Adjustments

Before a negative ever saw a lab, a cinematographer had already decided how much light to let in, which stock to load for the light on set, and which filter to put on the lens. The Adjustments group on the Camera tab holds the digital equivalent of those decisions. Its controls act on the scene before the Negative stage, so they change what the stock is asked to record. Black Level is the exception. It sits in the group for convenience and does its work inside the Print stage.

What the group does

The Adjustments stage runs first in the chain, before Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain. Exposure, Temperature, Tint, and Shadow Tint are applied as gains in linear light. Shadow Tint weights its shift by luminance. Contrast and Pivot follow, then Saturation. The result is handed to the Negative stage, so every one of these changes alters how the stock responds. An exposure change here moves the scene up or down the stock’s curve. The final brightness also depends on the stock rendering that follows.

Because these controls are scene correction, they sit outside the film. Effect Strength scales the Opacity of Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain together, and it leaves the first eight Adjustments alone. They stay fully applied at any Effect Strength. The Overview covers the masters. Black Level is the one control in the group that does fade, because it acts inside the print.

Exposure

Exposure offsets the scene in stops before the negative. A stop up doubles the light reaching the stock, a stop down halves it. The stock’s curve is applied afterward. An underexposed scene sinks toward the toe and loses shadow separation. As exposure rises, the highlights can move into the shoulder and separate less. Each stock responds in its own way, which is the point of doing this here rather than with a gain after the plugin.

This is the control to pair with Push/Pull on the Lab tab. A push was matched on set with underexposure, and a pull with overexposure, to land the lab’s aim density. The Lab guide covers that pairing.

Contrast and Pivot

Contrast is a rolling contrast applied around a pivot. The midpoint of the range is neutral. Above it the curve steepens around the pivot, below it the curve flattens.

Pivot sets the point the contrast turns around, in stops relative to 18 percent grey. At zero the pivot sits on middle grey. Moving Pivot changes the tone that Contrast holds fixed. Tones on both sides still move, so judge the shadows and highlights together. Pivot does nothing while Contrast is neutral.

Saturation

Saturation scales the scene’s color before the negative. It is subtractive, the same convention the print stage uses, so lowering it drains color toward neutral. At zero the scene reaches the negative as a monochrome image. The Monochrome Archive Film Look pairs that setting with Kodak Double X. The stock is what makes the image monochrome. Saturation at zero only makes sure no color reaches it.

Temperature, Tint, and Shadow Tint

Temperature is a color balance shift applied as a red and blue gain in linear light. Positive warms the scene by raising red and lowering blue, negative cools it the other way. It is a simple channel-gain trim rather than a filter model. Use it to remove a cast before the stock sees it.

Tint is the green and magenta axis of the same balance. Positive adds green, negative adds magenta. Together the two give a balance trim before the stock records the scene.

Shadow Tint is the same green and magenta shift weighted toward the shadows. Its gain is weighted toward the darkest tones and tapers as the image gets brighter, so brighter tones receive less of the shift. The Emerald Cast Film Look uses it to hold green in the dark areas of the frame. Use it when a look needs a colored shadow without the whole balance moving.

Black Level

Black Level is the odd one out. It is listed in the Adjustments group but is applied inside the Print stage, as an exposure gain tapered onto the shadows of the printed image. The midpoint of the range is neutral. Below it the shadows are crushed, above it they are lifted. The gain is multiplicative, so a true black stays black however far it is lifted, and the taper keeps the midtones and highlights in place. The default sits below neutral. A Film Look supplies its own value, which only affects the image while Print is active.

Because it lives inside the print it follows the print’s controls. It fades with Print Opacity and with Effect Strength, and it is removed when Print is off. The other eight Adjustments do none of that. The print-density floor is a separate control, Matte Shadows on the Print tab, which sets where the print’s darkest density sits.

Enable

Enable neutralizes the group. Switch it off and Exposure, Contrast, Pivot, Saturation, Temperature, Tint, and Shadow Tint all return to their neutral values while the sliders keep what you set. That makes it a clean A/B for the scene correction. Black Level stays as set. It acts inside the print, so it belongs to the Print stage’s Enable and Opacity rather than to this switch.

Controls

Working with Adjustments

Treat the first eight controls as the camera. Balance and expose the scene the way the cinematographer would have, then let the stocks do the rest. If a shot is warm because the set was lit warm, correct it here, before the stock, rather than after the print. Leaving it is a choice about the negative.

Use Exposure for exposure. Printer Master on the Print tab times the print, and Exposure here re-exposes the negative. They look similar on a waveform and behave differently in the toe and shoulder, so pick the one that matches what went wrong.

Judge Black Level with the print on and Opacity up. It is a print control in all but its position. Its effect weakens as Print Opacity falls and disappears when the print is fully faded.

What Adjustments cannot do

Exposure moves the scene along the stock’s curve. It does not reshape the curve. A stock’s toe and shoulder are what they are. Push/Pull on the Lab tab changes the development response mainly through the mids and shoulder, with much less influence in the deep toe.

Temperature and Tint are gains. They do not swap a daylight stock for a tungsten one. The Negative Stock menu carries stocks of both balances, and the Film guide covers choosing between them.

Next: Film covers the camera negative, the stocks on the Negative tab, and how Intensity and Opacity differ.