LuttieColor grading tools
Scopes
The histogram, waveform, RGB parade and vectorscope in the left sidebar, what each one tells you, and how to check skin tones with the vectorscope.
The scope sits in the left sidebar, under Before / Compare / After. It measures the graded image, so it updates as you grade. The tabs above it switch between four scopes, and the expand button opens the same scope at a larger size over the canvas.
Scopes are free, with or without an account.
The four scopes
| Scope | What it shows | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Hist (histogram) | How much of the image sits at each brightness, shadows on the left, highlights on the right | Check exposure and clipping at a glance |
| Wave (waveform) | Brightness across the frame: left of the scope is left of the image, higher is brighter | Find which part of the shot is too bright or too dark |
| Parade (RGB parade) | The waveform split into red, green and blue, side by side | Spot a colour cast: level the bottoms of the three traces for neutral shadows, the tops for neutral highlights |
| Vector (vectorscope) | Colour only: the angle is the hue, the distance from the centre is the saturation | Check neutrals, saturation and skin tones |
The waveform and parade have lines at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of the brightness range. Something sitting flat on the 100 line is clipped to white; on the 0 line, crushed to black.
Checking skin tones with the vectorscope
The dashed line on the vectorscope is the skin tone line. Skin of every complexion sits close to it under neutral light, because the hue of skin barely changes from person to person; brightness and saturation do.
The editor's vectorscope measures the whole image, so a face shares it with everything else in the frame. It reads clearly on a close-up. For a wider shot, the free Vectorscope tool lets you drag a box over a face and measure only that; export a frame and drop it in.
If the skin trace has turned towards red and magenta, skin reads pink; towards yellow and green, sallow. Bring it back with a hue shift on the skin range in HSL Secondary, or with white balance in Basic Correction if the cast is over the whole image. The line is a guide, not a rule: a warm sunset grade will move skin off it, and that can be the point.
When the scope doesn't update
The scope pauses while a video clip is playing, because reading the picture back from the graphics card on every frame would make playback stutter. It catches up as soon as you stop. It also holds still while an HSL Secondary mask is shown, since the canvas is then showing the mask rather than your image.