A starter tree

You can make that separation physical in the Color page's Node Editor. A grade is a processing chain. The green image connection passes each node's result into the next. For Core, use two serial nodes: one for plate-specific balance and one for creative intent. Larger jobs may distribute those jobs across several nodes, groups, timelines, or shared transforms; this starter tree makes the distinction visible.

Node 01, Balance. Get the shot technically right. Key and ratio set, the cast cleared. The blacks set, the whites placed, the midtones where the scene needs them.
Node 02, Look. The creative decision, built on top of a balanced image: the moves that are a choice rather than the moves that were a repair.

```nodegraph { "title": "Core starter tree", "image": "/bench/ramen-alley.jpg", "nodes": [ { "id": "balance", "num": "01", "tag": "BALANCE", "name": "Balance", "kind": "balance", "icons": ["scopes"], "body": "This node solves what is wrong with this plate before taste is added. It establishes key and contrast ratio, then clears the global cast.", "bench": [ "Set exposure and contrast before judging color.", "Use temperature and tint to clear a whole-frame cast.", "Leave the image ready for a creative decision." ] }, { "id": "look", "num": "02", "tag": "LOOK", "name": "Look", "kind": "look", "icons": ["droplet"], "body": "This node makes the creative choice after the plate is sound. The same temperature or saturation control can appear here, but it is now serving intent rather than repair.", "bench": [ "Build warmth or coolness on purpose. Shape density or restraint on purpose.", "Keep shot-specific repairs out of a shared look.", "Revise the look without disturbing the balance below it." ] } ], "caption": "Click each node and walk the signal from balance into look. The controls do not decide where a move belongs. The job the move is doing decides." } ```

Pile every move into one place and you can end up chasing your own corrections. Splitting repair from intent is the start of grade architecture. The goal is not one node per adjustment; it is a structure whose jobs remain clear when the grade changes.

The same principle applies to the phrase one thought per node. It is a useful test for whether a tree can be read, disabled and revised, not a command to create a new node for every touch. Two controls that solve one balance problem can live together. Two unrelated decisions that will need separate revision usually should not.

Revision or rebuild

The payoff shows up the moment the client talks. Against a clean tree, "just warm it up" is one control in the Look node and the balance beneath it never moves. Entangle correction and look in the same node and that same note reopens the whole grade. The balance shifts under the look, shots stop matching each other, and you rebuild where you meant to revise.

Which node a move belongs in follows the job it is doing, not the tool doing it. Temperature clearing a cast is balance work, and the same wheel pushing a scene warm on purpose is look work.

There is a useful test for telling the two apart. A balance move answers a problem specific to this plate. A look move expresses creative intent and may be shared across a scene or production, though not every look is a stored transform and not every look applies unchanged to every shot. Keep a shot's exposure repair out of a shared transform or it will create the same error everywhere else. The bench asks for that split in its own two phrases. A move that bakes with the look travels to every other shot the look is put on, and a move that dies with this plate stops here.

```demo { "plate": "maypole", "scope": "parade", "controls": ["temp"], "challenge": { "kind": "streak", "chip": "WARM", "zones": [ { "read": "body", "band": [60.5, 66.5] } ], "deck": [ { "look": { "temp": 18 }, "chip": "NEUTRAL" }, { "look": { "temp": -18 }, "chip": "WARM", "zones": [ { "read": "body", "channel": "r", "band": [72, 78] }, { "read": "body", "channel": "b", "band": [51, 57] } ] } ] }, "caption": "One wheel, two jobs, dealt in order. First the transfer's cast comes off and the three channels come level with each other over the white dresses, which is node 01. Then the same temperature wheel is asked for the scene's own warmth: red up into its target zone and blue down into its own, on purpose. That is node 02, and nothing about the wheel changed between them." } ```

The session below runs exactly that split, and it takes the pass out to its last primary. That primary is chroma, and chroma is the next room.