Strange red squares in highlights

[cmccullum]

I thought someone had posted about this before, but I couldn't find the thread.

Anyway, right to the point

Specs:
5diii
Dec20.2015 build
MLVS (not sure which version)
Davinci Resolve 12 (latest version)

Issue:
Strange red squares that look like the viewfinder autofocus selection points show up in some Highlights when trying to pull them back using highlight recovery

I opted to ease off the highlight recovery in the clip, but I thought it was an interesting thing and would like to know if anyone knows what is happening.
Will post a frame tomorrow to show what I'm talking about if necessary

[jmanord]

I noticed the same thing in some of my shots (5dIII). You can get rid of them by adjusting the color temp and tint, but the result may be far from a correct color balance. I had hoped to do some simple trial and error testing by changing the white balance in the camera settings to see if it had any effect when using Resolve highlight recovery, but haven't had time.

Resolve seems to be able to pull more from highlights than Lightroom, although sometimes the results may be too artificial(?) looking.

[cmccullum]

Update:

I opened resolve to grab a still of the squares and found that they only appear as squares at certain sizes in resolves viewer. They are actually just red dots likely just an artifact from over-aggressive highlight recovery

[jayclas]

are you talking about these because I'm having an issue with this!

[jmanord]

cmccullum, curios that your red dot artifacts went away at different viewer sizes. I opened up a shot containing the artifacts in Resolve, but changing the viewer had no effect on the artifacts. I rendered the shot, and verified the artifacts were present in the output video. I must be experiencing something different(?).

No highlight recovery:


Highlight recovery checked - red square/dot artifacts appear:


Highlight recovery checked with Color Temp. and Tint adjusted until the artifacts are gone:

[cmccullum]

Yes both of those are the same thing I was talking about.

@jmanord my case was not as severe as yours so it wasn't that the dots were going away, but that they were spread out over a larger area as I increased the viewer size. I don't know why they grouped up into rectangles at smaller viewer sizes, but that's neither here nor there.


I'm going to try recovering the highlights in ACR to see if it's just a resolve thing