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Otherwise, it’s recommended you make lighting adjustments on a clip by clip basis, as you scan each clip, in situations where you need maximum image quality for finishing. Keep in mind that the goal for these adjustments is to maximize image data from the scan, not to create the final look of the clips, which you’ll accomplish later in the grading phase of work using the controls of the ‘color’ page.
To adjust the light source settings, find a typical image for the section of roll or for the first series of shots you’re going to scan, and adjust the light source while viewing the built in video scopes.
Adjust the light source master wheel to set the intensity of the light source used to illuminate the film, raising or lowering the level of the R, G, and B channels all at once. For a typical camera negative, this lets you adjust the black point of the film image. In a negative print, the darkest part of the image corresponds to the highlights of the film image. Set the light source master wheel to sit just above the typical Dmin value of 95, as measured on the histogram of the video scopes, which guarantees that the highlights won’t be clipped by the Cineon LOG conversion that DaVinci uses to debayer the CRI image for grading. For positive film, simply adjust light source so that no part of the highlights or shadows of the signal is being clipped.
You can turn on ‘show reference levels’ in the waveform, RGB parade, or histogram scopes, and set the ‘low’ value to indicate the digital Dmin value of 95.
Once that’s accomplished, adjust the RGB controls to rebalance all three color channels by varying amounts to alter the color temperature of the light source used to illuminate the film, to produce the most useful, or neutral, color balance in the scanned result.
Scanning One or More Sections of Film
After you’ve adjusted the light source, it’s a good idea to stay organized as you scan each clip by entering all relevant metadata into the metadata editor as you go. The ‘capture info’ group of metadata fields contains information for defining the file name prefix, roll, reel number, clip
number, program name, flags, and whether a particular take is good. If you populate these fields before scanning a clip, that metadata will be written into the clip.
At the bottom of the ‘capture info’ panel, you will see four buttons for film scanning.
— Capture Now: Use the capture now button to capture long sections of a reel all at once. Clicking ‘capture now’ begins scanning near the current frame, ending whenever you click ‘stop’.
— If ‘Enable 2 Pass HDR Scan’ is selected, click ‘Capture HDR’ after the capture has begun to let DaVinci Resolve know you’ve reached the end of your desired clip so it can now proceed to capture the high exposure pass. If you scan the entire reel without clicking ‘Capture HDR’, the scanner automatically proceeds with the high intensity scan from where you started it until the end of the reel.
— Capture Clip: A more controlled means of scanning specific sections of film. After you’ve used the transport controls and the In and Out button to define a section of film, clicking ‘capture clip’ scans that one clip and then stops.
If ‘Enable 2 Pass HDR Scan’ is selected, the high intensity HDR scan uses the same In and Out points as the initial scan.