Scopes

SideScopes provides five scopes, plus Color Picker. Any combination can share the window, one pane per instrument. Use the scope selector to choose and order them, or use the keyboard shortcuts.

The plots analyze only the selected screen region. With no region selected, their graticules remain visible but their traces are empty. The pointer readout and markers can still sample a color anywhere on screen.

All levels are derived from the captured desktop pixels. SideScopes does not have access to a source file, timeline, document profile, or signal before the source application renders it. See Measurement boundary before using the scopes for color-managed or signal-compliance decisions.

Vectorscope

Vectorscope converts each captured RGB sample to two chroma coordinates. Angle around the center corresponds to hue; radial distance corresponds to chroma magnitude in this projection. Equal-channel neutrals lie at the center. Level and image position are discarded, so light and dark samples with the same chroma can occupy the same position.

Trace brightness represents sample density. A strong extension toward a hue usually identifies a population of pixels in that direction. An off-center neutral reference indicates chroma bias; an off-center whole-image trace may instead describe the subject or an intentional grade.

The labeled boxes mark reference positions for 75% Rec.709 color-bar values; the smaller unlabeled boxes mark the full-value positions. They are not gamut boundaries or saturation limits. The skin-tone indicator is a directional reference for comparison, not a target that every complexion should meet.

Zoom magnifies the central area at 1x, 2x, or 4x. It changes the view, not the underlying coordinates.

SideScopes uses one fixed, full-range Rec.709-style RGB-to-Cb/Cr matrix. This is most directly interpretable for SDR, sRGB/Rec.709-like rendered output. It does not make Vectorscope a color-managed gamut test.

Waveform

Waveform overlays red, green, and blue channel levels. Its horizontal axis follows the selected region from left to right; its vertical axis is captured channel code value, normalized from 0 at the bottom to 100 at the top. This is a full-range display-code scale, not a legal-range video scale.

Each sampled pixel contributes at its actual channel level. A vertical slice therefore shows the values present in the corresponding image column; the scope does not fill every value between the lowest and highest samples.

Channel separation is meaningful in context. Over a verified neutral, it can show a rendered color bias and the tonal range in which that bias occurs. Over a colored subject, the same separation may simply describe the subject.

A strong accumulation at 0 or 100 means captured output pixels reached that endpoint. It may be consistent with clipping or crushing in the rendered output, but does not identify the limiting stage or prove that a RAW file, timeline, or source signal has no recoverable detail.

Luma Waveform

Luma Waveform retains the waveform’s horizontal image position and plots a single weighted level:

Y′ ≈ 0.2126 R′ + 0.7152 G′ + 0.0722 B′

The calculation uses the encoded captured channel values. Y′ is not physical luminance, scene brightness, or a direct exposure measurement. It is useful for locating and comparing level distributions in the rendered output.

Plain draws a neutral trace. Colored tints the trace from the captured RGB contributions while keeping the same luma coordinate.

RGB Parade

RGB Parade places the three channel waveforms side by side: red, green, then blue. Each panel maps the full width of the selected region. The image is not divided into thirds.

The separate panels prevent overlapping traces from hiding one another. This makes channel shape, level, and endpoint behavior easier to compare. As with Waveform, alignment indicates neutrality only for a subject that is independently expected to be neutral.

Histogram

Histogram counts how many sampled red, green, and blue values fall into each of 256 bins. Minimum channel values are at the left and maximum values at the right. It discards image position.

Per Channel places the complete red, green, and blue distributions in separate vertical bands. Combined overlays them at full height. The displayed heights use a square-root response so a large population does not hide smaller ones; height is therefore not linearly proportional to count.

A peak identifies a large population at that code value. A gap identifies few or no sampled values in an interval. Neither proves a particular processing fault: gaps do not by themselves establish visible posterization, and endpoint peaks do not identify where limiting occurred.

Color Picker

Color Picker places the live sample beside pinned references. It reports captured RGB values and, when a reference is selected, an assumed-sRGB color difference.

Click to pin the pixel under the pointer. Drag to pin the average of a rectangle, which is generally more repeatable for textured or noisy material. Hold Shift to keep the pin tool active for additional samples.

