How to Get Cinematic Saturation 

This is the most beautiful treatment of saturation I've seen on the internet up to this date. Incredible tutorial.Cheers!

Very informative video Cullen! Please move your talking head so that we can see the changes on the wheels for the next one :)

Never seen this before and I seriously appreciate your willingness to share this golden nugget. I prefer the subtractive color look WAY more than the standard look so this is incredible.

I've used DCTLs to do subtractive saturation in the past , but the beautiful thing about this approach is being able to use Gamma and Gain to adjust the saturation curve. For example, pulling Gamma and Pushing gain to get a relative normal saturation approach throughout most of the tonal range, but then quickly ramp up to a punchy saturation at the upper sat range. It feels like magic. Conversely, pushing Gamma and pulling Gain to get a really even and holistic saturation response throughout the whole tonal range before dipping to 0 for neutrals. This is brilliant. Thank you for this!

So this is how it's correctly done. I've been trying to achieve this by increasing the saturation knob and decreasing the overall luminance. This really helps. Thank you!

Awesome video! This process gets me closer to what I do on the photo side, where I create a saturation mask before manipulating saturation to affect the lower saturation parts of my image more. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Cullen.

This is the only brilliant, simple explanation I ever found on youtube. I appreciate your willingness to go this much deep into this subject I struggled to find the right amount of saturation. Looking forward to your next video. Thank you!!

Looking forward to this discussion. Thanks Cullen. this method triggered my memory of learning something similar where you have a node set to HSL, turn off the channels - and set the luma mix to 0 - and decrease gain, Then add a following node and set it to HSV( remove the channels ) - luma mix to 0 and then bring the gain up. This makes deep saturation that changes and leaves blacks and whites clean.

one of the best tutors out there at, actually, explaining what he is doing

Thank you for sharing this technique. Exactly the result I knew that I could get from my 10 bit footage but was having trouble getting it there. Huge improvement!

I am very grateful for your advice, definitely a much better way to adjusting saturation! Thank you Cullen!

Hey Cullen, thanks a million for this tip, the difference to the image is phenomenal and definitely more cinematic.

Thanks Cullen! Those are the small tweaks that make the difference when grading! I love your way of teaching btw!!! Keep it up man!

Best tip of the year for me. I try to never use the SAT knob, as I never liked what it did, and if I did use it, then I always ended up trying to counter the overall SAT increase with a Sat vs Lum curve to get deeper colors, but this is exactly the technique I've been looking for. Thanks so much for sharing this Cullen.

I am learning so much with your videos. I love the way you kind of explain the maths involved. Thank you so much

you are THE BEST at explaining tools in Resolve. Thank you.

This is such an ingenious tip and one I will be adopting for future work. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Cullen!

Friggin' brilliant! Just love the idea of custom saturation curve! Thank Cullen!

So glad I found your channel - the best learning materials on youtube i've seen! Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Another great video by the technical wizard that frees your creativity. Using science and sound methods - more of this!!!

Hi Cullen. Thank you very much for sharing this new 'patent'. Extremely awesome. Before watching your video, I saw someone else put it on RU-vid too. It is obvious the difference between gold and brass. Love your channel! 👏👏

I love your videos and thank you so much for sharing! On the next one, could you possibly move your camera window to the lower right side instead? We can't see anything you're doing on the primaries or curves. Thanks and keep it up! It means the world to us trying to improve our color correction and subsequent grading in Resolve!

You're the best Cullen! This was another amazingly insightful video.

Wow! Fantastic tip! So many possibilities. Looking forward to Friday (as usual). Take care Cullen.

That’s amazing! Can’t wait to play around with that technique!!! Thanks a lot for sharing 🙌

This is amazing. Using your lift gamma gain method on a saturation channel gives a much better result than the saturation knob alone. I was wondering why my saturation adjustments looked so 'cheap'. Now I know!

My favorite moment of the week, thanks for keep sharing this info Cullen!

Thank you so much for this and now i know whats the difference between bronze and gold..Thank you so much ...Its like opened a whole new dimension of color grading

Great tip - going to try this! I really like how you explore different ways of using the tools in Resolve.

