This is by far the most advanced and helpful Davinci resolve tutorials than any other "youtuber colorist" i have seen. they just straight up import footage and start fiddling with wheel and curves without setting up the base color management for the whole sequence like this. thanks for the knowledge.
I'm a DR beginner here. Thanks for bringing some light to the muddy water. I'm not aiming to know the subject very well, but just enough for some video color editing. Thanks.
Yes it does make sense! Like a few others I was struggling to find a video that explained WHY we should use a rec. 709 cst, but this has really helped, thanks. I'm not very good at doing things "just because" the expert says, and understanding why it's done is super helpful to me. Muchos gracias!!
Amazing !! A smooth explanation on how color space works and what gamma is and color gamut...I already subscribed your channel before the end of the video
Excellent basic on understanding color space and gamma. I liked the comparisons you showed with the scope. Thanks for taking the time to post this video.
Wonderful video explaining color space matching/mismatches. The only note I have is on your demonstration of gamut mapping. Conversion accuracy is increased with it off. It’s only needed when colors exceed the target gamut, and as you can see from the vectorscope, everything in the shot is within gamut before mapping. The same is also technically true of tone mapping, ie: off is more “accurate”, but of course if you want to retain highlights in sdr, you have to tonemap. With each set to none, you’re mapping the values from the source space 1:1 to the target space. So if the source contains highlights outside the target range, you’ll get clipping, and the same with gamut too. But if the scene contains no information outside the dynamic range or gamut, no further mapping is required, and turning it on actually makes the conversion less accurate. You’ll often find that out of gamut colors are just clipped highlights, so once you enable tone mapping, no further gamut mapping is required.
Im in the market for a new monitor for photo editing and your video just taught me somethings i didnt know before, will definitely make it much easier to pick a monitor now.
Fantastic! Clear and concise! Subscribed! So, basically we have three "realities" in which the color spaces live: 1. the camera's capturing color space 2. the color space for viewing on your workstation (depending on your monitor) 3. the color space your final product needs to have (where will people watch the video). Davinci's color management simplifies the transformation processes in-between. The interface is very intuitive. The convoluted FCPX should take it as an example. I recently bought the Ninja V and it adds another layer between 1. and 2. : the Ninja V is also doing some transformations for viewing. Because of that, some NLEs (like FCPX) interpret the footage which was recorded on the Ninja V the wrong way. There is some odd and rather abusive switching between full and legal range going on at the cost of image quality. That's why I am seriously considering buying Davinci's studio version to edit my Prores LOG footage coming from the Ninja V. In addition to that complexity, we videographers find ourselves in the middle of the SDR to HDR transition. Davinci's Color Management interface really makes our lives much easier. We can simply change the output settings and deliver the same project for different displaying options.
@Steve Strasser Yes on the three stages for Color Space in how I understand it all. Acquisition (Input) > Working (Timeline) > Display (Output). As far as the Ninja V, it should not be baking any looks into your footage at all unless there is an option that you have turned on to do that, so if unchecked for a baked look, the display LUT should be togglable only for viewing during monitoring or togglable for an NLE. I would agree on the Legal V Full range point in that it is often not obvious which the camera is recording in. There is no, in my experience detriment to recording outside the legal range, but there is a problem with displaying outside the legal rang. Some people have complained about problems with renders because they check "data levels" on output when they should not. THe SDR/HDR transition is proving to be very troubling because the standards are all over the place for display (some people have no idea how to even turn HDR on with their monitors!) and its kind of like an Indiana Jones research process in finding the correct way to even display things correctly in HDR. Also... having an HDR image backwards compatible is also an issue.... I think that the more we move toward HDR and rec2020 as becoming a standard output for displays, the industry is going to lean more and more on color management and leave LUTS completely behind.
I recently bought a Sony A90J Master Series 65" TV and have been trying to figure out the color space options. When set it to sRGB/REC.709, the color was not as full and pretty dull. When I set it DCI-P3, it really brought the video to life and added a lot more color and made Regular/SDR Blu Ray Discs look a lot closer to 4k Ultra Blu Ray Discs. But when I went to Adobe RGB, it didn't provide much visible difference in the full color gamet, however it gave me additional control over Gradation (i.e. in HDR Tone Mapping) in HLG mode and when I played around and set the Gamma (like you mentioned in this video) it really made standard Blu Ray Discs reach there maximum potential. BT.2020/REC.2020 doesn't do much good for 4k Ultra Blu Ray Discs because 95+% of them all are mastered in DCI but delivered in a BT.2020 container. So theoretically, DCI would be a great setting but the TV will only give you control of Gradation (i.e. in HDR Tone Mapping) in the Adobe RGB Color Space.
If the movie is mastered in DCI-P3, then that would likely be a better setting for that particular media. Generally speaking, rec709 is standard broadcast. I think as we move forward DCI-P3 with a d65 white point will be the new standard well before rec2020. I have found that calibrated sRGB settings tend to not look great, but they are accurate, and you have to be sure you are viewing the content in a correct environment if you are using certain color profiles. sRGB and rec709 cannot technically be the same color space since they have different gamma curves and require viewing in different environments. sRGB should be viewed in a brighter environment, rec709 in a darker environment. They have about the same gamut, but the gamma is not the same. Something to keep in mind is that accuracy and looking good are not always the same thing. Accuracy is a lot more important for somebody that is working in coloring content and "looking good" is more important for viewing content as a consumer. Looking Accurate = Objective Looking Good = Subjective You can calibrate your monitor and then adjust to taste if you like. Even though it won't necessary be "technically" accurate anymore, if it looks better for you as a consumer of content, then that would be the correct choice. I would definitely not adjust to taste if you are a colorist.
