SideScopes Lab

Explore an image

Choose one of the supplied images or load an image from your computer. The striped rectangle is a global region on the Lab’s virtual display: it remains fixed when you change images and may extend beyond an image. Image pixels beneath the region and black pixels from the surrounding virtual display are both measured. Move or resize the region, choose the scopes you want to see, and use the color and tone controls while the traces update.

The Lab uses the application’s C++ scope engines and pane renderer, compiled to WebAssembly. Its adjustment controls are purpose-built for exploration: they demonstrate common directional effects, but they are not intended to match the processing curves or color pipeline of Resolve, Capture One, or any other editor.

Adjustment model

The controls form a small, defined processing pipeline rather than an approximation of a named application:

1. The decoded image is treated as 8-bit sRGB.
2. Exposure multiplies linearized channel values by 2 to the selected number of stops. Temperature and tint apply relative RGB gains in that same space; they are directional controls, not correlated-color-temperature or chromatic-adaptation calculations.
3. Highlights, shadows, and contrast apply fixed curves to the encoded result, with contrast pivoting at code value 0.5.
4. Saturation scales each encoded RGB value around a Rec.709-weighted Y′ estimate.
5. The result is clamped and quantized to 8-bit values before the scopes analyze it.

This makes every response reproducible and keeps the lesson focused on the scope. The same slider position should not be expected to reproduce a control with the same name in another processing pipeline.

Lab and desktop application

The Lab analyzes still images inside the browser page. A browser cannot read another application’s window, attach a region to a desktop window, or follow a face outside the page. Those functions require the desktop application.

The scope engines, pane renderer, region geometry, layout controls, and keyboard behavior are shared with the application. The Lab represents the screen as a virtual display, keeps the SideScopes window above the global region when they overlap, and adds the sample strip and adjustment panel for observation and teaching.

Local image processing

An image you load is decoded and processed locally in your browser. It is not uploaded. The Lab stores its interface preferences in your browser so it can restore your layout and remember whether you completed the guided tour.