Color 1 - Correction Foundations: Nodes and Scopes, Seven Principles, Three Ways to Correct Log, the 2025 D-Log M Rule and the Color Space Transform, Brightness and White Balance, Masks, Outside Nodes, Keying, and Creative LUTs at Reduced Gain

Right-click > Add Node > Serial (after) or Serial Before; Alt/Option+S and Shift+S; Ctrl/Cmd+D toggles a node, Shift+D toggles the whole grade. Reasons for many nodes: control order, reuse a tool twice (Curves for brightness, Curves again for contrast), mask per node. Order rules: badly-off brightness and extreme white balance go on a node BEFORE the log correction; mild fixes can go after. A typical chain - log correction → one or two masked nodes (sky/ground) → contrast → LUT node(s), sometimes several LUTs at low strength. Everything you might need to recover happens before the LUT, because a LUT's clipping is destructive to later nodes. The tour also covers the Color page: viewer, timeline/clips, node panel, Open FX, Lightbox, the tool row (Camera Raw, Color Match, Primaries, HDR wheels, RGB Mixer, Motion Effects, Curves, Color Warper, Qualifier, Power Windows, Tracker, Magic Mask, Blur, Key, Sizing, Keyframes, Scopes) and the Gallery for stills and PowerGrades. Mac fix: Preferences > General > Use Mac Display Color Profiles for Viewers; Project Settings > Color Management > Timeline Rec.709 Gamma 2.2, Output Rec.709-A; save as a preset and 'Save As User Default Configuration.'

Bottom-right panel, type from the dropdown. Histogram: dark left, light right, height = amount, RGB mode available. Parade: R, G, B side by side, and unlike the histogram it keeps left-to-right image position. Waveform: the parade superimposed - brightness, position, clipping and a rough read of colour balance in one view; whichever channel rides on top is the cast (lots of green on top, a green shot). Vectorscope: hue and saturation only, centre = zero saturation; turn on 2x zoom; hue targets and a skin-tone line. For log correction the target is a waveform that nearly touches bottom and top without crossing either edge; for white balance, R, G and B lining up on neutrals.

1 Contrast without losing dynamic range - expand the midtones, don't clip the ends. 2 Use masks - sky vs ground or a subject; 'one of my biggest secrets... about 80 % of my drone shots.' 3 The right saturation - viewers like more, up to a point; targeted boosts (LUTs, HSL) beat global. 4 Cinematic over accurate - grade for the feeling, except real estate. 5 Colour contrast - complementary pairs, orange and teal; warm warmer, cool cooler. 6 Layer - 2-6+ nodes rather than one move. 7 Focus on the subject - let a background river blow out to keep the subject's detail.

Goal: 'expand the tones in our image from being compressed into a small range to using the full range.' Method 1 (his default): raise Contrast in Primaries, then Shadows up and Highlights down to recover detail - the slider adds saturation for free. Method 2: Curves - a point near the top pulled up, one near the bottom pulled down, starting about a quarter in from each end; pulling the endpoints is 'too harsh.' Method 3: Lift down, Gain up, then Highlights/Shadows sliders - least control. Curves and wheels need saturation added back; the slider doesn't. Ctrl/Cmd+D to compare. A one-click Flying Filmmaker log-correction PowerGrade 'works on most flavors of log.' Brightness in general: a midpoint on the curve (least clipping risk) or the Gamma wheel (needs contrast after). White balance: Temperature and Tint sliders, the eyedropper on a neutral, extreme cases on a node before the log node, residual highlight casts with the Log wheels' Highlights (narrower than the standard wheel), checked on the waveform.

What a LUT is: a look-up table remapping input values to output; technical LUTs convert colour spaces (log → Rec.709), creative LUTs impose a look. Resolve ships LUTs for many cameras but not DJI - download from the drone's product page > Downloads. LUTs are fast but destructive: clipped values can't be recovered on a later node, so put fixes before it; strength via Key panel > Key Output > Gain, which also scales anything else on that node. D-Log M (Mini 4 Pro, Mini 5 Pro, Air 3, Air 3S, Flip, Avata): apply DJI's D-Log M LUT first - he now finds it 'really very mild' and the per-drone versions 'basically interchangeable' ('is not going to ruin your footage') - then Curves: a highlight point up, a shadow point down, midtones to taste; clipping handled with Highlights/Shadows, masks or the qualifier; then saturation and creative work. True D-Log (Mavic 3, Mavic 4 Pro): Effects > Color Space Transform (ResolveFX Color) on the first node, Input Gamma = DJI D-Log, outputs at default - 'entirely non-destructive', highlights recoverable; still needs contrast after; save it as a PowerGrade (clip with only the CST, Gallery album, Grab Still, name it 'DJI D-Log CST').

Power Window types: Linear, Circle, Polygon, Curves, Gradient. For drones: Gradient (flat horizon, default softness 2, more for trees), Curves (hilly horizon - click points along it, close the shape), Circle (a subject). New node > Window > type; Shift+H shows the selection. Tracker panel, mask-tracking tab, track forward (and reverse if you started mid-clip); if automatic tracking fails, the point tracker with ~3 points on detailed areas. Invert for the ground: Ctrl/Cmd+C the node, paste onto a new one, reset the colour, click the invert icon - or the faster way: right-click > Add Node > Add Outside (Alt/Option+O), which links the new node to the first node's alpha, inverted, so mask edits carry over; essential for keys, which can't simply be copied because the graded image changes the detection. Same (non-inverted) alpha: drag from the blue square to the next node's blue triangle. Clean bleed at the horizon with the Qualifier (grab the high or low end of the luminance bar) and Denoise. A Flying Filmmaker preset adds both gradient-mask nodes in one click.

'Many times this is just called keying, but in Resolve the tool is Qualifier.' HSL by default (RGB, Luminance, 3D exist). Eyedropper on the target, Shift+H to check; narrow the Hue/Saturation/Luminance ranges; Denoise (~40) against flicker on a moving key; Clean White expands, Clean Black shrinks (~40 in the example); then correct only inside the key - Curves to darken, Temperature around -190/-200 to kill a yellow cast. Combine with a Power Window to limit the key to one tree or building. Add the key node before the LUT node.

New node, LUTs panel, hover to preview, click or drag to apply. Strength: Key > Key Output > Gain (1.000 = full, 0 = off); anything else on that node scales with it, so keep LUTs alone. Packs in the demos: M31 (Color Grading Central, Rec.709 version for corrected footage, ~83 % on one shot); Resolve's Film Looks (Kodak/Fuji, Rec.709 not DCI-P3 for a Rec.709 project) which 'add way, way too much contrast' - pull the Contrast slider back; Lutify.me free Rec.709 set (a deep-blue teal-orange look); Flying Filmmaker 'X Deep Green' (desaturates greens, ~30 %) and 'Warm Cinematic' (golden-hour lift, low opacity). Real estate: ~40 % or it looks unreal. Combined log+look LUTs exist; he prefers correction and look as separate steps.