Four-way skin & tone diagnostic · DCTL · DaVinci Resolve
Skin Tone Mastery splits one frame into four live views: source, exposure, saturation and hue. It's calibrated for skin out of the box and pivots to any hue you want to inspect, so you can read a tone the moment you drop it on a node, no guesswork in the qualifier.
Source
Exposure
Saturation
Hue
Real exports from the tool on a single skin-tone frame. The hue vector here is set to Skin (18.7°).
Why it exists
Qualifying a skin tone in Resolve's built-in qualifier is iterative tweaking with no way to see the whole picture. You pick at the hue, then the saturation, then the luminance, one at a time, and you never see how the three relate on the same frame.
Skin Tone Mastery puts all three diagnostics plus the raw source in one frame. Hue, saturation and exposure, side by side, updating together. You read the tone, then go qualify it knowing exactly where it sits.
One frame · four lenses
Every panel analyses the same image through a different lens, so you can isolate, qualify and evaluate a tone without leaving the node. Set the Primary View dropdown to any single panel to blow it up to the full frame.
01 Source
02 Exposure
03 Saturation
04 Hue Indicator
The unprocessed input, for reference.
Your frame, untouched, so you always have ground truth next to the analysis. In Monochrome mode it shows luminance only, which is handy when you want to read exposure without color pulling your eye.
A constant reference point. Everything in the other three panels is this same frame, seen differently.
False color by luminance zone.
A false-color ramp maps dark blues through greens into yellows and oranges, up to clipped reds. The Target Exposure slider shifts where the neutral grey band sits, so you can park it on the tone you care about. Gray Non-Selected shows only pixels within ±0.05 luminance of the target in their true source color and greys the rest.
Where your skin sits on the exposure scale, and whether it is landing where you want it before you touch a wheel.
False color by perceptual saturation.
A false-color ramp maps low saturation (blue) through mid (green and yellow) up to high (orange and red), using HSV saturation times value so it tracks what you actually perceive. Target Saturation sets the neutral band, and Gray Non-Selected isolates only the pixels inside the target saturation window.
Overcooked or flat skin at a glance, and whether your saturation is even across the face.
The primary selection display.
Pixels inside the Matched Hue Range are painted yellow. Pixels in the Indicator Range but on the green side of target go green; the magenta side goes magenta. Everything outside both ranges passes through unchanged, or greys out if Gray Non-Selected is on. Highlight Neutral paints near-neutral pixels bright green so you can catch skin that has desaturated to grey.
Exactly which way your skin is leaning, green or magenta, off the target hue, and how wide the spread is across the frame.
Diagnostic modes
A handful of toggles change what survives to screen, so you can go from a broad overview to a single isolated cluster ready to feed Resolve's scopes.
Gray Non-Selected
In the exposure and saturation panels, everything outside the target window drops to grey, leaving just the qualifying pixels in true color. The hue indicator does the same around your selection. It is the fastest way to confirm exactly which pixels fall inside your window before you commit to a key.
Vectorscope Mode
All four quadrants grey down based on the hue selection, so only the selected hue cluster passes through. Point this node at Resolve's vectorscope or parade and you can confirm where your skin cluster actually sits, without leaving the grade or building a separate key.
Every control
The defaults land on skin, so most shots need nothing but a glance. When you want to push further, here is the whole panel.
Starts on skin, switches to inspect any vector you want: Skin, Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue or Magenta.
default · Skin (18.7°)Width of the primary yellow selection zone. Scaled to one skin-tone step, so the slider is perceptually calibrated for skin work.
unit · 18.7° stepsWidth of the green and magenta deviation bands that sit just outside the core selection.
green / magenta bandsFine-tune the hue centre up to ±60° from the selected vector without changing the dropdown.
range · ±60°Sets the centre of the exposure window for the exposure heatmap panel.
neutral grey bandSets the centre of the saturation window for the saturation heatmap panel.
neutral sat bandAll Four by default, or collapse to Hue Indicator, Saturation or Exposure to fill the frame with one panel.
All Four / single panelGreys everything outside the target window in the exposure and saturation panels, leaving only qualifying pixels in true color.
off by defaultGreys all four quadrants by the hue selection so only the chosen cluster passes to Resolve's scopes.
scope feedPaints near-neutral grey pixels bright green in the hue indicator, flagging skin that has desaturated.
neutral catcherConverts all panels to luminance for exposure-focused analysis without color in the way.
luma onlySet Primary View to a single panel for precise exposure targeting on tight shots, where one full-resolution diagnostic beats four small ones.
workflowThe premium tools
Skin Tone Mastery comes with the whole Tool Box. Become a Happy Little Noder and unlock every premium tool on the channel, plus every update and new release. One low annual fee that will never be raised, so lock it in once and you're set.
A whole set of the Tool Box is free, always. Grab the Tool Box Manager and start playing today, then unlock the premium kit whenever you're ready.
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Getting started
The Tool Box Manager installs Skin Tone Mastery, keeps it organized, and updates it for you alongside the rest of the kit. Works on macOS, Windows and Linux, no manual file-copying required.
Grab the latest release from GitHub and open it. It's your home base for every Dec. 18 tool.
Browse the catalog inside the Manager and select Skin Tone Mastery, right alongside the rest of the kit.
The Manager drops the DCTL into the right place for you, no digging through system folders.
Relaunch Resolve so it picks up the new DCTL.
Add a node, apply Skin Tone Mastery as a DCTL, and read the frame. It's a diagnostic, so bypass or remove the node before you render.