that the anchor is targeting here in

the input hue control and that's where i
really like really wanted to target

just the skin you could do that and
obviously if you're working with 10 -bit

footage you'll be able to get away with
it but if you're working with 8 -bit

footage keeping these boundary anchors a
little wide can help you to make the

color change a lot smoother and it might
even give you a little bit more

flexibility when adjusting the skin
tones

And you can see that here, I'm going to
move this really drastically to see

like, okay, I've really restricted the
hues that I'm selecting here. And now

getting like these blotches, these areas
where I am affecting and all these

other areas that I'm not affecting. But
like, let's say I remove these

boundaries, right? And I'll bring this
back out to just protect that yellow.

Now I'm affecting most of the skin tone.
Try and keep it as open as you can.

okay and that'll help you to make
smoother selections something else i

mention here is we can see this area
here that's not being selected what we

see is that this part of the skin tone
is a little yellow so what's happening

here well number one is that maybe our
skin was a little too yellow so we can

come in here and either cool it down or
bring it towards magenta right because

on the color wheel obviously the
opposite of yellow is blue so that takes

away from yellow but magenta also puts
you away from yellow so as you're going

through uh your image little things like
this might point out to you like hey

you need to go back right and fix this
you know maybe it works right maybe the

the subject is somewhere where there's
some yellow being reflected into her

and like okay it's just natural then i
think that's the case here you know the

skin tone just has a little bit of these
like greenish parts because you have

all this green being reflected on your
skin and so that's fine but i just

to mention that real quick so that's it
in terms of making a good selection for

this image i don't feel i need to adjust
the saturation or the luminance but if

you wanted to

you could use these curves exactly for
that and you can come in here and just

the saturation you can lower it all the
way and you can bring it up as well in a

scenario like this where the subject
this or in this case skin tone doesn't

like a similar color around it for
example like here it has this neutral

stone wall can be easy to you know make
the selection a lot more white on a shot

like this where the background is like
skin tone as well this tool might be a

little hard to use so that's the easiest
and simplest way to adjust the skin

tones is by using the hsl curves a
couple tips i want to give you the hue

luminance curve can be very easily start
to create some ugly artifacts so if i

bring down the skin in this case here
you know i'm working with a red uh

so it's not doing you know it's bringing
down the value of my skin tones kind of

nicely but look at what's happening here
to these flowers right i'm bringing

down the luminance

And it's sort of making them a little
ugly. So just be careful. In some shots,

this hue versus luminance curve doesn't
tend to work as nicely as the hue versus

sat curve and the hue versus hue curve.
So just keep that in mind. What I prefer

to do in this case is if I'm combining
the HSL curves with the qualifier, you

can come over here to the saturation
versus saturation curve or the

versus luminance curve.

And you can add density.

