---
title: "Contrast and Tonal Range in Color Grading | colorgrade.video"
description: "Contrast and tonal range in color grading: set black and white points, place mid grey, use Contrast with Pivot and read it all on the waveform and false colour."
url: https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range
---

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3. Contrast and tonal range

Chapter 2 of 13 · Basics · 9 min read

# Contrast and Tonal Range in Color Grading

Before any colour decision, a grade needs a sound tonal foundation: where black sits, where white sits, and how the tones in between are spread. Colour depends on it. The same hue looks richer with deep blacks around it and duller in a flat, grey picture, and a cast is far easier to judge once the levels are right.

This chapter works on a deliberately flat version of the test chart, chart-flat, whose blacks are lifted and whose whites never reach white. You will set the end points, place mid grey, add contrast in two different ways and learn to protect the extremes, judging each step on the **Waveform** and in **False colour** rather than by eye. If the scopes are new to you, read [how to read video scopes](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes) first.

Video guide

## How to Add Contrast to Video: Black, White and Mid Grey

Duration:  0:41 

Your browser can't play this video. [Download the MP4](https://colorgrade.video/media/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video/video.mp4) or read the[full transcript](https://colorgrade.video/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video).

Chapters

1. [ Play from  0:00 Flat footage on the waveform ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video#t=0)
2. [ Play from  0:06 Black and white points ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video#t=6)
3. [ Play from  0:15 Mid grey and contrast ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video#t=15)
4. [ Play from  0:38 Try it yourself ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video#t=38)

English captions [Watch page and full transcript ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/how-to-add-contrast-to-video) 

## Key takeaways

* Set the black and white points first: they decide how much of the 0-100% scale the shot uses.
* Place mid grey at roughly 40-45% on the waveform; in **False colour** that is the green band.
* Adjust **Contrast** is an S-curve that keeps black and white in place; the Wheels **Contrast** is a straight stretch around **Pivot** that can clip.
* **Whites** and **Blacks** move the end points; **Highlights** and **Shadows** reshape the tones inside them.
* Contrast in RGB also raises saturation, so set tone before judging colour.

## In this chapter

1. [ 1. What tonal range is, and why footage looks flat ](#what-tonal-range-means)
2. [ 2. Set the black and white points ](#black-and-white-points)
3. [ 3. Place mid grey, in linear light ](#mid-grey)
4. [ 4. Two kinds of contrast: Contrast and Pivot ](#contrast-and-pivot)
5. [ 5. Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks in practice ](#highlights-shadows-whites-blacks)
6. [ 6. Protect the extremes ](#protecting-the-extremes)
7. [ 7. Set contrast and tonal range on a flat clip ](#try-it)

## What tonal range is, and why footage looks flat

Tonal range is the spread of levels a shot uses, from its deepest shadow to its lightest white. On the **Waveform** it is the height of the trace; on the **Histogram** it is the width of the hill. Contrast is how steeply the tones climb within that range: two shots can both run from 0% to 100% and still feel very different, because one spends most of its pixels in the middle and the other pushes them towards the ends.

Flat footage uses only part of the scale. Typical causes:

* Log or “flat” picture profiles, which store a wide range of light in a narrow, grey-looking signal on purpose. These need converting rather than stretching; see [log footage and LUTs](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/log-footage-and-luts).
* Haze, fog, lens flare or a dirty filter, which add stray light to everything and lift the blacks.
* A range mismatch: limited-range video (black at code 16, white at 235) read as full range, which lifts blacks and dulls whites in exactly the way chart-flat shows.
* Soft, frontal light with no shadows in the scene itself. Here the flatness is real and may be the mood.

[ ![The flat test chart beside its luma waveform: the grey wedge staircase starts well above 0 percent and ends well below 100 percent, leaving the top and bottom of the scale empty.](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range/flat-chart-waveform.webp)  (enlarge image) ](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range/flat-chart-waveform.webp) 

Flat footage on the **Waveform**: the scale is only partly used.

