Developing Raw

Select the input node to adjust a file’s development. Available controls include white balance, exposure, tone, noise reduction, detail, lens correction and color space. The controls depend on the file format.

Raw files use the Develop tab. Its controls differ for Blackmagic RAW and Nikon N-RAW clips. Other clips use the Video Input tab. Revela shows the appropriate tab for the file. The graph that these tabs sit in is covered in Chapter 11; the Curves and Colour tabs that follow them are covered in Chapter 13.

12.1 The Develop Tab

Where to find it: the Develop tab, with the input node selected.

The Develop tab is shown for the input node of every still, every .prawv clip and every Apple ProRes RAW clip. Selecting any other node hides it. With nothing selected the tab reads Select a photo to develop.

Every slider on the tab works the same way. Dragging previews the change in the loupe at once; the edit is saved a moment after you stop. The arrow at the end of a row returns it to its default. Double-clicking the value opens a field where you can type one; Return commits it and Esc cancels. Each settled change is one step in the undo history, named for the control (Undo Adjust Exposure, Undo Change White Balance, and so on).

The tab is divided into six sections: BASE, WHITE BALANCE, NOISE REDUCTION, DETAIL, LENS and CAMERA OUTPUT. The Calibration tab sits beside it on the same node and is covered in Chapter 16.

Base

Exposure shifts the whole picture in stops. Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks each lift or lower one band of the tonal range, and a slider at 0 contributes nothing. They are part of the development and are kept with the input node. The Curves tab carries a separate set of the same four (Chapter 13). The two sets are independent; moving one never moves the other.

Punch sets the picture’s contrast about mid gray, which stays where it is at any setting. The default is the Pearla look. Punch is live for every file Revela opens, still or clip.

Fuji DR appears only for a Fujifilm file; for any other make the row is absent. On a Fujifilm file the row is grayed, reads As Shot and cannot be changed.

White balance

The section opens with an eyedropper button and a mode dropdown on one row, then two sliders.

Temperature runs from 2000 K to 10000 K and Tint from −150 to +150. Choosing a preset sets both sliders to the preset’s values. Choosing As Shot restores what the camera recorded. Moving either slider switches the mode to Custom; Custom means the values are yours.

The eyedropper samples a neutral from the picture. Click the button, then click a point in the loupe that should be neutral gray or white. The mode becomes Custom and both sliders take the sampled values. Clicking the button again, or pressing Esc, leaves eyedropper mode without sampling. Switching to another tab also ends it.

Noise reduction

Luminance and Color each run from 0 % to 100 %, default 0 %.

Detail

Sharpness (default 50 %), Detail (default 0 %) and Moiré (default 0 %) each run from 0 % to 100 %. Sharpness is the ordinary sharpening amount; Detail brings up fine texture; Moiré suppresses the colored patterning that fine repeating detail can produce.

Lens

When the file records them, the camera model and the lens model are shown as two read-only lines at the top of the section. Below them, Lens Correction is a checkbox, on by default, that applies the correction profile for the lens. When Revela has no profile for the lens the box is grayed and unticked.

Camera output

The section carries a color space dropdown and, in some cases, a Tone Mapping row.

The dropdown declares the color space the developed picture leaves the node in. The default is Pearla Wide Gamut, and for ordinary editing it stays there: the rest of the graph works in that space and the delivery color space is chosen on the output, as Chapter 24 describes. The full list is given in section 12.5.

Tone Mapping appears only when the camera output is set to an SDR display space (Rec.709, Rec.709-A (Apple), sRGB or Display P3). It offers None, Clip, Rolloff and Pearla. Pearla is the house render; None is a plain conversion with no tone mapping. The same choice is usually made on the output (Chapter 24) or on a Colour Space node (Chapter 11), with the camera output left on Pearla Wide Gamut.

Available controls

Controls unavailable for the file are grayed.

Exposure, the four tone sliders, Punch, the white balance controls and the camera output are live on every file the tab serves.

12.2 Raw Clips

A clip arrives in one of three kinds, and the kind decides its first tab.

A .prawv or ProRes RAW clip has the same white balance, exposure, tone and camera output controls as a still. Only the noise reduction, detail and lens rows are withheld, as the table in section 12.1 shows. Playback of raw clips, and the precision at which they play, is covered in Chapter 9.

