Lift, Gamma, Gain and Offset: Color Wheels on the Waveform

Each colour wheel moved on a test chart with its grey wedge on the waveform and parade: Lift moves the blacks, Gain the whites, Gamma bows the midtones and Offset slides everything, then the pucks warm the top and cool the shadows.

Color grading tutorial · chapter 4 Lift, Gamma, Gain and Offset: The Color 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. Read the chapter →

Key moments

1. 1 Master rings: level , starts at 0:00
2. 2 Pucks: colour , starts at 0:26
3. 3 Before and after , starts at 0:36
4. 4 Try it yourself , starts at 0:42

Transcript

Master rings: level 0:00

1. 0:02 The grey wedge draws a clean staircase on the waveform; watch which end of it each wheel moves.
2. 0:05 Raising Lift moves the bottom of the staircase most while the top step stays where it was.
3. 0:10 Lowering Gain pulls the top down most while black stays anchored at 0%.
4. 0:15 Raising Gamma bows the middle steps upwards and leaves both ends in place.
5. 0:21 Offset slides the whole staircase up by the same amount, lifting black off zero too.

Pucks: colour 0:26

1. 0:26 Pushing the Gain puck towards orange raises red and lowers blue on the parade, mostly at the top.
2. 0:32 A Lift push towards teal cools the shadows instead, splitting the parade at the bottom.

Before and after 0:36

1. 0:36 The split compares the neutral chart with the warm-top, cool-bottom balance the two pucks made.