On chart-flat, the grey wedge’s staircase starts well above 0% and stops well short of 100%. The job is to stretch it to fill the scale without breaking the steps at either end.

## Set the black and white points

The black point is the level that becomes 0%; the white point is the level that becomes 100%. In **Adjust**, **Blacks** and **Whites** move them. Lowering **Blacks** takes a level above zero and maps it to black; raising **Whites** takes a level below 100% and maps it to white. Everything between is stretched in proportion, so the steps of the wedge stay evenly spaced, just further apart.

Work on the waveform. Lower **Blacks** until the bottom of the trace just touches 0-2%, then raise **Whites** until the lightest true white, here the white patch of the chart, sits around 95-100%. Stop as soon as the trace starts to pile up in a flat line at either end: that pile-up is detail being merged into pure black or white.

### Not every shot needs the full range

Fog, dusk and soft interiors genuinely lack deep blacks or clean whites, and stretching them to 0-100% destroys the atmosphere. The rule is not “always fill the scale” but “make the ends a decision”: a black that sits at 6% because you chose a softer look is fine; one that sits there because nobody looked is not.

Try it in the studio

The same end-point moves are available as wheels: lowering the **Lift** master ring moves black most and white not at all, and the **Gain** master ring moves white most and black not at all. The [colour wheels chapter](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/color-wheels) explains the difference in detail.

## Place mid grey, in linear light

Black and white are the frame; mid grey is the anchor. An 18% grey card, the average reflectance of a typical scene, lands at roughly 40-45% on a Rec.709 waveform. If the middle of the image sits there, faces, skies and most surfaces follow naturally. In **False colour** that band, 41-48%, is painted green, which makes placing it quick: open **View**, choose **False colour**, and watch the middle step of the grey wedge or a grey card in the scene.

The control for moving the middle is **Exposure**, measured in stops (-4 to +4). It works in linear light, as a camera’s aperture does: +1 multiplies the light in the scene by two, -1 halves it. Because the picture is encoded with a gamma curve, that multiplication moves mid and upper tones further on the waveform than it moves the deepest shadows, and black stays black. When you raise it, the studio rolls the lightest values off on a smooth shoulder instead of clipping them hard.

### Where skin and other landmarks fall

* Pink in **False colour** (60-66%) is one stop over mid grey, a common level for light skin in good light.
* Deeper complexions sit lower, often near or below the green band, and should. Never push every face to the same number; check that skin keeps its texture and sits on the skin tone line instead. More in [skin tones](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/skin-tones).
* Yellow (97-99.5%) shows tones about to clip: fine for lamps and specular glints, a warning on a white shirt.

[ ![The corrected chart in the False colour view, with the middle steps of the grey wedge painted green for mid grey, the lightest patch yellow and the deepest step purple.](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range/false-colour-mid-grey.webp)  (enlarge image) ](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range/false-colour-mid-grey.webp) 

After setting the end points, **False colour** shows mid grey in green.

## Two kinds of contrast: Contrast and Pivot

The studio offers contrast twice, and they behave differently on purpose.

**Contrast** in **Adjust** applies an S-curve around a fixed mid grey. Tones below the middle are pulled down, tones above are pushed up, but the curve flattens as it approaches 0% and 100%, so black and white stay exactly where you set them. It is safe: you cannot clip the image with it, though at high values the shadows and the lightest tones lose separation.

**Contrast** in the **Wheels** panel (0.00 to 2.00, default 1.00) is a straight-line stretch around **Pivot** (0.000 to 1.000, default 0.435). Every level’s distance from the pivot is multiplied by the contrast value: at 1.20 a pixel 10% above the pivot ends up 12% above it. Nothing protects the ends, so values pushed beyond 0 or 100% clip. That is precisely why colourists like it: it is predictable, and it pairs with **Pivot**.

### What Pivot does

**Pivot** is the level that contrast leaves untouched. With the pivot at mid grey, contrast spreads tones evenly both ways. Raise the pivot and more of the image falls below it, so adding contrast also makes the shot heavier; lower it and the same contrast makes the shot lighter and airier. A practical habit is to set the pivot at your subject’s level, so a face keeps its level while contrast builds around it.

