Understanding Heads-Up Displays (HUDs)

Heads Up Displays (HUDs) are dynamic overlays that appear as you adjust color controls, giving you immediate visual and numeric feedback. Instead of relying on separate video scopes, HUDs bring relevant analysis directly into your workspace—showing how your adjustments affect the image in real time. They appear only when needed and disappear once you’re done, helping you stay focused on the image while still making precise, informed adjustments.

What are Heads Up Displays (HUDs)?

As you learn to work with the Color mode, it’s helpful to understand how the heads-up displays (HUDs) that accompany each color control are meant to help you, and why they come and go as they do.

Traditional color adjustment environments rely on having a large panel with multiple video scopes open. The analyses performed by these scopes provide guidance to help you make decisions about how much (or how little) to adjust different aspects of the video image, but it’s up to you to know what part of which scope to be looking at when you make a particular adjustment.

HUDs aren’t just video scopes. HUDs are the extended interface for each color control you use, providing simultaneous context for what you’re doing, how it’s affecting the image, and the value you’re setting that control to, while allowing the controls themselves to occupy minimal space in the UI and cause minimal distraction.

HUDs are also different in that they’re not limited to only showing what ordinary video scopes show you; there are more kinds of HUDs than there are scopes, and they’re designed to show information that is specific to each control.

If you’re not sure how to use video scopes, HUDs automatically show you the best video scope for each adjustment, simplified for legibility, and with clear indicators that point out exactly how your adjustment is affecting the image data. Additionally, the HUD that appears with the Texture controls shows image analysis that video scopes do not.

Lastly, while traditional always-on video scopes are available for quality control (QC) analysis (via the Video Scopes panel), HUDs are a space-saving alternative that are entirely contextual; they appear when you start to make an adjustment, show you what you need to see, and go away when you’re finished, leaving you to focus on the resulting image. For this reason, HUDs are great for working on a small display.

With all the information available in the HUDs, the actual color controls you select and drag to make adjustments have been simplified to be streamlined and space-efficient, with graphic indicators primarily designed to show the type and extent of each adjustment for visual reference. This simplification is possible because each HUD provides a wealth of information during image adjustment.

Using the HUDs

HUDs appear in the following ways:

• To see a Color control’s particular HUD analysis without making an adjustment, select the color control once without moving the pointer, then select again to put the HUD away.
• HUDs automatically appear whenever you’re making an adjustment; selecting once on a control lets you “latch” that control on, so you can make the adjustment without holding the button down. Selecting again accepts the adjustment and closes the HUD.
• HUDs also appear if you click and hold the pointer button down to make an adjustment. In this case, releasing the mouse button accepts the adjustment and closes the HUD.

How to read HUDs

HUDs consist of the following components:

• Video Scope Graph: Most HUDs have a video scope graph that corresponds to the best scope for evaluating the component of the video signal that you’re adjusting right now.
• Min: (Only appears with Waveform and Parade scopes) A line at the bottom of the HUD that represents absolute black in the image. Pushing any part of the video signal below min will clip shadows pixels to black.
• Max: (Only appears with Waveform and Parade scopes) A line at the top of the HUD that corresponds to the Output Peak Luminance that’s chosen in that sequence’s color management. Pushing any part of the video signal above Max will clip highlight pixels to maximum white.
• Reference White: (Only appears when Output color space is set to an HDR format) Reference White (aka diffuse white, graphics white) is the threshold at which ordinary reflective white such a piece of white paper, a white wall, a white t-shirt, or a white napkin would appear on the Waveform scope if the lighting is exposed to be ordinarily bright. Any highlights above Reference White will be extra-bright “HDR-strength” highlights such as direct light sources, chrome reflections, eye-glints, mirror reflections, explosions, or direct sunlight. Knowing the level of Reference White helps you make creative decisions about what parts of the image are “ordinarily” bright, and what constitutes the extra-bright or “sparkly bits” of a graded HDR image.
• Hue Angles graticule: (Only appears on Vectorscopes) Diagonal lines show the angle of each hue in the Vectorscope (Red, Magenta, Blue, Cyan, Green, Yellow), and where they intersect in the center is the neutral point of zero saturation. These give you guidance for how accurate test signals are, and which parts of the image are closest to which pure hue.
• Texture graphs: (Only appears for Texture controls) A high-contrast texture representation of the current frame that makes it easy to see which parts of the current clip are being affected by any sharpening or softening operation you’re applying to the image.

When HUDs get in the way

If you’re making an adjustment and the HUD is in the way, hold the H key down while making the adjustment to temporarily hide the HUD. Releasing the H key shows the HUD again.

Customizing the HUDs

To customize HUDs:

The HUD options dialog shows you a sample HUD and presents numerous options for customizing the HUD’s appearance, divided into two sections.

Preferences

This section lets you choose where and how HUDs appear when you adjust different controls.

• Show HUDs when using Color Controls: When on, HUDs appear when you make an adjustment. When off, HUDs do not appear.
• Positioning: Lets you choose where HUDs appear while you make an adjustment.
  • Anchor to Program Monitor: The HUD appears within the boundaries of the monitor, at the lower left-hand corner by default. A Placement option lets you choose which of the four corners of the monitor the HUD appears at.
  • Freeform: Lets you freely reposition the HUD anywhere you want while the HUD options dialog is open, on any monitor connected to your computer. With this option selected, you can drag the sample HUD anywhere on any display you want while the HUD options dialog is open. After you close the HUD options, the HUD will reappear at the place you chose whenever you make an adjustment. To move the HUD somewhere else, you need to open the HUD options again.
  • Anchor to Tools Tray: When this option is chosen, the HUD appears directly above whichever control you’re adjusting in the Color Tools panel while you make adjustments.
• Size: Lets you choose how large the HUD appears. Different options allow different sizes.
• Placement: (Anchor to Program Monitor only) Lets you choose which of the four corners of the monitor the HUD appears at.

Individual customization

This section lets you choose specific scope types from a menu at the top, which can be individually customized on a scope-by-scope basis. All scope options are explained below; keep in mind that not every scope has the same options.

• Scope Opacity: A slider lets you choose how bright or dark the HUD appears.
• Overlay Opacity: A slider lets you choose how bright or dark the overlay appears.
• Saturation: Most video scopes shown in the HUDs have a false color representation of how the colors in the image correspond to the graph of the scope. This lets you intensify or subdue these colors, or remove them entirely.
• Show number values: Lets you show or hide the parameter values of the control you’re adjusting within the HUD.