what this curve basically does is it
takes the most saturated parts of

you're affecting you know in this case
here let me turn this off right if i

use this curve i'm bringing down the
value or the brightness of the most

saturated parts of the image so if i'm
combining you know the hsl curves with a

qualifier adjustment let's just make a
quick selection here let's get rid of

these screens

and the lips a little bit let's just
keep it very simple you know i'm

the luminance and it's a little bit less
intense than the hue versus luminance

because here you're just taking
everything that is that hue you're just

it down whereas if you come in here
you're only going to bring down the most

saturated parts of the skin tone it's
going to be a great way sometimes you

these hot spots of saturation here like
in the ear or some parts of the skin

like sometimes you have reddish blotches
on the skin this is one way that you

can clean them up so just a couple tips
for you there now let's take a look at

how to affect the skin tones with the
new color slice tool inside of davinci

resolve the color slice tool is great
because davinci resolve has created a

section for skin tones already so you
don't have to worry about making a

selection if you're working with 8 -bit
footage and you can't use the qualifier

you can come in here to the color slice
tool and use the skin tone section i

would say this is the most efficient way
to adjust skin tones because you have

this section that's set up for you so
i'm just going to quickly explain the

controls here in that you'll just
understand how to use this to adjust the

tone so this button here is the
highlight preview button and if you

hold it it'll show you the selection of
the skin tones if you want to hold that

highlight view and see that selection
while you adjust the selection here in

center control you can hold down shift 8
and now you can come into the center

control and make adjustments to that
selection if in your primaries you did a

good job with white balance then you'll
find that the selection that the skin

slice is making automatically will be
much better and if the selection is off

say for example like the white balance
of the shot is pretty fair but let's say

there was like uh like a yellowish maybe
i don't know let's say it was too cool

or something like that

and you come in here to the color slice
tool when you go to grab your selection

or preview it you'll see like oh you
know a lot of my skin tone is not

use that as an indicator that your white
balance is probably a little off here

in the few controls where you adjust the
actual color of the skin tone and we

can see that i'm also affecting other
hues in the shot that are similar to

tone you can combine the color slice
tool with a qualifier or with the power

window to be more specific about the
skin tone so that you're not affecting

other parts of the image Down here, we
have two sliders. This slider here on

left controls the density, and this
slider here on the right controls the

saturation. If we grab this density
control and we bring it up, we can see

we're making the skin tones darker.
We're adding density to the skin tones.

And if we bring it down, we're removing
density, and we're actually adding a

little bit of saturation to the skin
tones.

If you're creating commercial looks and
you want to give a quick pop to your

skin tones, this is a quick way to do
it.

the density control is not only
affecting the value of the skin tones

adjusting the luminance of the more
saturated colors so it's not just taking

skin tones view and bringing it down
First, it's taking the most saturated

of the skin tone and then bringing it
down. After you've brought down the

density slider for that, you know, it's
brightening up the skin tone. So it's

increasing the luminance, but it is
increasing the saturation a little bit.

you can just mitigate that by coming
here to the saturation slider and

it down.

And then the saturation slider is nice
because it's also working in a more

intuitive way and a more aesthetically
pleasing way. It's saturating your skin

tones without them becoming unnaturally
bright. So a good example of that is,

I'll come in here and sneak. quick
selection my skin keep it very simple if

come in here to the primaries palette
and i grab my saturation and i bring

up you can see how like it gets a little
brighter it's very digital right you

can tell like this is unnatural but if i
do that in the skin slice here and i

bring it up

it's not as bright, right? It keeps that
density. Yes, this is way too

oversaturated. The skin tones did not
get that much brighter. And that's how

can use the skin slice inside of the
color slice tool in DaVinci Resolve to

adjust your skin tones.

any of these techniques that i'm showing
you all of these approaches you know

whether you're using the hsl curves
whether you're using the color slice

you decide which tool you want to use
when you're at a part in your color

where you want to adjust the skin tones
you can use any of these tools to go

about it i'm excited to show you this
next way to approach the skin tones it's

great for commercial looks where
sometimes clients ask you for a really

consistent pure skin tone and it's a
great technique to know and that is how

use the color compressor with your skin
tones so i have this shot here which

i'll be using for this technique and
let's go ahead and set up our node tree

real quick in the skin tones node i'm
going to create my selection this is a

technique that you have to combine with
the qualifier so here in the skin tones

node i'm going to grab my selection in
this node here the compressor node is

where i'm going to add my color
compressor and then we'll get to this

going to go into my primaries just make
some basic adjustments

I'm just going to focus here on the skin
tones.

So I'll come in here, bring it down. I'm
going to bring my saturation up.

I'm going to zoom out here.

Bring my saturation up and bring it
back.

And I find that my skin tones are
looking good. If you're in the middle of

primaries, using the display qualifier
focus, having that turned on can really

help you to gauge the white balance as
well.

Use anchor spots like the forehead, the
cheek, parts of the cheek, right?

Because sometimes subjects like females
may have blood.

and that may confuse you you might put
the qualifier over the blush and think

no my skin tones are too red and then
you'll go to compensate that and then

you're just way off right so use uh sort
of more neutral areas of the skin like

the forehead to help you gauge whether
or not you're balanced as you move

through the skin tones you'll find that
the display qualifier focus is sort of

dancing around let me zoom in here so
you can really see the circle as long as

that skin tone indicator line is
splitting that circle in half right it's

down the middle basically it means that
your skin tone is on average on that

line which means your balance in this
case i feel like it's dancing a little

more towards the reddish magenta side so
i'm just going to add a little bit more

green and liking that there okay i might
increase my

contrast control right under the hood of
the

Resolve Color Managed Timeline. My
timeline color space is set to DaVinci

Gamut and middle gray for DaVinci Wide
Gamut is 0 .336 here in the pivot. So I

want for primaries, my contrast to pivot
around middle gray. So I'm going to set

that and just boost my contrast a little
bit.