__Which tone control moves what__
| Control                   | Moves most                     | Leaves alone    | Use it for                         |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------ | --------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| Blacks                    | The deepest tones              | White           | Setting the black point            |
| Whites                    | The lightest tones             | Black           | Setting the white point            |
| Exposure                  | Mids and upper tones           | Black           | Placing mid grey                   |
| Shadows                   | Lower quarter-tones            | Both end points | Opening or deepening shadow detail |
| Highlights                | Upper quarter-tones            | Both end points | Recovering texture near white      |
| Contrast (Adjust)         | Both sides of mid grey         | Both end points | Safe overall punch                 |
| Contrast + Pivot (Wheels) | Everything away from the pivot | The pivot level | Precise contrast around a subject  |

## Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks in practice

It is easy to confuse the four. **Whites** and **Blacks** move the end points of the range. **Highlights** and **Shadows** bend the curve inside it: **Highlights** acts most strongly around three-quarters of the way up and **Shadows** around a quarter of the way up, and both fade out towards 0% and 100%. So **Highlights** can pull texture back into a bright sky without making white grey, and **Shadows** can open up a face in shade without lifting true black.

A dependable order for a flat or uncorrected shot:

1. **Exposure** to put mid grey, or the subject, where it belongs.
2. **Blacks** and **Whites** to set the end points on the waveform.
3. **Contrast** to shape the overall feel.
4. **Highlights** and **Shadows** to recover or deepen detail near the ends.
5. Back to the waveform and **False colour** to check nothing important has slipped into purple or red.

The studio applies them in a fixed order regardless of the order you move them (exposure, then the end points, then shadows, highlights and contrast), so the result is the same whichever slider you touch first. The order above is about judgement: each step is easier to judge once the previous one is right.

[ ![Split compare of the test chart: the flat original on the left with grey blacks and dull whites, the corrected version on the right with deep blacks, clean whites and stronger colour, above a waveform that now fills the scale.](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range/contrast-split-compare.webp)  (enlarge image) ](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range/contrast-split-compare.webp) 

Flat original (left) and the corrected tonal range (right), with **Compare** on **Split**.

## Protect the extremes

Detail lost at either end of the range cannot be brought back later in the grade, and compression makes it worse: a crushed shadow turns into blocky noise on a streaming service, a clipped sky into a flat white shape. Three checks catch most problems:

* **Clipping** view: red stripes where any channel is at 100%, blue where all are at 0, yellow where one channel has crushed inside a colour. A saturated red jacket can clip its red channel while the luma waveform looks fine.
* **False colour**: large purple areas mean crushed blacks, large red areas clipped whites.
* **Histogram**: a tall spike pressed against either edge confirms many pixels are piling up there.

If the lightest tones are close to the edge, a small negative **Highlights** move usually rescues them without making the shot look grey. For log footage, the **Footage** panel’s **Highlights** option offers **Soft roll-off**, which eases values above white back into range instead of cutting them off.

### Contrast changes colour too

Every contrast control here works on red, green and blue alike, which spreads the channels of a coloured pixel apart and so raises saturation. That is often welcome, but it means you should set tone before judging colour. When you want contrast without the extra saturation, use the **Luma** curve, covered in [curves](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/curves). A deliberately lifted, milky black is a style rather than a fault: **Faded film** in **Creative** does it cleanly, and the [film look page](https://colorgrade.video/film-look) shows it in context.

## Set contrast and tonal range on a flat clip

Stretch a flat clip to a full tonal range, place mid grey and add contrast while watching the waveform and false colour.

