1886 SUITE — exposure & color instruments for graded material
Federico Malpica, DP — federicomalpicadp.com
v1.0 — July 2026

Three DCTLs + a LUT for DaVinci Resolve, standardized on ITU-R BT.1886
(Gamma 2.4) — the delivery standard. They read the FINISHED image: apply them
to graded Rec709 material, or to a reference still, and the paint tells you
where everything sits.

Calibrated by measuring 18 reference frames from premium commercial and
narrative work. The numbers that came out of that lab are baked into the
instruments: moody-commercial skin lives at -1.0 to -1.5 stops under mid-gray,
skin saturation holds between 0.28 and 0.38, and nobody clips.

Stop-mapped false color has prior art (the EL Zone System, for camera log).
These instruments are built for the other end of the pipeline: reading and
matching GRADED images.


WHAT'S IN THE BOX

DCTL/
  EXPOSURE_1886.dctl       Per-stop false color. One hue per stop from
                           mid-gray; WHITE = clipped highlights (signal
                           >= 99.6%), BLACK = crushed blacks (<= 0.4%).
                           Exposure Offset measures distance-to-reference
                           in stops. Half Stops checkbox doubles the
                           precision: halves paint as the darkened blend of
                           the two neighboring hues, and the legend splits
                           each block (bright = full stop, dim = the half
                           below it).
  VECTOR_1886.dctl         The vectorscope painted in place. Each pixel's
                           true CbCr radius as a numbered level 0-9; the
                           Scope Range % slider is the ruler - keep it equal
                           on reference and shot, or the numbers don't compare.
  PROBE_1886.dctl          Two-point stop meter. Green point A, red point B,
                           positioned with sliders; the readout shows each
                           patch's absolute stops + signal level (percent),
                           and D = A minus B, the difference in stops.
                           Movable, scalable readout. NOTE: PROBE samples the
                           image away from the current pixel - it only works
                           through the DCTL OpenFX plugin, never the LUT
                           browser.

LUT/
  EXPOSURE1886_Stops_33.cube     The EXPOSURE_1886 paint as a LUT — light
                                 enough for on-set monitors (SmallHD, Atomos).

  The LUT freezes the default parameters, can't draw the legend, and blends
  slightly at stop edges (3D interpolation). In Resolve, prefer the DCTLs —
  hard edges, adjustable everything. The LUT is for monitors.


INSTALL

macOS:    copy the DCTL/ files to
          /Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/LUT/
Windows:  C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\LUT\
LUTs:     same folder (a subfolder like LUT/EXPOSURE/ keeps things tidy).

Restart Resolve (or right-click the LUT browser > Refresh). Apply the DCTLs
via the DCTL OpenFX plugin or the ResolveFX DCTL node.


HOW TO READ THEM

Everything meets in Rec709 / BT.1886. If your timeline is log, convert first
(CST node -> Rec709, Gamma 2.4), then apply the instrument after it.

The matching workflow: apply the same instrument with the same settings to a
reference still and to your shot, wipe or split them, and grade until the two
paints agree. On EXPOSURE, drag Exposure Offset until your skin paints the
same stop color as the reference's skin - the slider value IS your distance
in stops.

The offset also works forward, on set: if you are shooting a stop over to
pull back down in the grade, set Exposure Offset to -1 and the paint shows
where everything will sit AFTER the pull, while you monitor the hot image.

PROBE turns the same math into a tape measure: put A on the key side of a
face and B on the fill side, and D is the lighting ratio in stops (1.0 = 2:1,
1.6 = 3:1, 2.0 = 4:1). A on the subject, B on the background = separation.
The white numbers are stops; the pale blue numbers are display signal percent
(the waveform level of the same patch). Two rulers, one patch.