@@TonyDae Thank you for your detailed response and your expert advice. I sincerely appreciate it! 👍🏻👍🏻👊🏻 My TV has 5 color space settings, and these are the exact names... 1) Auto 2) sRGB/BT.709 3) DCI 4) Adobe RGB 5) BT.2020 While I'm sure that they all have a base Gamma setting within them, there is a separate Gamma setting that allows a person to adjust the Gamma level from -3 to +3. After taking your advice and doing some more testing, I have found that DCI seems to be a little better than Adobe RGB as it doesn't minimally crush very small detail in fast action panning of the video like Adobe sRGB sometimes does... ...although the color gamut appears to visually be exactly the same to the naked eye. sRGB doesn't show nearly as many colors (you can easily and immediately see the limited color range) and BT.2020 changes the entire hue to a purplish-pink tone. BTW - I agree with all of your statements regarding DCI. I prefer to dial my TV in for Max Performance and not Creator's intent (i.e. Film Maker's true intent). The way I see it is that I didn't pay over $4000 (including tax) for a Home Theater TV to have minimal settings engaged. Therefore, I also prefer to set my TV to what my eye finds most appealing. For example, I like my color temperature (i.e. white temperature) to be set to Cool. ...versus, Neutral, Warm, Expert 1, or Expert 2. The way I think is that, since the human eye has the least amount of color receptors for the color Blue, I want my TV to show the Bluest Blues as it looks better and amazing to my eyes. ...like the opening Ocean scene from the (newer) movie Star Trek: Into the Darkness. I prefer the water to look blue, versus blue-green.
Thank you, this really did clear up my uncertainties about colour space and I'm now more comfortable with deciding what to do with my projects. I wanted to go into HDR production, but judging that I literally edit viewing on a 43" Hisense TV, it's only in Rec.709 colour space and even though it seems that Final Cut Pro X has tone mapping for editing HDR on monitors that can't display it, I still find that might not be a real good idea as I have nowhere to actually see if I've done it well or not.
Very much appreciate the time and energy you took putting this very understandable video together. I'm just diving into Gamma, Color Spaces etc. and have yet to shoot a video - but this will happen in the future. From what I've learned in the last week or so, I heard one statement that caught my ear (although I know what you mean). "In real life there are colors out there. There are colors out there. There's green etc". Again, sorry about this, but from what I have learned, there are not colors out there. Just spectra. Colors are spectra that are given names by humans to describe them. Silly technical point, but the video is so good, that at least I'm listening closely. I can honestly say, with the reading and watching I've done over the last few days, this entire video made sense even though I have no "learned" experience with any of this. Really appreciate the detailed and simplified view. Very helpful. I hope you have some videos for getting started with DaVinci Resolve and how to find the values needed (i.e. Nikon Z9 video, luts, etc). Very nicely done. If you don't have it already, a video on minimum requirements to work on such video would be sweet! I do have one basic question (if you come back here and check some DAE: Is the statement you make at the end, that is, working in a bigger color space and then squeezing the information down into a smaller one (i.e. REC709) a desired thing? The reason I as is two-fold. 1st: As a new photographer, I've frequently heard that picking a color space like ADOBE RGB, when your output devices are in sRGB can lead to undesired color shifts (i.e. math rounding errors) is is not worth the hassle. This point was also made with respect to the potential gamut of even sRGB of the camera, software (i.e. Photoshop), and monitor might not overlap even though you are using the same space. So, in photography and video, is working in the bigger space worth it? Depends on the intended output display? 2. Does working in a larger color space benefit from a higher bit-depth? Lastly, can you recommend any of your videos (or others) recommended for a beginner getting started with video?
There are a lot of questions in here and I will try to answer what I recall. 1. Colors are a thing we see and I am using the term in a colloquial sense. I'm not going to make a philosophical debate in this video about blue actually being only a reflection of a certain goobadygoob and the object is actually every color but what we see etc. as that's not the point of the vid. 2. Shooting in a large color space and working in a large color space has advantages since capturing allows lots of information that you can then edit in a program later. Working in larger color spaces tends to allow more room to make micro adjustments to dial in the exact look you want for the final output. When you view the image while working, it should be presented in the actual output color space and all of the large gamut math is happening "under the hood" meaning you don't see it... You only see the output. Make sure your output file is in srgb for web. You can output adobe RGB for prints if your computer monitor is correctly calibrated and able to display it and if the printer can properly print argb. 3. Higher bit depth capture is always desirable if you are looking for the most flexibility in post production. In video, 12bit log encoded raw is usually more than enough data as it is practically the same as 16 but linear. In photo, 14 bit linear is enough for the vast majority of photographers.
@@TonyDae Tony, thanks for the response and getting back to me. Really appreciate it. One last quick (like, right) question: Is shooting video in 8bit H264 or equivalent, like shooting in JPG? That is, is the color space and gamma "baked" in the codec? (i.e. compared to video working in RAW S-RAW, C-RAW, N-RAW)? Again, thank you for your kind response and time. I'll make sure to follow the other videos as they apply.
Yes that's a good way to think about it. 8 bit gives far less room to edit than 10 bit, 12 bit far more room than 10, etc. The difference is a magnitude of ^2 where for example, 8 bit has 256 varieties per color and 10 bit has 1024. The difference is absolutely huge. But also, real raw files are different from h264 because they don't have an established color balance baked in. A 12 bit raw should always provide more room to correct than a theoretical 12bit h264 because of how the data is stored.