Hi Cullen - awesome tutorial for quick saturation boost. I am using this a step further for getting the filmic "Subtractive Color Look", that is about making more saturated colors a bit darker, but w/o changing overall saturation at all: 1) just put 2 nodes in a row - first node is HSL, 2nd node is HSV 2) adjust Gain of the 1st node (HSL) back to 0.5 3) adjust Gain of the 2nd node (HSV) up to 1.99 (ideal Would be 2.0, but DR allows only cranking up to 1.99) The overall saturation remains the same after the 2 multiplied S-channels of the 2 nodes, but by applying first HSL and next HSV you get the darkening effect on higher saturated parts And, now your trick comes into play: If you want to get the overall image more saturated, plus the cinematic effect enhanced, just add your explained HSV node before both (as node 0 of now 3 nodes) and manipulate only the saturation with all the tricks you explained in your video - awesome results that come very close to saturation behavior of true film material because node 2 and 3 will have more saturation to take effect on. Thanks so much for sharing your trick because I was always using the Sat attenuator for node 0 - now I get the saturation I always wanted.

This is great! I will start using this new saturation method. Thanks!

wow... man, this is just incredibly helpful information.

Thanks, for sharing. Love to learn about all those other color models and their benefits for grading 👍🏻

Thanks for these videos, it’s incredibly valuable source of information.

Exactly what i was praying for thanx. Im gonna watch right now

I am so glad you brought up custom curves for saturation. a very little discussed topic.

I have been looking for this information for years. Thank you!

Love this! I'm looking forward to Friday...

first off sir, your Log color transfer from the base image, is immaculate , and second of all thank you, i love learning new kung fu

As always, this is a great tutorial. Thank you for sharing

Really awesome material!

👏🏻 👏🏻 Thanks again for great content. I know I’m always going to take something away every time I watch your videos!

Thanks for the easy but pro way of doing it. I just watched a 20min add that made this with a much more complex set of nodes separatin the values and then subtracting form the origianl image and then adding it again, also using the qualifier to chose wich color to saturate more o or less, to achive more or less the same results, and ending the video with "this looks great but its REALLY complicated, thats why we recomend this U$D100 plugin to make it all inside one node" ...

Great stuff Cullen as always.

This is one to rewatch for sure. Working as a photographer I tend to avoid saturation controls like the plague (though Capture One Pro is bearable for a quick fix). When I started out with Resolve I notice that more often or not if I was experimenting colour boost was was often preferable. Due to bugger all work lately, or real projects, I have not used DR much so can't remember why!!

Thank you for the explanation - never understood what HSV is and now I do!

I loved this video. I learned something new about saturation.

very helpful and new technique. Thank you

It worked for my 64-bit PC. Thanks a lot.

That's a really brilliant idea - something that, once it's been explained clearly, seems really obvious but which most of us simply hadn't thought of at all. Nice one! I must also compliment you on your presentation style, which seems to me to strike the perfect balance between putting the information across and not patronising the target audience. Making videos is a sideline for me but I like to do things properly and I'll be making a point of watching more of your material in the very near future.

This is truly next level… Thanks, CK.

Thanks Cullen, that was very helpful.

very informative! excited for grade school this week

Ooh that is interesting. I'm going to experiment with that for sure!

Eyeopener! You're the GOAT.

ahhh man this is pure gold, thank you!

holy crap, I just tried this, its so much better this way, I have been trying to bring out the blue sky in my off road videos and the normal situation makes everything else way to vivid, like tree and clay etc so I just kind of gave up with it except for a very mild boost, this is exactly what I was looking for

Big thanks to share this technique 🙏🏼

Golden tip about sat, thanks 🙏🏼

Great lesson, Cullen!

ahh the classic hsv trick, love it but fr you are a goldmine here on youtube

Love the knowledge you are sharing!! Only issue is could not see the custom curve you made in the HSV node.

It's working thanks my friend

Based on your definition/explanation, I would say this is a good approach to implementing vibrance control, as opposed to saturation (using the gamma wheel)

Enlightened brother, you got a subscriber here... gonna follow you from now on. Keep educating us. Thankyou for this wonderful info.

This is huge for me. I used to love sat vs sat and sat vs lum / hume vs lum , it served quite well in different situations , but curves tend to break the image easly , Gotta try HSV out 🔥🔥

Every time I pull up a Video of yours & learn something new out of it. Realizing I'm learning from the God of Page 6 on Resolve. Can't Thank You enough Man. Also you told me to check the Wide Gamut Workflow series which I did & now I operate the same way like you taught. It really makes the workflow easier.

Lovely 😍 👌 u just change the way i think about grading

Excellent, thanks!!

