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Colour Grading 🍭

Make the screen prettier!

Fine-Tuning​

These effects are standard operations in most photo editing software.

tip

If you don't see any effects happening with your material, make sure that Enable This Submodule is checked for each of the below categories!

Colour Curves​

  • RGB Multiplication: Screen * Colour = Result
  • RGB Addition: Screen + Colour = Result
  • HSV Curve: Applies the same above logic with Multiplication and Addition but in the HSV colourspace.
  • RGB Overlay: Screen = Colour (and the transparency of how colour overlays on the screen is determined by the colour's alpha channel).
  • Gamma Red, Blue, and Green: Control gamma values.
  • Colour Drain: Turn the screen to black and white (greyscale) based on a sliding scale (0-1).

Whitepoint​

  • Whitepoint Temperature: A lower value makes the screen "colder" (more blues) while a higher value makes the screen "warmer" (more reds).
  • Whitepoint Tint: Change the colour itself of the whitepoint.

Invert​

  • Invert: Screen = 1.0 - Screen. Think negative images or the "invert" option in photo editors.
  • Invert Red, Green, and Blue: Inverts the colour channels individually. Screen Red Channel = 1.0 - Screen Red Channel, and so on.

Whites and Blacks​

  • Whites: A value above 0 makes white colours more present in the image, while a value below 0 makes them less present.
  • Blacks: A value above 0 makes black colours more present in the image, while a value below 0 makes them less present.

Colour Focus​

Make certain colours pop more (or pop less, I guess).

Colour Desaturation​

  • The main Colour Desaturation slider will not have any impact on the screen's colours by itself, but instead will be a sort of "master control" for the following options.
  • Red, Green, and Blue Desaturation: Desaturate colour channels in the image individually. For example, desaturating the red colour channel will make the screen... less red!

Selective Opacity​

  • Selective Opacity: How desaturated the screen is outside of the desired colour.
  • Selective Tolerance: How close to the desired colour does the screen need to be to not be desaturated.
  • Selective Colour: The colour we want to keep on the screen. For instance, making this blue will make water on the screen still be a beautiful blue but the rest of the screen will be greyscale!

Colour Replacements​

These effects allow for targeted replacement of specific colours or colour ranges within the image.

Specific Selection​

This allows you to select a specific colour (Old Colour) and replace it with a New Colour, with controls for tolerance and how the replacement blends.

  • Opacity: Controls the overall strength of the colour replacement. 0 means no replacement, 1 means full replacement.
  • Style: Determines the method used for colour matching.
    • RGB Colour Distance: Matches based on the Euclidean distance between colours in RGB space.
    • HSV Direct Comparison: Matches based on comparing Hue, Saturation, and Value components individually.
  • Colour Drain: How much the New Colour is desaturated before being applied. 0 is full colour, 1 is greyscale.
  • Apply: Controls how the New Colour is blended with the original pixels that fall within the selection.
    • Selected: Only the pixels matching Old Colour (within tolerance) are changed to New Colour.
    • Rest: Pixels not matching Old Colour are changed to New Colour, while the selected pixels remain original.
  • Range: General tolerance for how closely a pixel's colour must match Old Colour to be considered for replacement when using the RGB Colour Distance style.
  • Hue: Tolerance for hue matching when using the HSV Direct Comparison style.
  • Saturation: Tolerance for saturation matching when using the HSV Direct Comparison style.
  • Value: Tolerance for value/brightness matching when using the HSV Direct Comparison style.
  • Old Colour: The colour to be targeted for replacement.
  • New Colour: The colour that will replace the Old Colour.

Remap All Colours​

This effect remaps all colours on screen to a limited palette of up to eight predefined colours, based on different matching criteria.