Thank you very much Tony for explaining CST. I payed for an online course and the guy just keeps on using CST without ever explaining his choices in the Input and Output sections. Will be rewatching your video to understand it more clearly.
Wonderful. I am new to this and will have to watch it several times to truly understand. Meanwhile I have a work trip to Africa coming up where I will have to shoot a lot of wildlife on Canon R5. I will be shooting at 4k 120. Should I keep the profile at Cinema Gamaut or one of the BT? I will not grade the footage myself, but will go to a professional grade facility. I want to ensure I give them the best possible footage. I hope you reply! THX
Thank you for this. A couple questions: 1. The changes you were making, was this specific to the clip or to the project as a whole? If it was for the specific clip, is there a way to set these settings for the project as a whole? 2. What if your color space and gamma are set for the correct OUTPUT source (like rec 709 for a standard television) but you deliberately choose the wrong INPUT color space and gamma for what the source material was shot on because you like the resulting look? What you are seeing in Resolve if the OUTPUT is rec 709, is also what you are going to see on those intended rec 709 displays, correct? So if you shoot in Canon LOG, but set the input source for, say, ALEXA, and the output source for rec 709 because you will display the final movie on rec 709 monitors… as long as you like what do you see in resolve, that’s what’s going to show on the intended monitors?
If you select color managed workflow on davinci, you can right click on the video and select input color space. 2. Yes. The problem is that can have some horrible artifacts.
subjectively , nothing is wrong, but i think select the correct input color space is beneficial for a stream lined work. It is just a good practice, objectively, there should not be anything wrong with it as long as it looks good. However, it might work with one scene, but might not work with other scene simply the intended color space that designed for this camera was accounted for it, but not with the "looking-good" ones. That is just my guess, please correct me if anyone knows better.
Good topic ....I have doubt how to find out the color space support of currently available tv models...They not mention the color space support and how much % it support.. How to get color space of tvs to view exact color space of Blu-ray movies (rec 709 ) in tv
Hello, it is a pity that I cannot follow your comments, I do not know English, I can only follow the image. In Davinci in Color I have disabled Settings, next to library, how can I enable it. Thanks for everything
Hi Tony! I was trying to understand what am I shooting and what am I gonna be streaming? What my screen Color Gamut should be? And finally I found your video. Thank you so much! I’m kinda in my color space struggling / suffering period and this video put a lot of things into place!
Thanks for doing this vid Tony, pretty good explanation for starters. So,basically for any project,there are 3 things that must be noted down with regards to color space and gamma? 1.from the camera 2.the monitor being used for grading 3.the display the finished video is going to be viewed at. What are your recommendations for good color grading monitors? 4k 10-bit with native hdr, or will a standard 8-bit monitor would suffice?
No problem! Regarding the things to be noted in regards to color space for each project... You need to know the color space and gamma for the source (from camera), timeline (if applicable, Resolve let's you choose a different timeline color space and gamma for tool functionality), output (finished video), and monitor(s) that will show the content. The output (render) and monitor color space/gamma should be the same, otherwise you can't know exactly how it will look on the monitor(s) that will show the content. I do not have recommendations for any particular color grading monitors. The bare minimum for rec.709 would be an sRGB monitor and be sure to calibrate for the environment that you expect the product to be shown in. I can do another video about this but basically you need to make sure your environment you grade in matches the environment you expect to show your product. Just check the specifications and make sure that it is compliant with whatever your content is going to be. I do not think that a 10 bit 4K HDR monitor is necessary unless you are expecting to grade for 10 bit 4K HDR distribution. I use an inexpensive sRGB HD monitor for most of my grades because the products I "sell" are in eithere 1080p or 720p, are not HDR, and are always for rec.709 monitors. Your monitor and environment should really be whatever is necessary for the product. For example, if you were grading material for theatrical distribution, you should get access to a projector and movie theater screening room and use the proper color space and gamma in order to be sure the content will look right. If you are not grading for theatrical distribution and instead were grading for facebook video content, then this would be unnecessary.
@@TonyDae I see,thank you👍.Ah yes,situational monitor and environment calibration would be a great topic for the next video. You might also be able to answer in your video a very common problem which is youtube content that we have no control on what display device it's going to be viewed at. Most of it is going to be viewed on phones/tablets but even that's a challenge,right?Because different brands use different color spaces lol. Plus because of the fact that tv's,monitors, and high end phones give users color presets and adjustment tools.😬yikes
The first issue is most people are not grading content into rec 709 or sRGB so the software tries to conform it itself. The second issue is that the software is doing something to change the way the content is displayed based on it's settings or how that software decodes content. Play the same content on three different players and you may see a difference in how it's played back. Browsers can cause issues too like Google Chrome needs to have a hardware acceleration option turned off and other players need to have contrast and color adjustments turned off. The last issue is likely the monitor displaying content that looks different isn't calibrated. Many TV's are tinted blue and cause other issues with color or overall quality because they are not calibrated or have dumb settings turned on like Tru motion, the worst software introduced to televisions I've ever seen. You can't control everything, but grading to the right colorspace is the first step to getting it to look correct and really one if the few things you can control as the content creator when it comes to color.
@@TonyDae I guess it's up to the viewers themselves if they want to calibrate their display to watch content the way the colorist intended. What brand of color calibration tools can you recommend?Also, how does a color checker passport tie into all of these?
I can't tell you what display calibrator is best but I use the xrite i1 display tools. The color checker passport or any other color checker is used for color correction on footage, not for color correction on a display.