And that's creating some very nice
separation here in our subject between

hair and the skin tone. And that's going
to come in handy when we go to make our

selection.

And that's good there.

So there you go. Now I've got a balanced
image and I'm ready to make my

selection. So I'm going to come over
here into the HSL qualifier and I'm

to grab my skin tone. I'm going to hit
shift H to see my selection.

And using the same flow I showed you
earlier, we're going to come into the

width.

Put me down all the way.

Because the lips are redder than the
rest of the face, if you've got a good

white balance on, you should find that
the lips are removed first.

but if you are grabbing this width and
bringing it down and removing and you

start to see that parts of the face
start to get removed along with the lips

then come over here to the center and
move around until the

lips are still being removed but the
skin is no longer being removed or much

less so to a greater lesser degree we
can leave that there for now we can

finesse this some more then i'll come
down here to the saturation

Then I'll come over to the Luminance.

Okay, now that I've done that, I've set
like a good foundation for my selection.

I'll come in here.

I'll set the post filter to 0 .1.

I'll increase my denoise.

Put it around 3.

Then I'll grab my clean white.

And I'll clean up my selection.

Then I'll grab my clean black and really
bring that up.

i'm trying to get rid of the lips here i
don't want this compressor effect to

affect lips this is a good instance
where you might find man i'm really

so much time here trying to get rid of
this red two things you can do number

again go back to your white balance to
see if maybe i can remove some red here

or some magenta maybe that's the cause
of being unable to get that clean

selections because your color separation
is off another way to say your color

separation is off is to say your white
balance is off so go back to the skin

if we maybe try and finish that a little
bit more you know we can see okay i can

choose a little bit more of the red
without affecting too much of the skin

if you're having to to work it too much
you might try a different tool

and then come over here to the

picker add tool and then you'll be able
to add to that selection so we'll go

down the sneak and there you go now you
can see that we've got the skin tone and

we're not affecting the the lips right
so that's a good example where the hsl

tool works fine but there might be
another tool that works better for a

shot from here i might just go into my
black a little bit

and then i might want to move away from
yellow a bit

and there you go we've got a good
selection what i might also do here

this scene is sort of calling for it is
I would add a R windows around her

face.

I'm going to keep this just very simple.
Let's pretend that this is nice and

tracked. So now I've got my skin tone
selected and let me show you how this

compressor works now. So I'm going to
open my effects panel here. What the

compressor does is after you set a
target color, and in this case here, I'm

going to select this preset that I have
here.

By default, I think you might find
yourself here in the RGB sliders or the

grayscale sliders. Come up here to this
menu and select HSB sliders. And then in

the context of skin tone, the hue that
you want to set it at is going to be

somewhere between 18 degrees or 25
degrees. And then once you've selected

hue, you can click here and drag and
save that as a preset so that in the

future, you're not having to set those
values every time. So I'll hit OK. And

then now let me show you what's
happening.

If I grab this compressed hue and I
bring it all the way, it takes all the

and it compresses them into that one
hue.

If I go back to the target color and I
affect the hue, if I remove this to

yellow, it would take everything and
compress it towards yellow.

If I were to take everything and
compress it towards cyan, it would do

the entire image.

What you could do is compress all the
way and then come in here to the hue.

You know, you can really be more
specific, right? You can line this up in

middle and say, I want my skin tones to
be right on that line, right?

Or you can go, okay, I want my skin
tones to be slightly red. I want my skin

tones to be slightly yellow, right? You
make that decision based on what your

project needs. For this case here, I'll
just set it to somewhere like in the

middle, maybe slightly a little bit
yellow, right? Up here in the more

parts. And that's, in this case here, 20
degrees.

So I'll hit OK.

