Midtones
Also known as: mids, midtone range
The middle brightness range of an image, where skin, faces and most of the subject live, and the part a viewer reads first.
Updated
What it means
Tonal range divides into three. Shadows at the bottom, highlights at the top, and midtones in between, which is where most of the actual picture sits. Neither end holds as much information.
They carry the subject. A rider's face, a jersey, a wave face and a forest floor are all midtone material, so this is the range that decides whether a clip looks right.
Gamma is the control. The middle of a Lift gamma gain adjustment moves them without touching the ends, which is why it is the slider people reach for first and overreach with most often.
How it works in practice
Exposure is judged on them rather than on the ends of the range. A clip with correct midtones and a clipped sky is usable; the reverse is not. A viewer forgives a white sky.
Skin tones are the reference inside the range. Getting those believable fixes most of what is wrong with a grade, because the eye checks them before anything else.
Scopes keep it honest. A Waveform shows where the bulk of the image is sitting, and the bulk of an action clip should sit in the middle of it rather than at an edge.
What to watch out for
Lifting them flattens the image. A large gamma increase raises everything in the middle and leaves the ends alone, which removes contrast and reveals noise. Brighter is not the same as better.
Heavy looks damage them first. A Creative LUT pushed too far shifts midtone colour, and a green face is noticed long before a green shadow or a green sky.
Mixed cameras disagree here most visibly. Two bodies can match in Shadows and still differ through the middle, which is where a cut between them starts to show, however carefully the ends were matched.
How RawClip handles it
The middle of the range is what gets matched most carefully across the assembled sequence, because that is where a difference between cameras is visible. Material shot at consistent exposure needs less adjustment there and keeps more of its contrast through the grade.