I got a questions, I'm confused between Color Spaces & Gamut. Color spaces is basically how much of color can it hold/displays. That is why some monitor advertised with 100% sRGB, REC709 etc. Then what is gamut? Some said that gamut is a reference for what colors can be display by that color spaces. Example Monitor A can display adobeRGB, Monitor B can display adobeRGB and same goes to Monitor C. All these 3 monitors claimed to be able to display adobeRGB, but that doesnt mean all color will be displayed correctly in all 3 monitors. Is like I have 12 color pencils, but doesnt tell what colors I have in this 12 color pencils box. can you elaborate more?
Gamut is more the extent of how many colors are possible to see in a color space. Color space is like identifying how colors are to be displayed and gamut is a part of that. Smaller gamuts like rec709 are more likely to have a color fall outside of it's visible range than rec2020 or ACES AP0. If a color goes out of gamut, as in its a color saturation or hue that can't be shown, it will be mapped back into a color that is visible in that color space. Does this help?
Input is what the footage is. Output is what you are transforming the footage to. A camera shot in 10bit Slog3 Sgamut3.cine has an input color space of Slog3/SGamut3.cine. If you wanted to transform the footage into a standard rec709 deliverable, the output color space would be rec709/gamma 2.4.
Why this video color looks paler than my smartphone screen? My smartphone looks more saturated. I`m new in this screen color, color space, sRGB kind of things.
Rec709 monitors will have a different gamma curve than sRGB even though the color gamut is the same. This is why contrast can look different between a TV and a phone, tablet, or monitor. Apple monitors also have a different gamma curve than either sRGB (2.2) or rec709 (2.4) which is 1.8. Also, the environment could be different and thus affect your eyes... if you are in a bright room and look at a standard calibrated rec709 monitor at 100 nits, it may look dark. Since this rec709 monitor is intended to be viewed in a dark room, think prime time TV, it is best viewed in a dark room. Also, even if two monitors are using the same color space, they can have saturation or contrast adjustments that differ based on taste. Many monitors in a store will be in a setting that enhances the sharpness, contrast, and saturation of the image to appeal to consumers and get their attention. If you calibrate at home or balance it correctly, you may or may not like the "corrected" look of the TV and it will differ from uncorrected TV's.
It depends on what your target is. If it's for standard SDR deliverables then yes, rec709 is correct. If it's for HDR then no. You need to know what your target viewing device is and use the correct color space output.
Each gamma is essentially a luminance curve and choosing the wrong curve will give incorrect results regarding contrast and where middle gray/highlights/shadows are supposed to be. Rec709 gamma 2.2 and 2.4 will have a different curve that is intended for different displays, 2.2 for sRGB and viewing in lit conditions, 2.4 more for standard rec709 viewing in a darker room. Play with the settings to see the differences.
@@TonyDae Thank you for that technical breakdown!! Sometimes its nice to read things in print. Sometimes just listening, we can miss things. I appreciate your time explaining this!!
Hey tony i do have some question for you about color space. i'm fairly new to this and i've been trying to get Aces to work on my LGUL850 (about to buy a Benq) and i just can't seem to get it to display properly. i went from changing the color space inside Adobe to the monitor's color profile the ICC file and still i'm unable to get it to display correctly. any help would be greatly appreciated
what color space is the monitor he's working on and then i'm watching this video on sRGB monitor so this entire video is sRGB and I never actually get to see any of these colors outside of the sRGB gamut?
You realize I am the first person to see each comment and only I would know the answer to your question right? I am using an srgb monitor and if you watch, I attempt to illustrate things to you to demonstrate. It would not be possible to show you exactly what a rec2020 image would look like on a rec2020 monitor since nobody watching this would own one, but I could show you what rec2020 looks like on srgb or rec709, which I think I did when I explain that using the wrong gamut for your output will show colors incorrectly.
Raw is usually sensor data that has very low compression (compared to log) and requires demosaic to create an image that is readable. Raw generally is presented as linear color space without baked in white balance values as well regardless of the sensor or manufacturer, so particular input color spaces are usually not needed for a proper transform into a deliverable color space like rec709. There is also usually metadata provided in the raw data as well including captured white balance, ISO, etc. Log encoding is a particular way to "pack" information that allows more post production freedom compared to something like rec709. Generally log profiles provide higher dynamic range and color tone values compared to rec709 and have a variety of color spaces used to create them. For example: vlog, Slog3, Clog2, etc. There is usually more compression in log codecs than raw and there is usually less freedom to fix something like white balance since it is baked into footage. Easiest way to see the difference between how far you can stretch log V raw is to shoot in a very wrong white balance and then correct in post. Hope this helps.
@@TonyDae I did a few minutes research. Seems that 2.2 is slightly brighter and for normal viewing and 2.4 is for watching movies with the lights off at home.
A quick question, I color for TV broadcast in REC 709, but I was told to set a reference limit line on the luma at 940 on the waveform in Resolve not 1023 and stay below that.. am I wrong?
I'm not going to tell you to disobey your bosses, however, as a default Resolve clamps values to broadcast safe range unless you change the settings to export data levels or retain super white and super black levels. The best way to check for broadcast safe is to have broadcast qa equipment and check for errors.
what is the difference between selecting color space transform under library, as you have illustrated, and right clicking on a node and selecting color space (rec 709) and gamma (C log 3 for example)? or just choosing the timeline? is this just 3 ways to do the same thing? thanks
If I'm working with a Rec.709 footage from a DSLR Canon and my final output it's exclusive for Web Delivery, will be a good practice to put a Color Space Transform to srgb with gamma 2.2 to the whole timeline? My goal it's to get more accurate colors from what I'm seeing on Davinci's Viewer.