12.3 The Develop Tab for Blackmagic RAW and Nikon N-RAW

Where to find it: the Develop tab, with the input node of a Blackmagic RAW or Nikon N-RAW clip selected.

For these formats, the Develop tab offers controls specific to the clip. Available controls vary by camera; settings that cannot be changed are grayed.

Every slider starts at the value the camera recorded, with no marks on the track. Its arrow, with the tooltip Reset to camera, puts it back there. Each section header carries a camera button that resets the whole section, and Reset to Camera at the foot of the tab resets all the format-specific controls at once. A list value is a dropdown; a yes-or-no value is a checkbox. Changes preview and save as on the standard Develop tab. Each saved change is one undo step, Undo Adjust RAW Settings.

Blackmagic RAW

The TONE CURVE section opens with a line reading Gamma · Blackmagic Design Film. The moment any control in the section leaves its film value the line changes to Gamma · Blackmagic Design Custom, and it returns when the section is reset. The LENS section appears only when the camera allows at least one of its three corrections to be changed.

Nikon N-RAW

Settings that cannot be changed

On both formats the following are not offered and cannot be changed:

• Noise reduction, sharpness, detail and moiré.
• Revela’s own Lens Correction. Only the maker’s corrections above are offered.
• The Blackmagic RAW color settings. The tab shows Generation 5, Blackmagic Design Film and Wide Gamut in the fixed COLOUR SCIENCE line.
• The look file embedded in the clip. Revela reads its name and lists it in the Info tab as not applied; it is never applied to the picture.

Camera output

Below the format-specific controls, the CAMERA OUTPUT section contains Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks, then Punch, the color space dropdown and Tone Mapping, as on the standard Develop tab in section 12.1. Neither the camera buttons nor Reset to Camera resets these controls. Each has its own reset arrow.

Note: Grades travel between clips of the same kind in full. A grade copied from a Blackmagic RAW or Nikon N-RAW clip to another kind of file carries only the look; the target’s development settings stay unchanged. Chapter 17 covers grades.

12.4 The Video Input Tab

Where to find it: the Video Input tab, with the input node of a clip selected.

Use the Video Input tab to set a clip’s recorded color space. With nothing selected the tab reads Select a video input node.

BASE holds six sliders. Exposure runs from −4.00 to +4.00 stops, default 0.00. Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks run from −100 to +100, default 0. As on the Develop tab they belong to the input, and they are separate from the Curves tab’s own four (Chapter 13). Punch is the same as on the Develop tab, −0.30 to +0.30, default +0.10.

INPUT COLOR SPACE declares what the footage is. Revela reads it from the file at import and sets it for you. If the file names a space that is not on the standard list, that space is added at the end of the list. When the file says nothing usable, the clip is taken as Rec.709. Correct this row when you know better than the file: a log clip that was tagged as Rec.709 looks flat and gray until you choose its log space here. Changing it records Undo Change Input Color Space.

CAMERA OUTPUT sets the input node’s output color space. The default is Pearla Wide Gamut, and as on the Develop tab it stays there for ordinary editing.

A Tone Mapping row appears under the camera output only when the input is a scene-referred space (a log space or Pearla Wide Gamut) and the camera output is an SDR display space. The choices are None, Clip, Rolloff and Pearla. With Pearla chosen, a Profile row follows, listing Pearla Film Gamut and the film profiles of Chapter 14.

There are no trim controls on this tab. In and out points are set on the scrubber, as Chapter 9 describes.

Recognized color spaces

Revela recognizes these spaces when a file declares them: Apple Log and Apple Log 2, S-Log3, V-Log, LogC3, C-Log2, C-Log3, N-Log, F-Log, F-Log2, BMD Film Gen 5, Rec.709, HLG, PQ (shown as PQ BT.2020 (HDR10) or PQ P3), sRGB, Display P3, and the two linear spaces. A log space the file does not declare, or declares in a way Revela does not read, falls back to Rec.709 and needs setting by hand.

12.5 The Color Space List

Every color space dropdown in this chapter, and the ones on the Colour Space node (Chapter 11), offers the same list in the same order. The working, display and HDR spaces come first; a divider follows; then the log spaces, each under its maker’s heading.

Linear sRGB and Linear BT.2020 are not on the list; they appear only as the appended item on the Video Input tab when a file is tagged that way. The delivery spaces an output can be set to are a separate list, covered in Chapter 24.

← 11. The Editing Graph · Contents · 13. Curves and Colour →