And obviously, if you set compress cue
all the way, you're compressing

everything. I'm going to reset this. The
reason I was affecting the entire shot

is because I haven't linked up my mask
to this. So what you want to do is grab

the selection from the skin tones node
and bring it in here.

i like this two node setup you can use
the color compressor in the same node

where you made the selection that's just
going to be up to you what you want to

do so now that i've got this mask here
in this color compressor i'm going to

grab the compress hue control i'm going
to bring it in and if you look at the

vectorscope you can start to see what's
going on right i'm up all the way now my

skin tones are just living on that line
right and depending on that shot it may

look good it may not look good here it
is before and after right and you can

it's just affecting the hue so we have
down here like these slightly yellowish

parts and now they're no longer yellow
they are that true skin color what i do

recommend is setting this somewhere
around 0 .5 0 .6 and that'll bring in

skin tone a lot right if i hit the state
that'll bring in the skin tones a lot

here are the skin tones without this
effect right go somewhere over here with

some bright spots

here are all the skin tones if i bring
this up all the way it's going to be

really strict and again this may or may
not look good depending on the shot i

think a good somewhere in the middle is
a good place to start and then you

decide from there like okay too much or
that's good enough look at that effect

like just nice even skin tone and then
from there if you wanted to you know

affect saturation smooth out saturation
then you can go in and combine different

techniques like that saturation with the
saturation curve that i showed you

earlier when you grab the most saturated
parts and you bring them down and then

that can help to you know take care of
those those problem spots and now look

this nice skin tone that we've got going
on no more of those uh yellow

blotchy parts it's looking very nice so
that's the pro technique if you're

looking for that effect this is how you
do it if you have a client that is

really you know big on skin tones and
the skin tones need to be perfect this

the technique that you want to use now
let's go over skin tones in the context

of look development i want to share with
you guys some tips that you can keep in

mind when you're in the look development
section of your grade and you're having

to keep in mind what's going on with
your skin tones and we're going to use

shot for that and we're also going to
use my kd3 power grade you do not need

power grade for this all these
techniques everything i'm going to

this section you can use with any other
power grade or any node structure that

you have going on as part of your look
development so i've got my power grid

applied i haven't done anything it's
just applying a nice kodak 2383 color

aesthetic and i find actually that this
shot is pretty has a pretty good

white balance going on i mean just
effect

primaries a little bit. I'm going to
bring in some saturation.

Just a tiny bit.

And I might make this look a little
bit... I might introduce some green

Yeah, that's good there. So my KG3 power
grade does have a look lab node.

which is set up as a great workflow for
your look development. What I'm going to

do is I'm going to remove that and I'm
just going to create new look notes,

which I'll use to explain to you the
techniques that we're using.

So in the context of look development,
your skin tones can make or break your

look. You may hear in the color grading
world, you know, if your blacks are not

black or your whites are not white, your
look is going to look terrible. A lot

of the times it's the case, but not
always.

there are many pro colorists who have
just a little bit of color in the blacks

and it looks very beautiful and this is
a creative decision that very

beautifully breaks outside of the
boundaries of these sort of

that people have in their minds and the
skin tones can be thought of the same

way when you're working on primaries
there's good practice to follow but once

you're in the look development section
of your grade you can break outside of

those limits we went over luminance
ranges or skin tones you know your

skin tones don't have to be up here
between 50 and 80 re they can be a

darker right maybe the scene calls for
it maybe the mood of the story what

you're trying to express creatively
calls for it the first thing i want to

about is split toning and here's a good
basic way that you want to go about

creating good split tone which protects
your skin tones and so we are going to

go into our curves palette here and what
you want to do is once you've

established your primaries, right? You
have a good balanced skin tone. You

if you're working with LUTs, you want to
make sure you apply that LUT.

Ideally, you're buying good quality
LUTs. A characteristic of a good quality

is that they protect your skin tones or
they keep them pretty neutral.

And so I am working here in my K83
PowerGrade. There's a Kodak LUT in here.

we're going to do here is we're going to
select one of the main parts of the

skin, which is right here on the
forehead.

And that's going to create an anchor
around which we're going to create our

split toning. So now let's say whatever
look I wanted to create. Let's say I go

into blue.

And I wanted to add yellow to the
highlights to create a more warmer

can do that.

And what that's going to do is it's
going to add that yellow into the scene,

it's going to protect my skin tones.

Let's say, you know, we did something a
little crazier. I don't know. Let's add

some yellow, some cyan.