Depends on the distribution. Rec709 scene gamma might be better because many distribution services like UA-cam will better identify rec709 scene over 2.4 or 2.2, check tags for gamma as well. Also mac computer software tends to read rec709 scene gamma more accurately than 2.4 or 2.2. I would recommend trying different output settings based on your distribution method and pick the one that works best.
Dear sir hi and thank you for your very nice tutorial about color space! Would you mind please to help me with the question, coming from Lightroom with tiff files rendered on a prophet colour space what settings would I use on a color space respect when I try to work on resole? I really look forward to your answer ! Thanks very much!
Prophoto isn't a color space used in video so it isn't available in color space transforms. If you save raw to rec709 tagged dng it should open the file as a cDNG and you should be able to work from there.
This is the first time I am seeing this channel and I am enjoying the video quite a lot. I am excited to see what else you have in your channel. Looking forward to finally being able to get a grasp of seemingly simple but impossible colour concepts. Very, very helpful video. Just the one question. Assuming I was using properly calibrated monitors: if I had one monitor that only covered the rec 709 space; and another monitor that covered the rec 2020 space (or a P3 wide colour space) that was fed a rec 709 signal; would the 2 monitors display the same? I’m trying out colour grading/correction but I am getting very confused over the mechanics of how colour is actually sent. I have had my monitor display some very funky colours.
If both monitors are calibrated for rec709 and both cover rec709 color space fully, they should both show about the same results. The accuracy of the monitor can be hindered by several things (age for example), but they should be close enough. Getting two monitors of even the same brand/model can sometimes show slight differences. There should not be a big difference though. If you are worried about slight differences, you'll need to dish out some money on scientific monitors and fit your work station with perfect viewing conditions (very dim light, neutral walls, neutral eye reset color swatch, etc.). I hope this helps.
im glad i found this i understand this so much better now but ive followed your instructions to a T. my devinci exports still look different than my project when viewing in quicktime BUT i can get it to look exactly the same (if it is off then its off by a hair) as my project when i select srgb for color space and srgb gamma tag.im using a sony a7iii, footage was shot using slog2/sgamut. should i be using the nodes workflow when choosing color space transforms. What i do is. import footage and go to project settings and choose davinci color-managed. input is switched to S-GAMUT/Slog2 , timeline color space switched to REC 709 Gamma 2.2. output color spce to Rec 709 2.2. my export settings when rendering is set to color space tag Rec709 and Gamma Tag set to Gamma 2.2 and my colors still come out wrong in quick time But when i use ACEScct and choose Sony Slog2 and put the output device transform to Srgb and in render section change color space tab to srgb and gamma tab to srgb the export looks correct in quicktime. Am i doing something even worse by doing it that way idk. To be honest im a music producer lol i got into video production to be able to document my own come up but now since ive switched from fcp to DR my exports dont come out like they should. i switched to DR because i built a custom pc so i cant use FCP and premier is too buggy and complicated
One of the issues is you are viewing in QuickTime which is notorious for not reading rec709 correctly. Try using VLC or another media player and see if it looks more correct.
@@lolerie no. VLC tends to show rec709 correctly, quicktime does not. This is a known issue with Quicktime specifically thus the rec709-a was made by Blackmagic Design to work around the fact that Quicktime doesn't show rec709 tags correctly. This is clearly explained and demonstrated by the BMD team.
@@lolerie well, no, that's not standard at all. Rec709 g2.4 or g2.2 should not be tagged rec709a. It should be tagged correctly for the intended deliverable color space, which is never rec709a.
On your example you are using the transform node before you do the corrections, to my head this means you are loosing your color correction potential using this workflow on a real project. This had to be like flat input, color correction, and then rec.709 transformation at the end. Right? Could you describe the standard order of nodes workflow?
Transform nodes keep one hundred percent of information unless you use gamut or luma mapping features. You can try this yourself by using two transform nodes, go into a color space then back into the original color space in the second transform. Grade after the second transform. All information will be there unless you did something wrong, no exception.
@@constantinossamartzis1811 The transform node mathematically transforms data from one interpretation to another. When it does this, it does not destroy any information at all unless you choose luma mapping or gamut mapping or do something after the transform that would truncate values. The transform is happening at the point in the node tree you place it, however, it doesn't bake anything into the pipeline. This is why even though you may transform from say, arri log c to rec709 and see spiking luma values going well into the super whites, when you transform from rec709 back into log c gamma, you will see the exact same image as you saw before any transforms took place. The information is all still there. If you try the same thing with a LUT, those luma values are clipped and gone after the LUT and is irrecoverable. If you use luma mapping in the CST, it will also truncate those values and you will not see the same image as if unchanged when you go from rec709 back into the original color space and gamma. Does this help?
Beats pseudoscientific “color theory” that pollutes the art community. Every time I hear someone say magenta isn’t “real,” I loose 100 braincells. Good job!
