Adjusting a face

How FaceTweak works

On every frame, FaceTweak finds the face and takes a square around it. An AI model then redraws the face inside that square with your changes: eyes looking somewhere else, the mouth in a different shape, the head turned slightly. FaceTweak blends the redrawn face back into your shot, gently reshaping the pixels nearby so there’s no visible join. Everything further away is left exactly as it was.

Nothing is permanent. FaceTweak is an effect like any other, so you can change the settings, keyframe them or switch the effect off at any time.

Is this the right guide for my shot?

FaceTweak’s AI redraws the face at 512 × 512 pixels. If the face square in your footage is that size or smaller, the redraw has all the detail it needs, and this guide covers everything. You don’t have to measure anything: the square is a little more than twice as wide as the face, so as a rough guide:

Everything in this guide works the same on close-ups. They just have extra settings of their own.

The basic workflow

1. Find the problem frame. Park the playhead where the problem is clearest: the glance off-lens, the half-closed eye, the mouth that’s out of sync.
2. Open a section and drag a slider. While you drag you may see a quick preview. Full quality appears a moment after you let go.
3. Use the smallest change that works. Small moves look natural. Large moves ask the AI to invent more, and that’s where results start to look artificial.
4. Compare with the original. On the Edit page, use the switch beside the effect’s name in the Inspector. On the Color page, toggle the node on and off with Ctrl+D (Cmd+D on a Mac).
5. Keyframe it if the fix should change during the shot (see Keyframing a fix).
6. Play the shot at full speed. Some problems only show up in motion. If you see flicker or wobble, Smoothing over time is next.

Eyes

Controls marked Screen Left or Screen Right mean the side of your screen, not the actor’s side. Screen left is the eye on the left as you look at the picture, which is the actor’s own right eye.

Pupil X−15 to 15 · default 0

Moves where both eyes look, from side to side. This is the main eyeline fix, for when an actor looked past the lens or an interviewee glanced at a monitor.

Pupil Y−15 to 15 · default 0

Moves where both eyes look, up and down. Useful when someone reads notes below the camera.

Blink−20 to 5 · default 0

Drag to the left to close the eyes. −20 closes them completely. Drag a little to the right to open them wider. Use it to add or remove a blink, or to ease a squint.

Eyebrow−10 to 15 · default 0

Raises both eyebrows (to the right) or lowers and draws them together (to the left). Small amounts change the mood of a face a lot.

Wink Screen Left0 to 25 · default 0

Closes the eye on the left of the screen. A wink also tilts the head very slightly, the way people naturally do.

Wink Screen Right0 to 25 · default 0

The same for the eye on the right of the screen.

Retargeting Eyes−1 to 1 · default 0

Another way to control how open the eyes are, using a different part of FaceTweak’s AI. Instead of adding to the actor’s own movement like Blink does, it aims for a particular openness. Try it if Blink doesn’t give a natural result. Small values go a long way, so try a few and watch.

Mouth

The three vowel sliders shape the mouth the way it moves when you say the sound. Combine them for in-between shapes: a little AAA with a little WOO gives an “oh”.

AAA−30 to 120 · default 0

Opens the mouth as if saying “ah”. It’s the workhorse for lip-sync fixes. Negative values close the mouth a little further. Opening the mouth also tips the head very slightly, as a real jaw does.

EEE−20 to 15 · default 0

Stretches the mouth sideways into an “ee”.

WOO−20 to 15 · default 0

Rounds and pushes the lips forward into an “oo”.

Smile−0.3 to 1.3 · default 0

Adds a smile. Below zero, it turns the corners of the mouth down a little. Note the small numbers: 0.3 is already a clear smile.

Retargeting Mouth−1 to 1 · default 0

Another way to control how far apart the lips are. Like Retargeting Eyes, it aims for a particular openness rather than adding to the actor’s movement. Try a few values and watch.

Pose

Rotate Pitch−20 to 20 · default 0

Tips the head up or down, like a nod.

Rotate Yaw−20 to 20 · default 0

Turns the head to the left or right.

Rotate Roll−20 to 20 · default 0

Tilts the head toward one shoulder.

Keep pose changes to a few degrees. Turning a head asks the AI to show parts of the face the camera didn’t see, and big turns can smear features or bend the background near the head. Faces already turned well away from the camera are the hardest case.