Let's say we, you know, we take this
off. You know.

this skin tones you know might not look
so good right we we want to add this

cyan to the shot but we want to keep
that color that liveliness in the skin

tones have that split tone pivot around
the skin and that will allow you to add

you know whatever color you want to add
while keeping the look believable and

natural so like let's say we wanted to
do some crazier stuff add some blue here

you know maybe we'll come into the red
and we'll add that cyan

now let's go let's add a little bit of
red to the highlight right if i take

all the way we can see like what we're
affecting and you can also do that to um

to better see your selection right if we
if we bring this down all the way

and likewise we'll bring this up here we
can see okay this is what's going on

with the split tone this is the range
right because we we made the selection

here we're adding whatever you know this
anchor here basically represents this

line here this terminator line in art in
the art world this is called the

terminator line basically it's where the
highlights and the shadows turn into

each other that's basically like where
we're creating the split tone right if

you wanted to you can come down here to
the curve hold down option and slide

this down or up to affect where that
terminator line is

Keep in mind here, we're focused on the
skin tones, right? We're sort of

allowing the intelligence of color, the
math of everything to just sort of land

wherever it lands, but we're focused
here on the skin tones, right? For

if I did this,

let's

say for some reason I'm creating the
split tone based on something in the

background, like I've completely left my
skin tones.

right and and this look might not be
taking care of the skin tones in this

here it's not too bad because the colors
we're adding um you know stay close to

a skin tone but you want to as you're
creating the split tone keep them based

around the subject we want these this
look this color uh separation to

pivot around the skin and that's what we
were doing here by setting the anchor

here which is perfect i want the shadows

of the skin to have this cyan or this
blue or whatever color it is that you're

introducing there and I want these
highlights to have this warm tones or

whatever it is you're introducing there
and if I hit before and after you can

see like we're adding this nice color
what do we got going on here this blue

right you know we've got this yellow and
we've got this

nice triadic color skin going on now
there's another way for you to do that

that is by using the HDR wheels so let's
come over to the HDR wheels we're going

to come over here to the zone graph view
of this palette and then we're going to

turn off black dark we're going to turn
off highlight and specular and we're

just going to be left with light and
shadow so let's go back to the wheels

here on the left this slider allows you
to target the range that this color

wheel is affecting so i'm going to hit
state then i'm going to select the

and then now i can see everything that
i'm affecting yeah these areas here

you can see the image clearly this is
like the area that it's affecting and

area here it's like the fade yeah it
starts to fade out into the areas that

not affecting which is all the areas in
gray so if you remember what i mentioned

about the terminator line and i want to
use this edge as that terminator line

and define like okay here's here's where
my color is going to be applied and

then now i'm going to come over here to
the light and make that same adjustment

and go okay here's where my color in the
highlights this is where it's going to

be applied

Let's go there.

And I'm going to hit Shift H. And now
let's apply a very simple split time.

Let's do some yellow here in the
highlights. And then we'll do some

cyan. Actually, let's do some blue.

Perfect. So I'm adding blue in the
shadows.

I'm adding yellow in the highlights.

And then here in the middle, right, in
that Terminator line, I'm protecting the

skin tones.

Sometimes all it takes is a little bit
of skin tone in the skin to sell that

look. You know, maybe we went a little
crazier here, right?

Maybe we did, you know, some more cyan.

Maybe we really put the skin tone a
little bit more, yeah? But it works.

because we have...

here in the skin even if it's just a
little right and this will just depend

on the scene on the lighting conditions
on the color palette sometimes it's

enough to have just a little bit of true
skin tone present in the skin to sell

the look right and obviously we're here
we're in the lab we're creating the look

you know we know oh we're adding this
color but to someone else they won't see

it they'll just see the beautiful color
of this image and it'll look natural to

them But for us, we're the ones creating
this look. It can be a little harder to

see like, oh, this looks actually
natural because I have a little bit of

tone in here, right? If I move my
qualifier over, right? You can see down

in the vectorscope, we have some true
skin tone here. And in this case, it's

that terminator line that we're using as
a pivot that we're setting with these

sliders here. So keep that in mind.
Allow yourself to be creative. But

if I just bring back in a little bit of
skin tone into this look, I can sell it.