What is the point to shoot in bigger colorspace if any way we are restricting all the information to rec.709? What about ACES? Thanks a lot for your content
This is a very important question in regards to imaging in general and is a question people ask in regards to not only color, but resolution and dynamic range as well. If you create HD content, why would you ever need 4k or 6k? HD is only about 2 mega pixels, but 4K is about 8 mega pixels. Do you need that higher resolution? How much "extra" resolution is too much resolution? If we are going to render in 8bit 420, rec709 and it only allows you to display 5 stops of dynamic range, then why do we shoot with 10, 12, or even 14 stop dynamic range in cinema cameras? How much dynamic range in your capture is necessary when we only use 5 stops on the display for broadcast? If we are only going to render a final in 8 bit, rec709 with a very small color range, then why do we record 10 bit or even 12 bit color spaces? Why would we shoot raw with billions of color combinations? The answer to all of these questions is dependent on what you are doing. If you are doing live broadcast, you can't send out 14 stops of dynamic range and 12 bit color information on a signal to a television across the country, so you need to send a signal that conforms to the standards immediately. This means you would "record" or broadcast a signal that needs to be lit and colored appropriately for that narrow color space and gamma. You also would probably be broadcasting in 720 or maybe full HD, so 4k would not be necessary at all since there would not be a reason to really use that extra resolution. If you are shooting a narrative, you will have time in post production to utilize the full recording capability of the camera you are using, so you can conform that huge 12 or so stops of dynamic range down to the standards by controlling the contrast curve. This can allow you to get the exact look you want. You can also record with billions of color combinations and possibilities for the express purpose of making sure you nail the exact colors you want in post production through corrections and grading. If you were to only record with rec709 standards here, you would have far less room to push around colors and contrast curves and would have to get more of a "baked" in look to your footage. Also, you can record higher resolution than your final product resolution for the purpose of getting better keys for background removal, cropping in post, super sampling for overall better details, etc. Even though you can't display all of the colors of raw 12 bit or 14 bit footage on your screen, you can still use all of that color information to get the exact look you want if you could not get it straight from the camera. This is especially useful for situations where you are "running and gunning" and if you cannot perfectly nail exposure or white balance on the fly, having more information can allow you to later get the perfect exposure, contrast curve, framing (crop/digital stabilization), and colors without losing details, clipping channels, etc. On ACES, it is color space that somebody from the Academy decided would be a standard for use while grading. I find ACES irrelevant for me and I have actually never found it to be helpful in grading since I am used to grading in other color spaces and output color space is still the same as ever. As long as you are grading properly to an output color space and you are not having to conform to any particular work standards/practices, the intermediate color spaces like ACES are irrelevant in my opinion.
@@TonyDae You can't even imagine how grateful to You for such interesting answer. Thank for Your time a lot. And still, what do You think about ACES? is it worth to learn it?
I don't think ACES is worth it to learn unless you are working in Hollywood or similar industry as a colorist and the people who may mentor you or control the process pipeline says to do so. I do not work in Hollywood as a colorist so I could not tell you much about it other than I don't like it compared to many other color spaces, but it could also be user error. My understanding is that it is supposed to be a standard intermediate color space for grading since there are so many different color spaces out there, but since I find it more difficult to grade in than Arri logC, Red's wide gamut, or standard rec709 and there is no standard put on me personally for grading at all other than output, I don't see a reason for me or many others frankly to conform to it.
@@TonyDae Thanks a lot. I am not in Hollywood industry as well, working on some commercials, clips, short films, and trying to collect as much information about proper color grading as I can. It could be interesting for example if you could record a video while you color grading some of your projects, to understand the logic and pipeline, not only information is important but also wich decisions you make when see the footage and so on. And it's so amazing to find someone in the internet who shares his experience, and I will try to do my best to become better. Thanks a lot.
Proper color grading, and many other processes in my opinion, is a results oriented and technical process. If you get what you intended quickly even with a weird thing you do that everybody else thinks is wrong, you did it right. Some people for example can get exactly what they want straight out of the camera with no post adjustments and record straight to 8bit 420 with a custom profile and head straight to editing. I can't do that consistently so I don't try, there is always something I need to adjust. The only times I really think something is wrong with a process is when you don't get intended results or your process causes headaches in other areas due to cutting corners or improper organization etc. Usually it is the problem of beginner colorists where they do not understand the importance of color correction and understanding the technical aspects of it and jump straight to getting creative, when realistically by the time you are in color grading, the creative choices have mostly been made already as far the look is concerned and you need to focus on accurately getting the looks correct and accordance to the plan. I have some videos already on my channel that show the kinds of ways I do things, but I will likely not be posting any paid projects as the ownership of that material is not mine.
it is complex you're right for that:) thanks for the video I was tryng to find the colorspace/gamma of my camera (sony a6400) last year and couldnt find any info..so everything looked really bad I quess you will also have to calibrate the display to rec709 My question Tony is.. what output colorspace should we use for youtube uploads? and what gamma? i think premiere pro use rec709 and gamma 2.4 ? I like that we have a choice on resolve though...should we change the output gamma to 2.2 for web/youtube? I quess with 2.4 the blcaks on a 2.2 gamma display will look not that dark ...or am i wrong ? thanks a lot again!
For output... you should deliver to the gamma that you think people will need in order to view your content properly. If that is a little confusing, think of it like this... Is your content meant to be viewed on a computer monitor or a cell phone? If so, grading for and rendering in gamma 2.2 will make sense since most people will be viewing the content in a lit environment with an sRGB screen. This will create more contrast in the image so it looks less washed out by comparison. If your content is meant to be viewed on a television, then you would want it in rec709 gamma 2.4 instead of 2.2. If you use ACES color management you can more clearly see the difference in the presentation of rec709 V sRGB on different monitors. Setting the output to sRGB after grading for rec709 will show a pretty substantial drop in the shadows in order to show the contrast difference and the inverse if you grade for sRGB and switch to rec709. You can also try setting the output to other device transforms such as P3-D65 or Rec2020 HLG to see how different the image appears and, if rendered and tagged properly in the output settings, the image will playback with the correct look on devices that display those color spaces/gammas!