  • Style: Determines the method used to match screen colours to the palette.
    • Disabled: No remapping.
    • Luminance: Matches based on the brightness of the screen pixels.
    • LAB: Matches based on colour similarity in the LAB colour space (often more perceptually accurate).
    • HSV: Matches based on colour similarity in the HSV colour space.
  • Apply: Blends the remapped colours with the original screen colours. 0 multiplies, 1 overlays.
  • Quality: Determines the size of the palette used for remapping.
    • Four: Uses Colour One through Colour Four.
    • Eight: Uses Colour One through Colour Eight.
  • Posterization: Reduces the number of distinct colours in the source image before remapping, which can simplify the matching process and create a more stylized look.
  • Hue (HSV Style Only): Weighting factor for hue similarity when matching.
  • Saturation (HSV Style Only): Weighting factor for saturation similarity when matching.
  • Value (HSV Style Only): Weighting factor for value/brightness similarity when matching.
  • Colour One - Colour Eight: The palette of colours that the screen will be remapped to. The number of active colours depends on the Quality setting.

Colourspace​

This section allows for converting the screen's colours between different colour spaces. Each slider controls the intensity of the conversion to that specific colour space, so a value of 0 means no conversion while a value of 1 (or -1 for inverse effects) applies a full conversion.

  • HSV: Converts colours to/from the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) colour space.
  • CMYK: Converts colours to/from a simulated CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black) colour space.
  • LAB: Converts colours to/from the CIE LAB colour space.
  • XYZ: Converts colours to/from the CIE XYZ colour space.
  • YCbCr: Converts colours to/from the YCbCr colour space. Y is luma, Cb and Cr are chroma components.
  • Linear: Converts colours to/from a linear RGB colour space (as opposed to the sRGB/gamma-corrected space typically displayed).

Lighting Adjustment​

These effects provide controls to adjust the overall lighting of the image (ex. exposure, shadows, highlights, and midtones).

  • Low Detail: Adjusts the brightness of darker areas. Higher values brighten shadows more.
  • High Detail: Adjusts the brightness of lighter areas. Higher values brighten highlights more.
  • Highlights: Specifically targets and adjusts the brightness of the brightest parts of the image.
  • Shadows: Specifically targets and adjusts the brightness of the darkest parts of the image.
  • Midtones: Adjusts the brightness of the mid-range tones, leaving extreme highlights and shadows less affected.
  • Exposure: Simulates changing the exposure of a camera, globally brightening or darkening the entire image.
  • World Bloom: Adds a bloom or glow effect that primarily originates from the brightest areas of the world itself (rather than just the screen's current pixels, though it is still a screen effect). This requires a Depth Light.
  • Darken: Darkens the image based on the Darken Threshold.
  • Darken Threshold: Sets the brightness level below which pixels will be affected by the Darken control.
  • Lighten: Brightens the image based on the Lighten Threshold.
  • Lighten Threshold: Sets the brightness level above which pixels will be affected by the Lighten control.

Sharpness​

This can increase the perceived detail in an image by creating a contrast between adjacent pixels (think of an "un-blur" effect).

  • Sharpness Power: How strong the sharpness is applied. Higher values create a more pronounced effect.
  • Sharpness Width: The width of the area around each pixel that is considered for the sharpness effect. A higher value means a wider area is affected. Similarly, too high of a value can cause the effect to ruin the colours of the image.

Saturation​

These sliders can help colours pop more or less.

  • Pure Saturation: Pure Saturation converts the screen to HSV, modifies the saturation channel, and then converts it back to RGB. 0 is no saturation, 1 is normal saturation, and 2 is double saturation.
  • Vibrance: Vibrance is a more stylised way to change the saturation of the screen, more like what a photo editor would do. It does this by taking into account a delta value of each pixel's saturation. 1 is the default saturation.

Stylize​

This subsection contains effects that adjusts the screen's contrast and perceived detail, sort of like a photo editor would do.

  • Heavy Contrast: Applies a strong contrast adjustment. Values below 1 reduce contrast, values above 1 increase it significantly.
  • Soft Contrast: Applies a more subtle contrast adjustment, preserving more mid-tone detail than Heavy Contrast.
  • Clarity: Enhances local contrast, making details appear sharper and more defined without significantly affecting overall brightness.
    • Clarity Softness: Controls the smoothness of the clarity effect. Higher values make the sharpening more diffused.
  • Lucidity: Similar to Clarity, but a little softer.
    • Lucidity Softness: Controls the smoothness of the lucidity effect.
  • Brilliance: Increases the brightness and "pop" of colours, especially in highlights, without drastically overexposing the screen.