how much though just depends on the look
you're going for another technique when

it comes to skin tones and look
development is to particularly when

like a single color cast adjustment for
example if you want to create like a

simple cyan look

right this doesn't look so bad because
the skin tones are sort of close to the

line but let's say you wanted to make
the skin tones look a little bit more

natural instead of going to your skin
adjustment nodes or whatever your color

decision can be a little bit more
influenced by your desire to protect

tones and you can line up that
adjustment

so that you are actually protecting your
skin tones while adding that color

creating the cyan look is one of the
easy ways to do that we'll do that here

again in the game just add a bunch of
cyan right let's just say this is a look

that the client wants and you go okay
well i know that if i have a true skin

tone and i add cyan that because i'm
going directly towards cyan i know that

skin tone will become slightly yellow
and then desaturated to add cyan to red

like to desaturate red and because skin
tone is close to red it's like you're

sort of doing the same but because skin
tone isn't diametrically opposed to cyan

it's slightly deviated to the left so
what's going to happen is it's going to

become yellow and you can mitigate that
by bringing your skin tone over

to magenta by grabbing the green channel
and bringing that over and now you've

got that look a nice cyan blue look
right and maybe you can even you don't

to go all the way you can keep it a
little bit in that yellow section but

you've got that that cyan look a nice
cyan color cast but your skin tones are

looking good they're looking natural and
it's better selling that cool cyan look

so just keep that in mind if you're
doing like single color cast adjustments

let's say

you're making everything blue what's
going to happen to the skin tone because

the you know skin tones are like an
orange if you add blue they become

red or slightly magenta so what can you
do there you can add some green and

now again you've got a cool look but
your skin tones are looking a little bit

more natural and with cool looks in the
context of skin tones your skin can be a

little bit on the right and you the skin
tones will look natural and that's the

color relativity right the entire image
is mostly leaning towards cool tones so

colors that are warm they look warmer
than they actually are you can get away

with a shot like this or look like this
the skin tone is being deviated slightly

towards red And it'll look natural. As
colorists, you're constantly working

different types of footage and lighting
conditions and different skin tones

because you're being hired to work on
projects. But as a beginner, if you're

starting out as a colorist or you don't
have footage at the moment, you don't

have clients and you don't have a way to
shoot your own stuff, like it can be

hard to develop your skills. And that's
where a site like Artlist really comes

in handy because with Artlist, you have
access to a giant library of both

cinematic and commercial quality.

footage that you also have access to in
its raw and log format for me artlist is

an invaluable tool as a colorist that
you need to have if you want to keep

getting better as a colorist you need to
practice color grading all the

techniques that you learn through
youtube tutorials through online courses

through all that they're irrelevant if
you're not putting them to practice and

building that intuition and that eye for
color grading not only is artlist a

giant library of high quality cinematic
stock footage but you also get things

like high quality music and sound
effects You have visual templates.

even has DaVinci Resolve plugins. And
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and content easier than ever. So if you

want to put yourself on a fast track to
step up your color grading and really

improve your skin tone techniques, you
can get started with two months for free

when you sign up through the link in the
description.

the last thing i want to talk to you
about before i get into the bonus

of this mini master class is skin tone
textures i'm going to show you one quick

way that you can go about cleaning up
skin tone texture and adding like a nice

softer glow and i'm also going to show
you how to

create a nice thought and burn effect
for the skin tones which is great for

things like music videos and commercial
color grades and i'm also going to show

you a way to adjust the skin tone which
is more targeted but not as complex as

the face refinement tool the face
refinement tool in davinci resolve

its own master class so i'm not going to
cover that in this master class so

let's get into it so i've got this shot
here and this is what we're going to use

to go over skin texture so first up i'm
going to fix up my primaries i'm going

to come in here

Boost my exposure.

I'll put the highlights of her skin at
around 65.

I'm going to add some contrast as part
of my primaries.

And then now, again, we have a Caucasian
skin tone here, so more or less

I'll keep her skin at around 75.

Something else I'll do is I'll use the
offset wheel to bring down the

overall white balance a bit and help
create some color separation.

So now we've got a before and after and
we're ready to get to it. When you're

adjusting skin tone texture, you will
need to use a qualifier. So there's my

primaries node. Here I'm going to do my
skin tone selection and here I will

select my texture. And I'll show you the
different techniques here in this

texture node.

So for my skin, I'm going to come in
here and make my selection.

