Value Adjustments

All value adjustments can be enabled or disabled at once by using the checkbox in the panel header.

Exposure

Used to control the image brightness (in stops).

The exposure in Render Raw can be used just like Blender’s scene exposure control but is a totally seperate property. The Render Raw exposure is the first node in the compositing chain, while Blender’s exposure is applied last after all compositing. Because of this, Render Raw always needs the Blender scene exposure to be set to 0 under the hood. Enabling Render Raw will set the scene exposure to 0 and swap out that control for the Render Raw node exposure control and set it to the same value. You should not notice any difference in using the control.

Gamma

Extra gamma correction applied after the exposure. Similar to the exposure control, it is a seperate property from Blender’s scene gamma. However, adjusting the scene gamma on top of Render Raw is not an issue.

Contrast

Makes brighter pixels brighter while keeping the darker pixels dark, pivoting around the midpoint. This effect is applied before the transform.

Midpoint sets where contrast pivots. At 0, it is middle grey. At 1, it is the average of the image, so a dark or bright image doesn’t get pushed to one extreme. The average can change from frame to frame in animation, so turn off Midpoint if that swing is an issue.

Contrast Total works across the whole range. Toe adds or removes contrast below the midpoint and Shoulder does the same above it. They crossfade within a stop either side of the midpoint and together cover the whole range, so setting both to the same value is the same as setting Contrast Total.

Skip Bleach controls which contrast method is used. At 0, the contrast adjusts the exposure and gamma, just like the Filmic and AgX contrast looks but with more control. At 1, the contrast emulates the traditional film process of using less bleach in the chemical processing to retain more silver. This ends up naturally desaturating the dark and light areas while retaining more color in the midtones, wheras regular contrast boosts saturation at the extremes. Silver can only add density, so any Contrast control below 0 always uses regular contrast. Bleach Bypass is greyed out until at least one of them is above 0.

Tip: Real bleach bypass is also grainier, because the silver grains are no longer being washed out. Render Raw models grain separately, so pair this with Film Grain in the Effects panel if you want the full process.

Levels

The Blacks, Shadows, Hightlights, and Whites controls can be used to map the range of values in the render, similar to RGB curves but with sliders for ease of use. Increasing Whites is often helpful for making almost-white pixels perfectly white, and decreasing Blacks can be helpful for making almost-black pixels perfectly black. You may also want to do the opposite in order to expand the dynamic range if other Render Raw settings are causing the values to clip.

The Shadows and Highlights controls smoothly increase or decrease the values around the 0.25 and 0.75 points respectively. If you need to adjust the midtones, consider changing the exposure or using curves.

All of the Levels controls happen after the color transform and should be used carefully since they can easily cause clipping.

Sharpness

Adds contrast to edges after the color transform to make the image appear more crisp, or removes it to soften them. The Masking option can be used to only sharpen or soften detected edges that already have a high contrast, which helps avoid the look of over-sharpening.

Texture

Increases or decreases mid-sized detail (skin, grass, etc.), post-transform. The Size control picks how large the affected features are.

Clarity

Increases or decreases the difference between neighboring values after the color transform. The main difference between Clarity and Sharpening is that Clarity can be smoothly spread over a wider area by using the Size control.

Higher clarity can make subjects pop out from the background while lower clarity can help soften and blend harsh edges.

Curves

Increases or decreases the output value per input value. The Pre curves adjust the linear values before the color transform while the Post curves adjust the sRGB values after the transform. The Pre curves are “safe” and will not cause clipping like the Post curves can, but are not as intuitive to work with since they are not bound to the 0-1 range.