Primary Color Correction: Tonal Range Primer - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 17

the histogram to the RGB Parade, look at the image of the man with
the sunglasses ( Figure 1.15 ) and the corresponding image of the RGB
Parade ( Figure 1.16 ) and histogram from DaVinci Resolve's internal
scope displays ( Figure 1.17 ).

First Things First: Black Level

Nearly every colorist attacks an image by first determining where the
blacks should be. “Blacks” refers to the deepest, darkest shadows and black
portions of the image. As mentioned earlier, blacks are also sometimes
referred to as setup, lift, shadows, pedestal, or lowlights. There is usually
some portion of an image that you can pick out that should be corrected
to the lowest legal level. If you don't correct at least some portion of the
image to a black level that is low enough that it is almost devoid of detail,
the shadows of the image will appear milky and the image will lack snap
or pop. The trick is to lower the blacks to the proper point without losing
detail that you want to keep.
Some colorists, when working with a monitor that they trust and with
which they have a lot of experience, will judge this black level by eye. But
although a good colorist knows how to judge these things from a trusted,
proven monitor, black levels are generally set by looking at a waveform
monitor, preferably one set to display in RGB Parade mode.
Mike Most on black balance and scopes: “The first place I go is black
balance. I think it's pretty much the first place pretty much everybody
goes. I like to use scopes to do that. Scopes don't lie. I can do it largely
by eye, but it depends on what time of day it is, what I've been looking
at for the last 20 minutes, and my mood. So for times when you're look-
ing for a pure balance, a scope is kind of your best friend. I know a lot
of people who tend to stay away from scopes entirely and I personally
think it's kind of a mistake. I think you get a certain sloppiness that you
don't need to have by doing that. I don't think you need to be a slave to
scopes because a lot of it is just feel. But there are a lot of absolutes, and
black balance is an absolute. Either the blacks are balanced or they're
not and scopes don't lie. I trust the parade display. The vectorscope is
a good guide, but for black balance, the parade display has to be the
bible.”
Looking at the waveform monitor in RGB Parade mode allows you
to view the brightness of each of the three color channels: red, green,
and blue. Separating the display into these channels allows you to see
whether one channel has more detail in the darkest areas of the picture
and whether any one color channel has the black levels elevated above
the others. This is an important thing to be able to see, so that when
you are using your color correction tools to lower the black levels, you

D e f i n i t i o n
crush: To lower the black
levels to the point where
detail is lost in the deep
shadow areas. “Crushing”
clips the signal on the low
end. Sometimes “crushing
the blacks” is a desired
result: creating a contrasty
look. It is also sometimes
a warning that the black
levels are too low. For
example: “As I lowered
the blacks, the picture was
looking nice and rich, but
I pulled back a little on my
correction because I saw
that I was crushing the
blacks and couldn't see any
detail in the shadows.”