Bring down width all the way and then
I'm gonna go to my low bring it down

Grab my high bring it down as much as I
can and

I'm gonna grab my luminance Then my high

And then now I'll do my matte

finesse settings again, I'll do three
here

gonna clean up my white selection and
then my black selection here

that's good there so now i've got my
skin selection here and i'm going to

put this to my texture node one of the
quickest easiest ways to take care of

your texture is to come in here to the
primary palette or the hdr color wheels

and adjust the midtone detail and just
take that out a little bit and if i hit

before and after it's very subtle and
that's exactly what we want but it

to even out the mid -tones of the skin
right obviously if you go too much it

be way too strong so generally i find
anywhere between 10 and 30 is

good it just depends if the subject is
farther away you'll need to be much more

conservative with this you don't want to
do too much and if the subject is very

close to the shot then you can get away
with adding more of this i'll just keep

that there and we can just see you know
if i zoom in here as it helps to even

out it takes the mid -tones of the skin
tone and it blends them into the

highlights and into the shadows and that
creates just a nice smooth texture

something else that you could do with
that is further adjust the mask right

you can say okay i only want this smooth
effect to be applied to you know the

shadows so you can come in here and make
this smoother maybe

like a three and then only apply that
that softening to like the dark parts of

the skin right maybe you want to save
the bright parts for whatever reason so

you can do that with your mask as well
and that's the quick way to adjust the

skin texture i want to show you how to
use one of the plugins inside of resolve

and that is the

soften and sharpen effect so i'm going
to click and drag that into the texture

node and you would adjust these three
sliders in this order this is the

technique for adjusting skin tones with
this effect you would keep the small

texture at zero sometimes you might find
reducing it to be desirable but i'll

get into that a little bit later from
there you would want to lower the middle

texture until it's too much and then
bring it back and then from there you

adjust the large texture to a value that
is between the value of the small

texture and the value of the middle
texture if you find that adjusting the

amount makes the face look plastic then
go back to the middle texture and adjust

and then try again with the large
texture after you've adjusted the large

texture then you can go back to the
small texture slider and bring back some

natural details of the skin by
increasing it just a tiny bit because if

too much you're going to get very sharp
ugly artifacts in the skin so let's do

that here just after applying we already
have some of that effect and you can

see that you know this is a little bit
too much for this shot it's a little bit

too much much of the time i find that
just applying it like that is and then

just affecting the opacity of this
effect here in the key output or the

blend slider it works pretty well for
many shots but in the context of this

it's not working too well and that's
great because i want to show you how to

approach it so what i would do is reset
these right and now you know this effect

is not being applied and so let's go
with the technique that i mentioned

going to grab our medium texture we're
going to bring it down until it looks

much right so like this would be too
much scrub the middle texture and go all

the way and then bring it back until
you're somewhere natural

and i want to be happy with that again
remember you want to keep the large

texture in between the value of the
small texture and the value of the

texture so we'll just go all the way
there until it's too much

and just bring it back

i'll zoom out again

and

i'm liking that right there That's
looking pretty good. And then from

know if you wanted to bring back some of
the natural texture of the skin You can

come in here to the small texture Right,
typically I find that going past 0 .3

is way too much So just be very thorough
with it and that'll keep things nice

and natural. Obviously if you're doing
something like a music video you can

things a little bit more. So just allow
yourself to be a little bit more liberal

with the medium and texture sliders. But
there you go. This is a very

straightforward way because you've only
got three sliders. With a tool like

this, you have a very simple workflow
for taking care of skin texture if your

client requests it. Once you're working
with a texture node as part of your

color grade, let's say we have another
shot from this scene where the subject

farther away and you go to copy and
paste this texture in there, you're

have to readjust.

these texas sliders because this will be
too much for subjects that are far away

and you're going to get some really ugly
blackness likewise if the subject was

closer you would have to maybe bump this
up a little bit more just keep that in

mind all right i'm going to reset this
and then i'm going to show you a cool

to create a dodge and burn effect for
your skin tones and that is using the

effects

in Resolve. And if you're working with
the free version of Resolve, you have

access to this plugin as well. So we'll
bring this in and then we're going to

grab the sign threshold and bring it all
the way down. And you can see that, you

know, because we've got this mask going
on, we're only affecting the skin tones.

We're going to change this composite
mode to soft light. And then up here in

alpha mask light sources, we're going to
turn that off. And then in alpha limits

effect, we're going to turn that on. And
now the glow is only affecting the skin

tones and it's giving us the effect that
we would like.

So we're going to take down the opacity
and then we're going to boost this up.

And we'll leave it there for now. I want
to show you a couple more things.

