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Converting Between Ranges and Clipping
Simply converting an image from one data range to another should result in a seamless change. All “legal” data from 0–100 percent is always preserved and is linearly scaled from the previous data range to fit into the new data range.
The exceptions to this are undershoots and overshoots that you’ve deliberately set, also referred to as out-of-bounds levels. The overshoots and undershoots that are allowable in “Video Levels” media (known as sub-black or super-black and super-white) are usually clipped when converted to full-range “Full Levels.” However, DaVinci Resolve preserves this data internally, and these clipped pixels of detail in the undershoots and overshoots are still retrievable by making suitable adjustments in the Color page to bring them back into the “legal” range.
The out-of-bounds image data that’s preserved within the headroom of Video Levels by
DaVinci Resolve while working is usually clipped, however, when you either output to video or render your output. There are two settings that let you get around this for instances where you want to preserve these levels:
— A checkbox in the Video Monitoring group of the Master settings, “Retain sub-black and super- white data,” lets DaVinci Resolve output undershoots (sub-black) and overshoots (super-white) to video when Data Level is set to Video. When this is turned off, these out-of-bounds values are clipped on output.
— A checkbox in the Advanced settings of the Render settings in the Deliver page, “Retain sub- black and super-white data,” lets DaVinci Resolve render undershoots (sub-black) and overshoots (super-white) to exported media when Data Level is set to Video.
Internal Image Processing and Clip Data Levels
It’s useful to know that, internally to DaVinci Resolve, all image data is processed as full range, uncompressed, 32-bit floating point data. What this means is that each clip in the Media Pool, whatever its original bit-depth or data range, is scaled into full-range 32-bit data. How each clip is scaled depends on its Levels setting in the Clip Attributes window, available from the Media Pool contextual menu.
Selecting Auto, Video, or Full levels
By converting all clips to uncompressed, full-range, 32-bit floating point data, Resolve guarantees the highest quality image processing that’s possible. As always, the quality of your output is dependent on the quality of the source media you’re using, but you can be sure that Resolve is preserving all the data that was present in the original media.