Expression

Source Expression Neutralize0 to 1 · default 0

Relaxes the actor’s own expression toward a neutral face before your other changes are added. At 1, the original expression is fully relaxed. Use it to soften a frown, a smirk or a tense jaw, then build the expression you want with the other sliders.

On a talking shot it relaxes the lip movement too, so use only as much as you need, or keyframe it on just the moment that needs it.

Fine-Tuning

This section starts closed. It holds controls for one side of the face at a time, plus a strength control for each group.

Gaze Screen Left X−15 to 15 · default 0

Aims only the eye on the left of the screen, side to side. These per-eye controls add to Pupil X and Pupil Y, so you can set the general direction there and correct one eye here, for example to stop the eyes looking cross-eyed or to straighten a wandering eye.

Gaze Screen Left Y−15 to 15 · default 0

The same, up and down.

Gaze Screen Right X−15 to 15 · default 0

Aims only the eye on the right of the screen, side to side.

Gaze Screen Right Y−15 to 15 · default 0

The same, up and down.

Eyebrow Screen Left−10 to 15 · default 0

Raises or lowers only the eyebrow on the left of the screen, for a quizzical look or to even out a lopsided one.

Eyebrow Screen Right−10 to 15 · default 0

The same for the eyebrow on the right of the screen.

Pose Mix0 to 1 · default 1

Turns all head movement down, from full (1) to none (0). That includes the slight head movement that AAA and the winks add, so set it to 0 if you want the mouth or a wink without any head motion.

Eyes Mix0 to 1 · default 1

Turns all eye and eyebrow changes down together.

Mouth Mix0 to 1 · default 1

Turns all mouth changes down together.

Turning the whole effect up or down

MixOutput section · 0 to 1 · default 1

The strength of everything FaceTweak does, from none (0) to full (1). Keyframe it from 0 to 1 over a few frames to ease a correction in, rather than having it start abruptly.

Keyframing a fix

Every slider can be keyframed, so a fix can change during the shot. That’s how you follow a drifting eyeline or reshape the mouth word by word for lip-sync. Each control has a small diamond to its right in the Inspector: that’s its keyframe button.

1. Mark the start. Go to the frame before the fix should begin, leave the slider at 0 and click its diamond. The diamond turns red to show a keyframe.
2. Set the fix. Move to the frame where the fix should be at full strength and drag the slider. Once a control has a keyframe, changing it on another frame adds a new keyframe automatically.
3. Mark the end if the fix should stop: go to where it ends and set the slider back to 0.
4. Step between keyframes with the small arrows either side of the diamond, to check or adjust each one.

Lip-sync, word by word

For a dub or an ADR line that doesn’t quite match, work through the line with the audio playing. Open the mouth with AAA on the open vowels, round it with WOO on “oo” and “w” sounds, and bring it back to 0 (or a little below) where the lips should meet on “m”, “b” and “p”. A keyframe every two or three frames is usually enough. Watch the result at full speed rather than frame by frame: speech that looks right in motion is what counts.

Previews and playback

While you drag a slider, FaceTweak may show a lighter, quicker preview so the picture keeps up with your hand. A moment after you let go, the frame “settles” to full quality. Rendering in Resolve’s Deliver page always uses full quality. Preview Policy, at the very top of the controls, sets how FaceTweak makes that trade-off.

FaceTweak redraws a face on every frame, which is demanding work. Playback may run slower than real time, especially without a powerful graphics card. To review a shot at full speed, turn on Resolve’s render cache for it (Playback › Render Cache) so Resolve can keep the finished frames.

More than one person in shot

Each copy of FaceTweak changes one face. It picks the largest face in the frame, or the one nearest the centre if two are the same size. To change someone else, open Face Detection and choose them with Face to Adjust. To change two people in the same shot, add a second copy of FaceTweak (a second node on the Color page) and set it to the 2nd Face.

If people move around and swap sizes during the shot, FaceTweak may switch faces. Detection Crop lets you fence each person off so FaceTweak only looks where they are.

Know when to stop

• Subtle beats strong. Viewers notice a face that looks “off” long before they notice a slightly late glance.
• Check the whole shot, not just the frame you worked on. A fix that’s perfect on one frame might need keyframing down elsewhere.
• Things in front of the face, such as a hand, a microphone or glasses, can get bent along with it. Masking limits FaceTweak to just the parts you want.