Introducing SmoothShift: The Better Qualifier

Based on rock-solid color science and workflow principles, SmoothShift is a qualifier tool built with today's colorist in mind. Unlike Resolve's native HSL qualifier and curves, SmoothShift...

1. Allows highly custom selections tuned for your working space
2. Supports hue/sat/lum adjustments using the most pleasing color models
3. Maintains gradient smoothness in the selections
4. Allows all of the above through an intuitive, efficient, speed-focused user interface

It's time to say goodbye to Resolve's outdated and problematic HSL qualifier.

As a colorist, your time during a session is highly valuable. With a client looking over your shoulder, it can be embarrassing to have to babysit the qualifier tool and spend ages trying to pull that perfect key... only for the result to break your image. After being burned too many times myself, I decided to dissect the native tool and rebuild it from the ground up to use only the smoothest color science, most pleasing operations, and a far more efficient and streamlined interface to suit the demands of today's professional colorists. That's why I built SmoothShift – in the modern professional workflow, Resolve's native solutions just don't cut it anymore.

Also, I'm surprised to say this, but the results are so smooth that I even find myself reaching for it as a tool in my look development practice, which is something I cringe at with Resolve's native qualifier and HSL curves. In contrast, SmoothShift truly excels at introducing those small nonlinearities into a look in a smooth way. With only the smoothest and most visually pleasing color science under the hood, your ability to dial in that perfect look means more beautiful projects and more happy clients.

Here are some of my favorite things to do with SmoothShift...

1. Saturate dark areas (sometimes specifically of skintones) to imitate modern Kodak film
2. Introduce hue twists by shifting a specific hue only in either the highlights or shadows
3. Desaturate high luminance & high sat to rein in garish 'video' colors
4. Fix hue/sat of the sky in outdoor shots
5. Increase density of highly saturated reds without affecting medium-sat skintones

+ fix inconsistent skintones,
achieve lush and natural foliage,
add hue-specific split toning,
apply filmic subtractive saturation,
illuminate dull secondaries,
... and the list goes on

Pro tip: You can even use SmoothShift's qualification algorithm with any other adjustment in Resolve

SmoothShift's Hue Shift, Sat Shift, and Lum Shift sliders cover most of your image adjustment needs right out of the box. However, when you still need something more, you can easily use SmoothShift as the selection tool for any other node in your tree. Here's how: just enable the 'Show Selection' and 'Matte' checkboxes, then use the RGB output of your SmoothShift node as the alpha input to any other node.

This opens the door for things like highlight recovery in blown-out skies or windows by blurring the matte and connecting to a node controlling exposure, among many other ideas. I'll leave those to you to discover!

Happy qualifying!

(P.S.: If you're like me and prefer to try new tools hands-on before making a decision, I highly encourage downloading the free demo to get a feel for it yourself. The demo is fully-featured and lasts forever, the only difference being a watermark.)