@@TonyDae thanks a lot..yes i wasnt sure if for youtube videos i should use srgb or rec709 and what gamma..So i quess is best for output to use srb 2.2 instead of rec709 2.4 ?
Again, it depends on what device you expect people to watch your content on. If you are making like a movie or a TV show, I would imagine you would expect people to watch on a TV therefore you would probably want a rec709 render. If its a tutorial or some other thing intended for viewing in like an office building, go sRGB. UA-cam is viewable from all kinds of platforms so the intended viewing environment is what you would generally want determining deliverable specifications like gamma output.
@@TonyDae thanks Tony you are very helpfull and yes i completely undestand what you are trying to say..so in this case it is for web viewing so i should use srgb... but in case its for tv i should change it to rec709 ! So 1 last question should i turn on resolve management on the settings menu and set everything from there? or just use the color space transform tool? and the color space transform tool should i use it in every clip (copy paste) or once i do it once it just works on all clips?
RCM and the color space transform nodes functionally do the same thing as long as the settings are the same. RCM does the transformations "under the hood" as they say, so you don't see them.
Hi Tony! Thanks for the awesome tutorials. I have a few doubts. 1. If I shoot in HLG ie. Rec 2020 (from DJI Mavic 2 Pro) and want to convert to color space which should display on both HDR as well as 709 monitors. What is the proper settings in Davinci Resolve?
I haven't done a whole lot of HDR to be honest however the same principles apply. You have to provide information for the player to know which color space and gamma is supposed to be displayed. UA-cam does an auto conversion for HDR but you can identify a lut to use instead. My understanding is generally you are going to have to supply an hdr grade and an sdr grade to get the look you want. You can grade HDR on an sdr monitor but you have to convert to rec709 for display purposes while you do so otherwise you can't see what you are doing. If you use color management tools like ACES or RCM you should be able to more easily provide more accurate conversions between hdr and sdr finals.
Thanks for making this very informative video! I have one question though concerning grading Rec709 on an srgb monitor. Would you advise grading in the smaller color space after the conversion to Rec709, or in a bigger color space before the conversion? Thank you!
The simple answer is "yes" in that it is a good idea to grade in a larger color space than your output color space, but I will explain further below: Output color space and your grading color space can be different. In an ACES color managed workflow for example, you will have three color spaces going on: 1: INPUT 2: GRADING/TIMELINE/WORKING 3: OUTPUT/DISPLAY I will now fill in the 3 different color spaces with corresponding color spaces when working with a Sony camera using Slog3/Sgamut3 working in ACEScct and a sRGB display output... 1: Slog3, SGamut3 2: ACEScct 3: sRGB Now I will fill in the color spaces with a swap to rec709 delivery after grading using an sRGB display... 1: Slog3, SGamut3 2: ACEScct 3: rec709 Now I will fill in the color spaces with a swap to P3-DCI delivery after grading using an sRGB display... 1: Slog3, SGamut3 2: ACEScct 3: P3-DCI In an ACES workflow, you will be working in an extremely wide gamut in ACEScc/t so that you have a lot of colors and luminance information to work with. You can use a very wide gamut and wide gamma to grade for any output/display and I think it is preferred to grade in a big color space so that you have all of that information available to you. Even if you are outputting to a very small color space like rec709, the control that larger gamuts and gammas can provide you allow more control than working in a smaller color space in my experience. Also, by working in these larger color spaces, you can change your output for whatever display you want, even to different and larger color spaces like P3-DCI if you graded with a standard sRGB monitor, and get a pretty accurate translation to that new output. It won't be perfect, but it will be close enough to do a "trim" pass if you can get time in a movie theater to do some tweaking for theatrical delivery. So... using larger working color spaces allow you to grade using an sRGB monitor and output to rec709 or P3-DCI or Rec2020/ST2084 for HDR if you want by changing the output color space. If you had worked in rec709 instead of ACEScct, outputting to wider gamuts like rec2020 would not have very good results because your working color space was already smaller than the output color space. Does this help?
@@TonyDae Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. It makes a lot more sense now. I´ve got one more follow-up question concerning Monitor Calibration. If I were to adopt the workflow you just suggested, would you advise me to calibrate my sRGB- monitor for Rec709, or for sRGB?
@@EpicxNL I think you should calibrate your monitor for whatever you tend to deliver the most. If you are delivering mostly sRGB material (intended to be viewed in a bright office building for example), it could be a better idea to calibrate for sRGB. If you intend to deliver for general or broadcast video, then you should probably calibrate for rec709. Your environment also should be lit to represent the environment you are intending to deliver for. Rec709 monitors when calibrated correctly will often look wrong in a brighter environment because the gamma curve is different from sRGB. Rec709 should be in a darker environment and usually will have a gamma curve of 2.4 instead of sRGB's 2.2. My current monitor has 3 different profiles that I can use for calibration and I have them set to Adobe RGB, sRGB, and Rec709. I have blackout curtains and plain gray walls to make sure I can control lighting and my eyes don't get tricked when I am grading for different things. If you have seen people on youtube with grading setups with like, LED lights and backlighting on a screen to look all fancy, DON'T do that.
Hello, this was one of the most informative videos on this topic which I have been watched so far. Thank you for it. Btw I have two small questions. The first one is that my camera is kind of old (maybe 10 years and more) it can shoot full hd but I don't know how to find what is the native color space and gamut in which the camera took the footage. I was wondering do you know what I need to look like information into the net as terms/topics? And the second question is: Is it any way to define into Davinci R. what is the color profile of the imported footage? The simplest example is let's say I download a video from pexels and import it in DR, can I see some specifications about the color space and the gamma from inside DR or this is only external information ?
