User Manual

Tomaintain the full resolution of source clips, bring only one clip into the Fusion page from the
Edit or Cut page Timeline, and then bring other clips into the Fusion composition using the
Media Pool. Of course, if your clips are full HD and your timeline is full HD, then creating a
Fusion clip or compound clip does not affect the resolution.
Color Bit Depths
The term bit depth describes how many colors are available in the color palette used to make
up an image. The higher the bit depth, the greater the precision of color in the image, and
therefore the greater the color reproduction. The higher precision is most apparent in gradients
with subtle changes. Lower bit-depth gradients have noticeable banding artifacts, whereas
higher bit-depth images can reproduce more colors, so fewer, if any, banding artifacts occur.
The Fusion page within DaVinci Resolve always uses 32-bit float bits per channel precision to
process images. However, in Fusion Studio you can choose to process images with 8-bit
integer, 16-bit integer, 16-bit float, and 32-bit float bits per channel. Although always working at
16-bit float or 32-bit float will produce the best quality, it may be more efficient to use a lower bit
depth if your images are 8-bit or 16-bit integer formats to begin with.
Understanding Integer vs. Float
Generally, 8-bit integer color processing is the lowest bit depth you’ll come across for video
formats. 8-bit images come from older or consumer-grade video equipment like mobile phones
and camcorders. If you try to perform any significant gamma or color correction on 8-bit images,
you can often see more visible banding.
16-bit integer color depth doubles the amount of precision, eliminating problems with banding.
Although you can select 16-bit integer processing for an 8-bit clip, it does not reduce banding
that already exists in the original file. Still, it can help when adding additional effects to the clip.
This sounds like the best solution until you realize that many digital cameras like
Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Pro and others record in formats that can capture over-range
values with shadow areas below 0.0 and super highlights above 1.0, which are truncated in
16-bit integer.
The 16-bit float color depth sacrifices a small amount of the precision from standard 16-bit
integer color depth to allow storage of color values less than 0 and greater than 1.0. 16-bit float,
sometimes called half-float, is most often found in the OpenEXR format and contains more than
enough dynamic range for most film and HDR television purposes yet requires significantly less
memory and processing time than is required for full float, 32-bit images.
Preserving over-range values allows you to change
exposure while maintaining highlights.
Processing at 32-bit float can work with shadow areas below 0.0 and highlights above 1.0,
similar to 16-bit float, except with a much greater range of precision but also much greater
memory and processing requirements.
1362Chapter – 67 Controlling Image Processing and Resolution