Create Textural Depth Redux

From time to time, we go back and see if we can’t improve upon some of the color grading techniques in the Monster Guide. This is an easier way to create textural depth.

During an appearance on Cullen Kelly’s Grade School, the brilliant colorist Jill Bogdanowicz revealed a secret to accentuating texture without it looking over-processed. While working on Joker, the colorist used Live Grain – which separates out the red, green and blue channels, creating grain that resembles scanned film – to accentuate texture in the cooler, darker backgrounds while de-emphasizing grain in the warmer, red tones of the talent’s skin. One way to accomplish this in DaVinci Resolve is to create a node with film grain from Resolve FX or Dehancer, open up the HSL Qualifier and, using the highlighter tool to see the effect in the viewer, select the skin tones using the eyedropper tool. Afterward, apply clean white, clean black and blur radius to tidy things up. Next, copy and paste the node onto a second node, invert the HSL qualifier and add grain to the background.