MixingLight – ‘Smearing Shadows’ For More Pleasing High-Contrast Looks

One of the signature traits of a film print is the combination of strong contrast through the midtones with a “roll” in the highlights and shadows, creating a bold yet detail-rich image. This aesthetic can be achieved in many ways, but today we’re going to explore a highly effective technique I borrowed from Company 3 Senior Colorist Tom Poole. For lack of a better term, we’ll call it “shadow smearing” – a name I promise will make more sense after today’s Insight!

By the end of this Insight, you should understand how to:

• Create a soft shadow qualifier and “smear” the high and low values closer together
• Visualize a qualified lift/gain adjustment as a curve

https://images.mixinglight.com/cb:sOVj.5c7e3/w:840/h:412/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://mixinglight.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smearing-shadows-luma-key-davinci-resolve-ML1206.jpg