A live 0–200% intensity dial over the actual values in a layer's grade — lift, gamma, gain, offset, brightness, contrast, saturation, per channel — not an opacity fade over the pixels. Dial a correction all the way back to the untouched original, or push it past what you authored, without ever overwriting what you authored.
Most "match strength" sliders are opacity in disguise — they blend the graded frame against the original pixel-for-pixel. That gets you partway there, but it's blunt: every value in the correction fades at the same uniform rate, and there's nothing to say the lift is too strong while the saturation is exactly right.
Delta Mix works in a different space entirely. Instead of blending two finished images, it scales the layer's actual grading parameters — lift, gamma, gain, offset, brightness, contrast, saturation, each with its own per-channel R/G/B breakdown — toward or away from their neutral, do-nothing value. At 0% every one of those parameters sits at identity: no lift, no offset, gamma and gain both neutral. At 100% you get exactly what you authored. Past 100%, up to 200%, the same math keeps going the other direction, exaggerating the correction beyond what you dialed in — useful when a match is technically correct but you want it to read a little harder.
The authored parameters themselves are never touched. Delta Mix reads them, scales a working copy for display and render, and leaves the original values sitting untouched underneath — so you can push a layer to 40% for review, decide it needs the full effect, and bring it back to 100% and get precisely what you started with. Nothing was baked, faded, or lost in between.
Both live on every layer. They are not the same control, and not interchangeable.
| Control | Range | What it actually does |
|---|---|---|
| Blend (opacity) | 0–100% | Fades the finished, already-graded pixels against the frame entering the layer — one uniform mix, no concept of "past 100%." |
| Delta Mix | 0–200% | Scales every grading parameter's actual value toward (0%) or past (200%) its neutral identity — lift, gamma, gain, offset, brightness, contrast, saturation — independently per channel if you want. |
One percentage for the whole layer, or break Red, Green, and Blue apart when a match is close but one channel is running hot.
Scale the real correction toward the original or past authored — reversibly, per layer, per channel.