Great video as always Cullen! Saturation is one area which I really want to explore more deeply, so hopefully you'll get into more detail on the subject of subtractive saturation and other stuff I probably have never heard of yet. I do have one question regarding the different colorspaces and contrast: how do different color spaces affect contrast? Or does the contrast operation yield the same results across all color spaces? Since it affects the saturation as well, it would only make sense to have different results in different color spaces. Looking forward to the next grade school, Dawid

Very good lesson

Amazing. Thank you

Incredible ❤

This was a really great tip!

This is my first time coming across Cullen. I got his name from another colorist on RU-vid. Cullen is phenomenal. He seems to understand how the basic colorist thinks and is able to translate how you should think before approaching a project rather than what to do. Does he have a masterclass?

Hi Cullen - amazing video yet again that has me thinking! I'm wondering, how does this process (particularly the targeted saturation adjustments you mentioned at the end) compare to adjusting saturation with Sat vs Sat curves? Thanks!

What an awesome tip! This is what I needed to make some difficult corrections!!! Thank you! :D

Another light bulb moment video! Thanks Cullen! How do you find this compares with a Sat vs Lum curve?

Excelente!! Gracias!!

Hey!! I just tried it and the results were AMAZING! One question: I use a fixed node tree, that is almost identical to Walter Volpattos fixed node tree. Where in the node structure should I place this HSV node in your opinion? Should it be right after the base grade, or should it be at the end, right after the masks and before vignette? Thanks!!

Awsome..simple but deep.

Really gr8 results…. I am loving your series on cold dude! Deep diving and I’m not coming up for air unless necessary. (;

How do you feel about using your offset to balance vs. the temp/tint sliders? I used to use offset quite a bit to balance but I noticed it can introduce colors into my shadows and tint them the color that I push it towards whilst my temp/tint protects the shadows more.

Thank you Cullen, that was amazing. Sadly when using your HSV node, I get very weird noisy violet or green artefacts in grey and white areas. Even when using it slightly to reduce saturation. Any Idea what I might be doing wrong?

A just named my powergrade template after you :) But I do have a question: I love your idea of manipulating saturation this way as it allows me to use a variety of tools instead of one knob. Do you also use this method for contrast (using the v channel)?

Amazing lesson as usual. Only thing that would help us viewers would be if we could see your primary wheels when you’re adjusting them. Even if it was something as simple as cutting your ARoll for those moments, I think that would help a lot. Another step further would be to also scale up the primary window as it’s being adjusted to help with its readability.

This video is incredible helpful. Is there a difference between using the HSV vs the HSL option?

Hey Cullen Can you please make a video about how do you use your own 2382 LUT, using the layer mixer technique “combination between color\contrast” in such a template Node Graph, where you exactly put the LUT with the layer mixer in front or after the parallel !! How and Why !! Thanks in advance

Brilliant!

Man thanks a lot❤❤

Awesome video! There is a way to use this tecnique for selectively add this kind of saturation on a specific color? (Ex: only on blues or reds etc)

superb!

07:12 Loved that sense of humor too😄😄

This is a phenomenal approach -- working with log profiles I often feel like I have to push the image too hard to get proper sat. Just making sure I understand: on this model, gain adjustments will target the more saturated areas of the image, gamma the middle of the image, and lift the lowest sat parts of the image?

Awesome! Going to go try this now. I have a question and this could be dumb… however, could this technique be used in conjunction with the lum vs sat curve? Or sat vs sat? So we set up the node as you have done BUT instead of using gain we use one of those curves? Another question would be when using your method, could we saturate a specific color by moving the ball? for example pushing it towards blue. I never use the saturation knob. I very rarely add saturation. I feel when working in DWG under a well constructed LUT (such as your elements pack) and finessing contrast that increasing saturation separately is unnecessary (unless I am adding subtractive color) I tend to desaturate more using curves. To be fair I do not work on any product advertisements as yet so this may change in the future.

Really great video ! I hope we will talk about bleach bypass and how it affects colors in the next grade school !

This tutorial is a gold mine. Can you please direct me to the episode of grade school where you talked more on this?

great video Kelly. I couldn't understand something . Wha tis the difference of change the gain and gamma wheel?

Just came across your channel, very informative and educational. Thanks for the tutorial. Do you have a link to your base node tree?

Hey! Two questions, why the move from linear gain to offset for WB? Are they functionally identical? Close enough to where it doesn't really matter? Also, when a client does want something really slammed into one quadrant of the vectorscope (currently on a project filmed in the desert that they want to be completely gold essentially, with orange-tinged skies), how would you recommend creating color contrast within those warm tones?