Colour Channels​

These effects allow for direct manipulation of the Red, Green, and Blue colour channels of the screen.

Channel Swapper​

This effect remaps the source colour channels to different output channels. For example, you could make the screen's Red channel display what was originally in its Green channel.

  • Red: Determines which of the original screen's colour channels (Red, Green, or Blue) will be output to the final screen's Red channel.
  • Green: Determines which of the original screen's colour channels will be output to the final screen's Green channel.
  • Blue: Determines which of the original screen's colour channels will be output to the final screen's Blue channel.

Channel Mixer​

This effect allows you to define how much each of the original Red, Green, and Blue channels contribute to the final Red, Green, and Blue output channels. It offers more granular control than the Channel Swapper.

  • Opacity: Controls the overall strength of the channel mixing effect. 0 means no mixing (original colours), 1 means the full mixed result is shown.
  • Red: The RGBA sliders here define the contribution to the output Red channel.
    • R slider: How much of the original Red channel contributes to the output Red.
    • G slider: How much of the original Green channel contributes to the output Red.
    • B slider: How much of the original Blue channel contributes to the output Red.
  • Green: Defines contributions to the output Green channel, similar to the Red controls.
  • Blue: Defines contributions to the output Blue channel, similar to the Red controls.

Postprocessing​

This group of effects applies final adjustments to the screen, such as what would be done on film.

Bleach Bypass​

Simulates the film development process of bleach bypass, which involves partially or completely skipping the bleaching stage. This results in a high-contrast image with reduced saturation, giving a desaturated, metallic, and gritty look.

  • Opacity: Controls the strength of the bleach bypass effect. 0 is no effect, 1 is full effect.
  • Tone: Adjusts the tonal characteristics of the bleach bypass, influencing which parts of the image (shadows, midtones, highlights) are most affected by the desaturation and contrast boost.

Look-Up-Table (LUT)​

Applies a colour look-up table (LUT) to the image. A LUT is a predefined table that remaps input colour values to new output colour values, allowing for complex and precise colour grading presets to be applied quickly.

  • Opacity: Controls the strength of the LUT effect. 0 means the original image is shown, 1 means the fully LUT-graded image is shown.
  • LUT Texture: The texture file that contains the colour remapping information.

Tonemapping​

Tonemapping is the process of mapping one set of colours to another, used for things like approximating high dynamic range (HDR) values on a standard dynamic range (SDR) display, or for artistic effect. Different algorithms produce different visual characteristics.

  • Style: Selects the tonemapping algorithm.
    • Reinhard: A common algorithm that aims for a photographic look compressing highlights.
    • Aces Approximation: An approximation of the ACES that aims for highlight rolloff.
    • Hable: John Hable's filmic tonemapping curve, offering good control over exposure and whitepoint.
    • Luminance: A simpler tonemapper based on image luminance.
    • Hejl Dawson: A tonemapping curve developed by Jim Hejl and Richard Burgess-Dawson.
  • Control One, Control Two, Control Three: These are general-purpose control parameters whose specific meaning depends on the selected Style.
    • Reinhard: All three controls act as brightness adjustments for each colour channel.
    • Aces Approximation: No controls are factored in.
    • Hable: Control One is the exposure and Control Two is the whitepoint.
    • Luminance: Control One and Control Two are brightness adjustments, applied to the luminance. Control One is added to the luma when factored in while Control Two is multiplied.
    • Hejl Dawson: No controls are factored in.
  • Opacity: Controls the strength of the tonemapping effect. 0 is no effect, 1 is full effect.

Posterization​

Reduces the number of distinct colour tones in the image, creating flat areas of colour and sharp transitions between them.

  • Colour Posterization: Controls the number of colour levels for each RGB channel. Lower values result in fewer distinct colours and a more pronounced posterization effect. A value of -200 effectively disables this specific posterization type.
  • Luma Posterization: Controls the number of luminance (brightness) levels. Lower values result in fewer distinct brightness steps. A value of -200 effectively disables this specific posterization type.