If we go over to the select output and
we select glow alone.

Oh, actually, I'll turn on this as well.
Here we can see the glow is being

applied. This light is being applied
over the skin tones and it's creating

pop, right?

If we take the spread and bring it down,
that glow becomes more

precise. right and it starts to consider
the roundness of the face and any

contours that are being created bringing
down the spread can help to create a

more dodge and burn effect right so if i
turn this back off right now the skin

right you can see like the the brighter
parts are being boosted and the darker

parts are not being boosted so much
right and it helps to create that nice

contrast that you get with the dodge and
burn effect with these settings the

spread control turns into like a
contrast control as you decrease it you

more definition as you increase it you
get more of a rounded overall general

brightening of the skin one other thing
that you can do is lower the saturation

if you don't want this dodger burn
effect to affect the colors of your skin

this down all the way that'll just be up
to you what you can also do is take the

the selection a little bit further right
and actually you can fade

in will soften up this lower end a
little bit and then you can remove some

the darker areas.

And then you can clean up the selection
as well. You can fade it more.

And then now you're creating more
contrast because you're not affecting

area. Zoom out. See that nice glow that
the skin gets?

This is a nice effect for things like
music videos and commercial grades.

All right. So I have one more thing that
I want to show you. I've got my power

grade applied real quick. This is like a
very easy standard look going on.

Whoever shot this did a good job of
exposing and doing the white balance. So

don't have much of a adjustment to make.

I also want to keep things very simple
for you. So let's say here in your

node, right? And my power grade follows
a similar workflow where right after the

primary, we have our skin tones node.

And actually there's a compound node
built into my power grade, which comes

different nodes for your skin tones. I
just removed that and just added this to

make things simpler. So here's where I
will have my skin tone selection, right?

Let's call that final. Yeah, let's just
say that's it for the sake of time.

Because here in the signal flow
upstream, we have two skin tones. We're

get a clean mask of those skin tones.

Downstream, you know, we've added,
let's...

And let's increase the saturation

of that.

Let's go a little crazy here, yeah?

Now we've got, you know, this is a nice
look for a music video, right? If you

like this look, this is the tetrachrome
look inside of my power grid. Let's say

for some reason the client, you or your
client or someone goes,

okay i don't i'm kind of not feeling
this green i just want i love everything

else but i just want the skin tones to
be clean this is what you can do you can

set up what i call a post look skin node
i always label it this you can call

this whatever else but it's like a node
after all of your look development and

in this case in the context of my k83
power grid the look lab the film lab and

the film print node if you're not using
my power grid whatever amount of nodes

you're using for part of your look
development you can have this node after

those look development nodes and i'm
going to call it post skin and this is

this node does for you it gives you
access to your skin tones post look

development and so here's how you set it
up in whatever node you selected the

skin tones come over here to the alpha
output

and drag it into the alpha input of the
post skin tone.

And now you have that clean, beautiful
selection of just your skin tones,

Again, for the sake of time, we're
pretending this skin mask is perfect.

have those skin tones isolated after all
your look adjustments, which is

virtually impossible to get once you've
added split toning, once you've added a

color cast, texture, things like that.
Now you have access to that and you can

do things like...

go into the HSL curves, go into the
color slice tool, add a compressor,

global adjustments you need to apply to
your skin tones, you can do that in this

post skin tones node here. And a good
example of that is, let's say, you know,

we wanted to use our compressors
technique, right?

the the client or you or whoever likes
this look but they go okay i'm not

feeling these green highlights here in
the skin i love the green highlights

everywhere else just not in the skin for
whatever reason right or maybe they

want you to tone it down so you come in
here right you set up your your

compressor just like we did before you
bring in that skin tone color and boom

right and you've done all that without
going back here to your skin tones node

and affecting your skin tone which might
then affect everything else that you've

done in your look development in your
secondaries all that stuff and then if

your look lab node or in your look
development section you have things like

qualifiers you're going to affect
everything in there and that can make

everything fall apart so that's why this
node here is a good tool to use and

that's just with the simple use of this
alpha output and input let me know if

you have any questions on any of the
things we covered i've got more videos

this for you in the future i have also
officially started to develop my own

master class if you're interested in
that you can just subscribe to this

and i'll be posting more on that in the
future as always thank you guys for

watching