COLOR / TOOL GUIDE 01 / 13
HDR.
Light by zone. Without hard boundaries.
Understand HDR Wheels and adjustable zones: separate a bright window from a lit face, retain texture and avoid lifting shadows into a grey veil.
Dark → Shadow → Light → Highlight → Specular
centre/extent of the selected zone
softness of interaction with neighbouring zones
Verified captures from the site library. Choose a panel and open a larger view. Layout and available controls may vary with your Resolve version and configuration.
BEFORE MOVING A CONTROL
Understand what you are changing.
A zone is not an object or a window
The HDR palette separates the signal into tonal ranges. A face and wall with similar brightness may both respond to the same zone. Light does not mean “face only”, and Specular does not recognize reflections as objects. Inspect which image regions belong to the selected zone before adjusting exposure or color.
This sits between broad primary correction and spatial isolation. If the subject cannot be separated by brightness, use a Power Window or qualifier rather than trying to make tonal boundaries trace an object.
Range selects the region; Falloff shapes the transition
Set the zone boundary first, then shape its transition into neighboring values. A narrow falloff combined with a strong correction can reveal a contour on a smooth gradient. A very wide falloff may change the face along with the window. Inspect transitions on skin, walls and sky, not only the brightest patch.
Do not copy zone settings blindly between projects. Input encoding, working space and palette settings matter. HDR Wheels can be useful in an SDR project too; the tool name does not require an HDR deliverable.
Highlight control cannot recover missing information
If a window turns grey without revealing detail, you may have lowered an already clipped signal. Check the source, RAW decode and transforms upstream of this node. Lowering brightness and recovering information are different operations.
Play the whole shot afterwards. A zone may influence a subject differently as it moves from shadow into light. Judge the stability of the transition rather than one successful still, using scopes alongside the image.
FROM PURPOSE TO CONTROL
Choose deliberately, not by trial and error.
The interface images are collected in the viewer above. Here, focus on what each control changes and when to use it; values in the captures are not universal presets.
Tonal zones
Black
The lowest part of the tonal range. Useful when you want to shape deep shadows and the black floor without moving the entire lower half of the image.
Dark
Dark areas above absolute black: fabric, hair, deep backgrounds and shadow detail. This is a useful place to restore or suppress separation.
Shadow
A broader shadow zone. It lets you shape the lower part of the image more gently than a mask and more selectively than standard Lift.
Light
The brighter midrange — faces, walls, clothing and lit objects. Useful for changing brightness without aggressively pushing the white point.
Highlight
Bright detail below the extreme peaks. This zone helps preserve texture in lights, windows and reflections without treating the whole image equally.
Specular
The brightest specular peaks. Useful when you need to control intense highlights separately without flattening the rest of the bright range.
TECHNICAL REFERENCE
HDR Wheels are not 'wheels for HDR files' but a system of configurable tonal zones
The strength of the HDR Palette is that Dark, Shadow, Light, Highlight and Specular are not rigid chunks of the waveform. Zones have Range and Falloff, can be adapted to the tonal distribution of a shot, and additional zones can be created. That makes HDR Wheels useful even in SDR projects when broad Lift/Gamma/Gain controls are too coarse.
How to think about HDR Palette zones
| Zone / control | Typical region | Good use | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dark | deep shadows above absolute black | reveal interior/night detail without a global lift | lifting the noise floor and making black grey |
| Shadow | lower working tonal range | shape lower tonal modelling on faces/subjects | too much overlap with Dark/midtone regions |
| Light | upper midtones and bright surfaces | control windows, sky and bright surfaces before specular | compressing midtone contrast together with highlights |
| Highlight | bright detail and upper range | shape roll-off and restore highlight separation | trying to restore physically clipped signal |
| Specular | the brightest reflections/sources | separate sparkle from ordinary white | flattening natural peaks just to make the waveform neat |
| Global | the full range | overall exposure/chromatic move in the HDR processing model | using it as a substitute for deliberate zonal work |
FROM KNOWLEDGE TO A REPEATABLE RESULT
One exercise. A result you can check.
Choose a shot with a dark interior, a lit face and a bright window. Use a separate node and retain the starting grade for comparison. Keep color management unchanged during this exercise.
- 01
Save a baseline
Save a grading version or Still. Open HDR Wheels and check the selected node.
- 02
Inspect the range
Choose one zone and inspect its boundaries and falloff. Do not change every wheel at once.
- 03
Make one adjustment
Slightly change exposure in the selected zone. Compare adjacent tonal regions and neutral areas.
- 04
Compare the whole shot
Play the shot and compare it with the original version. Check highlights, shadows and the neighboring edited shot.
Self-check in Resolve; the site does not evaluate your work. Progress is not saved after reloading.
An editorial exercise for your own footage, not an automated check of a Resolve project. Work on a copy or separate version and evaluate the complete shot.
WHEN THE RESULT IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPECT
Find the cause, not a compensating slider.
01Light affects too much of the image+
Possible cause. the zone range is too wide or the signal state differs from what you assume
What to check. Zones graph, Range/Falloff and node colour space
02A shelf or halo appears between tonal regions+
Possible cause. an excessive adjustment combined with abrupt neighbouring-zone falloff
What to check. reduce the Exp/chroma move and soften zone boundaries
03Specular does not restore detail in a clipped window+
Possible cause. the data is already clipped before this node or the output transform compresses it differently
What to check. Camera Raw/highlight data, upstream transforms and waveform before/after the node
A SITUATION TO THINK THROUGHYou lowered Light to control a window and the face darkened too. Should exposure be lowered further?Compare your reasoning ↓
First check zone selection and falloff. The face may occupy the same tonal range. Try isolating brighter values; if brightness is insufficient to separate them, constrain the correction with a window. Increasing the same correction only increases the side effect.
FAQ
What else should you know?
How are HDR Wheels different from normal Color Wheels?
Standard Lift, Gamma and Gain work across broad overlapping ranges. HDR Wheels provide more tonal zones and let you edit their boundaries. That makes them useful when you need more selective luminance control without a Power Window or Qualifier.
Are HDR Wheels only for HDR video?
No. The palette fits HDR and scene-referred workflows especially well, but its tonal zones can also be useful in SDR. What matters is the part of the signal you need to adjust, not the name of the palette.
When should you use HDR Wheels instead of Log Wheels?
Log Wheels work well when Shadows, Midtones and Highlights give you enough separation. HDR Wheels become more useful when three ranges are too broad and you want separate control over Dark, Light, Highlight, Specular and other zones.
What does Falloff do in HDR Zones?
Falloff controls how softly one tonal zone transitions into the next. A harder boundary makes the correction more selective but can create visible breaks. Softer falloff usually produces a more natural result.
Should a beginner start with HDR Wheels?
Not necessarily. It is usually better to understand Lift, Gamma, Gain and Offset first. After that, HDR Wheels feel like a more precise extension of the same idea instead of another complicated palette.
Sources and version notes
Checked against Blackmagic Design’s Color documentation and the relevant new-feature guides. Screenshots are from the site’s own supplied library; controls and layout can differ between versions. Examples are instructional, not universal production settings.
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