SideScopes converts the reference and live samples from assumed sRGB to CIELAB under D65. It reports CIEDE2000 ΔE00 and three signed diagnostics:

• ΔL*, the CIELAB lightness difference;
• ΔC*, the CIELAB chroma difference;
• ΔH*, a chroma-weighted hue-difference term.

The components do not correspond one-to-one with exposure, saturation, or white-balance controls, and the ΔE00 total is not their simple sum. There is no universal acceptable ΔE00 threshold; the relevant tolerance depends on the colors, sample area, viewing conditions, and task.

Markers and pins

The color under the pointer is marked on every visible compatible scope: its chroma position in Vectorscope, channel or luma level in Waveform, Luma Waveform, and RGB Parade, and bin in Histogram. Markers work with or without an analysis region.

Pinned colors appear in Vectorscope and Color Picker. Pins persist between sessions and can be selected as comparison references.

To hide the live pointer markers, quit SideScopes and set show_cursor_markers=0 in preferences.conf. The default is 1. This does not hide the status-bar RGB readout or pinned markers.

Trace controls

Right-click a scope pane to reach that instrument’s options directly. Right-click elsewhere to open the complete menu.

Graticule strength changes the opacity of grid lines, rings, target boxes, and labels. The choices are Faint, Soft, Normal, and Bold.

Zoom changes Vectorscope magnification between 1x, 2x, and 4x.

Style selects Plain or Colored for Luma Waveform, and Per Channel or Combined for Histogram.

Quality sets capture cadence and analysis detail. Standard, the default, targets 15 captures per second. High targets 20, retains full detail while a region is dragged, and uses finer analysis for Vectorscope and Histogram panes where their size benefits from it. High uses more processing time.

The Settings window opens from the right-click menu, or with Command+comma on macOS. Waveform and RGB Parade share one set of trace settings because they render the same channel measurement in different arrangements.

Intensity controls how much each sample contributes before the rendered trace saturates. Scroll over Vectorscope or Waveform to change it; double-click to restore the default. It changes visibility, not coordinates.

Sampling stride samples every Nth pixel, from 1 through 8. A stride of 1 includes every pixel. Larger strides reduce analysis cost and may make sparse or highly regular content less exact.

Smoothing controls how long the pointer marker takes to settle after the sample changes, from 0 to 500 milliseconds. It affects the marker, not the scope trace.

Trace gamma, available for Vectorscope, changes the density response used to display the trace. Lower values reveal sparse populations more strongly; higher values preserve greater contrast against the densest areas. The range is 0.40 to 1.40.

Arranging panes

Scopes divide the window in the order shown in the scope selector; drag rows there to reorder them. The order belongs to the active preset. Turning a scope off and on does not move it within that order.

The Layout menu controls the division axis. Automatic uses the longer window axis; Vertical (stacked) and Horizontal (side by side) force an orientation. Drag a divider to change the adjacent panes’ shares.

Nine preset slots store scope visibility, order, division, pane weights, and per-scope style. A digit loads its slot. Use the preset list to load or rename slots.

Changing the current arrangement does not overwrite its slot. The toolbar save button lights while the arrangement differs from the loaded preset. Click it, or press Command+S on macOS or Control+S on Windows, to update that slot. Shift+1 through Shift+9 writes the current arrangement to another slot without loading it.

The current working arrangement persists separately, including when it has not been saved to a preset. Loading another slot intentionally replaces that working arrangement without a confirmation prompt.

Trace intensity, sampling, smoothing, trace gamma, window position, and window size are not part of a layout preset.

Measurement boundary

SideScopes receives the composited screen-capture result. The desktop capture is requested or labeled as sRGB where the platform API permits, and the scope calculations treat the received values as full-range, sRGB/Rec.709-like output.

SideScopes does not inspect the source profile, timeline color space, display ICC profile, printer profile, HDR metadata, or upstream signal range. It is not a soft-proofing system, HDR reference monitor, gamut checker, or source-signal compliance scope. Use the source application’s own configured scopes when those stages matter.