Overview

Three/Strip™ models the look of Technicolor’s dye-transfer printing, the process behind the deep, separated color of period Hollywood film. It is a color emulation, not a correction tool: you set your primary grade on an earlier node, then Three/Strip prints that image through a dye model. This page covers the two processes it offers, the workflow it is built around, and the groups in the inspector.

Two processes, one plugin

Three/Strip is a single plugin with two engines inside it, chosen with the Process Emulation dropdown, just below Color Management.

• Three Strip models the full three-strip dye-transfer process: three color records, the crosstalk between them, and the dye density that gives the process its richness.
• Two Strip models the earlier two-color process, which built an image from two dyes rather than three. It is a simpler, more restricted palette by design.

Switching the process shows the controls that belong to it and hides the rest, so you only ever see the controls for the engine you are using. A handful of controls, like Vibrancy and Blend, stay visible in both.

The workflow

The workflow has a front door: pick a Look, then set Vibrancy, then Blend. Everything after that is fine-tuning.

1. Look. Pick a preset. Each Look sets the main sliders to a different starting point. This is the fastest way to a usable image, and most shots start here.
2. Vibrancy. One knob that drives the color intensity of the whole emulation. In Three Strip it moves Dye Character, Richness, and Saturation together; in Two Strip it moves Dye Intensity. Either way you push or pull the look without touching each slider.
3. Blend. Mix the emulation back against your original image. At full strength you get the whole dye model; lower it to keep some of your graded image showing through.

Once the Look and those two knobs are close, the process-specific controls let you shape the dye response, warmth, contrast, and how much skin is held back from the color shift.

The groups

From the top of the inspector down: Color Management, then the Process Emulation switch, then the look and finishing groups.

• Color Management sets the Transfer Function and Gamut of your incoming image, so the dye model knows what it is looking at. A link option keeps the two paired. The Process Emulation switch sits just beneath it.
• Look holds the preset selector, Vibrancy, Warmth, Blend, and Contrast in Three Strip. Vibrancy and Blend stay here in both processes; in Two Strip the preset and its own character controls move to a separate Two Strip group.
• Advanced holds the fine dye controls in Three Strip (dye character, richness, black density, saturation, and skin protection), plus the shared Skin Offset, Gamut Compress, and Clamp Negatives, which stay in both processes.
• Diagnostics holds a Bypass switch, and About holds an Export Diagnostics button for support.

Where it sits in the grade

Three/Strip applies its dye model at its default settings, so it is meant to sit on its own node on top of a finished primary grade rather than to do the primary itself. Balance and expose your shot first, on an earlier node, then let Three/Strip print it. The Resolve Quick Start walks that setup, and Looks & Controls covers the look and color-management controls in both processes.