How to Isolate Skin Tones for Colour Correction in DaVinci Resolve

Learn to colour correct like a pro with our free course DaVinci Resolve Colour Grading for Beginners. You’ll learn how to use each important tool in Resolve, including how to set your project using scene detection, how to get clean skin tones with noise reduction and how to create looks.

This lesson is a quick look at how to isolate your skin tones in Resolve, ready for colour correction.


How to Isolate Skin Tones for Colour Correction in Resolve

Find the eyedropper on your toolbars.

grab your skin tone with the colour droppergrab your skin tone with the colour droppergrab your skin tone with the colour dropper
Grab your skin tone with the colour dropper

With your skin tone node highlighted, the first thing to do is to go to the qualifier tool circled above, and then grab your skin tone with the colour dropper.

click the magic wand tool in the top left cornerclick the magic wand tool in the top left cornerclick the magic wand tool in the top left corner
Click the magic wand tool in the top left

It might look like nothing’s happened but if you click the magic wand tool in the top left corner (circled above) then you can see what you’ve actually grabbed, and that should be most of the skin.

Above you can see some wall and as well because they’re similar tones. You can then use the dropper on different parts of the skin if you want to get a cleaner selection.

use the dropper on different parts of the skin to get a cleaner selection.use the dropper on different parts of the skin to get a cleaner selection.use the dropper on different parts of the skin to get a cleaner selection.
Use the dropper on different parts of the skin to get a cleaner selection.

For the footage above, it’s important to grab the knuckles because they’re of the main focuses of the image.

That’s your skin tones in your Skin node, ready for further correction, which we’ll look at in an upcoming tutorial.

More Resolve Colour Grading Tutorials

About the Authors

Tom Graham created the video course that includes this lesson. Tom is a -skilled content creator with a background in commercial filmmaking.  

Marie Gardiner wrote the text version of this lesson and it was edited and published by Jackson Couse.