User Manual

The Layer Mixer’s prioritization is most useful when you have an overlapping adjustment that
you need to override any other adjustments happening on that stack. In the following example,
two nodes are connected to the Layer Mixer node. Node 2 is applying a high-contrast, cool
look to the entire clip. Node 3 isolates the skin tone, which is unflattering with the background
stylization, and applies a different, more naturalistic adjustment.
Using the layer mixer, grades on Node 3 will have a greater
priority over Node 2, so the final grade combines the high
contrast from Node 2 with the adjusted skin tone from Node 4
Because of the Layer Mixer’s prioritization, the adjustment made to the woman’s skin tone
completely covers the adjustment made to the node that comes above it, providing the best of
both worlds with one simple adjustment.
TIP: If you want to “solo” overlapping nodes that are connected to the Layer Mixer to
see their individual adjustment, turn on Highlight (Shift-H, or the HILITE button on the
Transport panel of the DaVinci control panel). This lets you view just that node’s effect,
regardless of what other node adjustments are overlapping.
Using Composite Modes With the Layer Mixer
You have the option of combining the adjustments made by all nodes connected to a Layer
Mixer node using the same Composite modes that are available when compositing clips in the
Timeline. This lets you combine different overlapping image adjustments using compositing
math to achieve creative effects or utilitarian fixes.
The following simple example shows two overlapping Corrector nodes connected to a Layer
Mixer node that’s set to the Add composite mode. Node 3 has no adjustment, but Node 5 has
an extremely high-contrast curve adjustment applied, along with a blur, that effectively isolates
the highlights of the image and feathers them out.
Chapter – 125 Serial, Parallel, and LayerNodes 2849