1. 1  
### Open the clip with the scopes
Choose **Open video or photo**, switch to **Pro**, and show **Waveform** and **Histogram** in the **Scopes** column.
2. 2  
### Set the end points
In **Adjust**, lower **Blacks** until the bottom of the waveform touches 0-2%, then raise **Whites** until the lightest true white sits near 95-100%.
3. 3  
### Place mid grey
Open **View** and choose **False colour**. Nudge **Exposure** until a grey card, or the middle of the scene, turns green (41-48%).
4. 4  
### Shape the contrast
Return **View** to **Normal** and raise **Contrast**. For a precise stretch, use **Contrast** and **Pivot** in **Wheels** instead.
5. 5  
### Protect the extremes and compare
Check **Clipping** for red or blue stripes, ease **Highlights** or **Shadows** if needed, then set **Compare** to **Split** to see the difference.

## Contrast and tonal range: questions

### What are black and white points in color grading?

The black point is the input level that becomes pure black (0% on the waveform) and the white point the level that becomes pure white (100%). Setting them stretches the tones between to use the full range. In the studio, **Blacks** and **Whites** in **Adjust** move them.

### Where should mid grey sit on a waveform?

An 18% grey card usually lands at roughly 40-45% on a Rec.709 waveform. In the studio’s **False colour** view that band, 41-48%, is painted green, so you can place a grey card or a mid-toned subject without reading numbers.

### What does the Pivot control do?

**Pivot** sets the level that **Contrast** in the **Wheels** panel leaves unchanged. Tones above it are pushed up and tones below are pulled down. Raising the pivot makes added contrast feel heavier; lowering it makes it lighter.

### How much contrast should a video have?

Enough that the darkest meaningful shadow reaches near black and the lightest true white near 100%, unless the scene itself is soft, like fog or dusk. Beyond that it is a style choice: high contrast feels hard and dramatic, low contrast gentle and nostalgic. Check that faces keep their texture.

### Why does my footage look flat and grey?

Usually because it was shot in a log or flat profile, which needs converting rather than stretching, or because limited-range video is being read as full range. Haze and lens flare also lift the blacks. Check the waveform: if the trace never reaches 0% or 100%, set the black and white points.

### Does adding contrast increase saturation?

Yes, when the contrast is applied to red, green and blue together, as the **Contrast** sliders and the **RGB** curve do. Each channel is stretched, so coloured pixels spread further apart. To add contrast while keeping saturation, use an S-curve on the **Luma** curve instead.

[ ← Previous: chapter 1 Video scopes ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes) [ Next: chapter 3 → White balance ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/white-balance) 

## Keep going

* [ Video scopes Read the waveform, RGB parade, vectorscope and histogram, and check levels with false colour and clipping views. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes)
* [ Colour wheels What each colour wheel does in plain maths, how the master ring and puck differ, when to use log wheels, and what the primary bars add. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/color-wheels)
* [ Curves Shape contrast with RGB and luma curves, fix or create casts with channel curves, and change single colours with the hue curves and HSL. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/curves)
* [ Color correct a video online Neutral, accurate colour from one button, with scopes and sliders to refine it. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-correct-video)
* [ Convert log footage to Rec.709 Camera log profiles converted to normal video, with the maker LUT route for the rest. ](https://colorgrade.video/log-to-rec709)

All 13 chapters 
1. [ 1\. Video scopes ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes)  · Basics
2. [ 2\. Contrast and tonal range ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range)  · Basics
3. [ 3\. White balance ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/white-balance)  · Basics
4. [ 4\. Colour wheels ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/color-wheels)  · Intermediate
5. [ 5\. Curves ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/curves)  · Intermediate
6. [ 6\. Secondary correction ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/secondary-color-correction)  · Intermediate
7. [ 7\. Skin tones ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/skin-tones)  · Intermediate
8. [ 8\. Log footage and LUTs ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/log-footage-and-luts)  · Advanced
9. [ 9\. Creative looks ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/creative-looks)  · Advanced
10. [ 10\. Shot matching ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/shot-matching)  · Advanced
11. [ 11\. Delivery and export ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/delivery)  · Advanced
12. [ 12\. Grading workflow ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/workflow)  · Intermediate
13. [ 13\. Common mistakes ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes)  · Basics