How do i fix crushed shadows and muddy blacks in davinci resolve color grading?

[ScottNL]

I’m trying to get a handle on color grading for narrative work, but my shadows keep looking crushed and muddy instead of that rich, textured black I see in films. I’m working in DaVinci Resolve and using my scopes, but I can’t seem to find the right balance between contrast and detail in the darker parts of the image.

[Aria_P]

That muddy shadow thing happens to me when I push contrast too much. I play with lifting the shadows a bit and then keep the gamma from going too far, watching the waveform to avoid crushing the bottom. It helped a little but I still felt the blacks were missing texture and depth.

[PaisleyRR]

Could the real problem be exposure and lighting rather than the grade?

[Aaron_H]

One thing I did was add a tiny knee on the blacks and keep the curve gentle in the shadow area so the texture stays visible. It looked better on one shot then the next it vanished again.

[MatthewDG]

Sometimes I drift and start worrying about the monitor or the lens and forget the grade and still the shadows feel blocked I keep circling back to the same feeling and not finding a fix.