User Manual

Table Of Contents
The Alpha Mode options that are available
when a clip has an embedded alpha channel
Super Scale High Quality Upscaling: For instances when you need higher-quality
upscaling than the standard Resize Filters allow, you can now enable one of three
“Super Scale” options in the Video panel of the Clip Attributes window for one or more
selected clips. Unlike using one of the numerous scaling options in the Edit, Fusion,
or Color pages, Super Scale actually increases the source resolution of the clip being
processed, which means that clip will have more pixels than it did before and will be
more processor-intensive to work with than before unless you optimize the clip (which
bakes in the Super Scale effect into the optimized media), or cache the clip in some way.
The Super Scale drop-down menu provides three options of 2x, 3x, and 4x, as well as
Sharpness and Noise Reduction options to tune the quality of the scaled result. Note
that all of the Super Scale parameters are in fixed increments; you cannot apply Super
Scale in variable amounts. Selecting one of these options enables DaVinci Resolve to
use advanced algorithms to improve the appearance of image detail when enlarging
clips by a significant amount, such as when editing SD archival media into a UHD
timeline, or when you find it necessary to enlarge a clip past its native resolution in
order to create a closeup.
You may find that, depending on the source media you’re working with, setting
Sharpness to Medium yields a relatively subtle result that can be hard to notice, but
setting Sharpness to high should be immediately more preferable, while also
sharpening grain and noise in the image to an undesirable extent at the default
settings. However, while raising Noise Reduction will ameliorate this effect, it will also
diminish the gains you obtained by raising Sharpness. In these cases, it’s worth
experimenting with keeping Sharpness at Low or Medium so that Super Scale sharpens
all aspects of a clip, but then using the Noise Reduction tools of the Color page (with
their additional ability to be fine-tuned) to diminish the unwanted noise.
Super Scale options in the Video panel of the Clip Attributes window
TIP: Super Scale, while incredibly useful, is an extremely processor-intensive
operation, so be aware that turning this on will likely prevent real-time playback. One
way to get around this is to create a string-out of all of the source media you’ll need to
enlarge at high quality, turn on Super Scale for all of them, and then render that
timeline as individual clips, while turning on the “Render at source resolution” and
“Filename uses > Source Name” options.
Chapter – 14 Modifying Clips and Clip Attributes 348