Generally speaking if the camera is giving you a profile without specifying that it's log, it's likely rec709 color space with rec709(scene) gamma. For the second part, video files often have a color space and gamma tag. If they do not, you will have to manually select the color space and gamma. If the footage provided to you is from either a set or stock website and it's in something other than rec709, they should be providing you with the codec specifications including color space/gamma.
@@TonyDae Thanks for your detailed reply. I made a small research about my camera it's Sony DSC-HX50. I found that maybe the color space is sRGB and probably the gamma would be sRGB as well. Anyway it's not that important because I tried these (input)settings(sRGB) with output settings - REC 709 (bcs that's mostly what I do - UA-cam/Video ads etc) in the color transform node in DR and saw that there weren't any kind of significant improvement/destruction into the quality of the image. In fact it looked the same. And these tags about the color space and gamma, where they are written ? I have been looking of them in the properties/right click with the mouse over the particular video file and I didn't find anything about that kind of information. I made the "experiment" with a video from pexels- the stock footage site.
Very good. Rec709 and sRGB are nearly identical color gamuts so the color interpretation being no different makes sense! EDIT: for video I am pretty sure it would be a rec709 and rec709 (scene) gamma and stills photos would be either sRGB or aRGB in jpgs depending on if you can choose aRGB or not. Raw stills will be linear gamma and pro photo RGB. For video color, sRGB and rec709 are nearly identical so you wouldn't see any change there, but the gamma for in camera rec709 recordings are rec709 (scene). Try these settings. Regarding where the tags are, many files don't have color space and gamma tags. You can try opening the file in VLC and checking the codec information or check the metadata in Resolve. There you should see some information if its there. If there isn't any, a player and Resolve will default to rec709/rec709 (scene).
This is by far the most advanced and helpful Davinci resolve tutorials than any other "youtuber colorist" i have seen. they just straight up import footage and start fiddling with wheel and curves without setting up the base color management for the whole sequence like this. thanks for the knowledge.
100%
Well done. An important, but complex and tricky subject. Excellent job making it understandable and practical to employ.
I'm a DR beginner here. Thanks for bringing some light to the muddy water. I'm not aiming to know the subject very well, but just enough for some video color editing. Thanks.
Yes it does make sense! Like a few others I was struggling to find a video that explained WHY we should use a rec. 709 cst, but this has really helped, thanks. I'm not very good at doing things "just because" the expert says, and understanding why it's done is super helpful to me. Muchos gracias!!
The first video on colour surfaces that is really easy to understand. Great work, thanks
Amazing !! A smooth explanation on how color space works and what gamma is and color gamut...I already subscribed your channel before the end of the video
Found this video easy to understand color space and the science of it in a easier way. Thank you for making this.
Thank you for not making this terse and boring.
Excellent basic on understanding color space and gamma. I liked the comparisons you showed with the scope. Thanks for taking the time to post this video.
i have scene at least 20 videos till now and this by far is the closest to perfect. I actually felt i learnt something. thank you.
What a fantastic tutorial. Completely satisfied with the content!
Thanks. You explained it very well.
Most complete video on the topic I found.
Thank you for sharing most valuable information on color space workflow.
Wonderful video explaining color space matching/mismatches. The only note I have is on your demonstration of gamut mapping. Conversion accuracy is increased with it off. It’s only needed when colors exceed the target gamut, and as you can see from the vectorscope, everything in the shot is within gamut before mapping. The same is also technically true of tone mapping, ie: off is more “accurate”, but of course if you want to retain highlights in sdr, you have to tonemap.
With each set to none, you’re mapping the values from the source space 1:1 to the target space. So if the source contains highlights outside the target range, you’ll get clipping, and the same with gamut too. But if the scene contains no information outside the dynamic range or gamut, no further mapping is required, and turning it on actually makes the conversion less accurate.
You’ll often find that out of gamut colors are just clipped highlights, so once you enable tone mapping, no further gamut mapping is required.
I will say it as simple as I can...
YOU made ME understand.
That's it!
Outstanding upload Tony. This is like the fourth time I am watching it haha
Great tutorial. Many thanks
thanks, man. This video helped me a lot
Im in the market for a new monitor for photo editing and your video just taught me somethings i didnt know before, will definitely make it much easier to pick a monitor now.
Fantastic! Clear and concise! Subscribed!
So, basically we have three "realities" in which the color spaces live: 1. the camera's capturing color space 2. the color space for viewing on your workstation (depending on your monitor) 3. the color space your final product needs to have (where will people watch the video). Davinci's color management simplifies the transformation processes in-between. The interface is very intuitive. The convoluted FCPX should take it as an example.
I recently bought the Ninja V and it adds another layer between 1. and 2. : the Ninja V is also doing some transformations for viewing. Because of that, some NLEs (like FCPX) interpret the footage which was recorded on the Ninja V the wrong way. There is some odd and rather abusive switching between full and legal range going on at the cost of image quality. That's why I am seriously considering buying Davinci's studio version to edit my Prores LOG footage coming from the Ninja V.
In addition to that complexity, we videographers find ourselves in the middle of the SDR to HDR transition. Davinci's Color Management interface really makes our lives much easier. We can simply change the output settings and deliver the same project for different displaying options.
@Steve Strasser
Yes on the three stages for Color Space in how I understand it all. Acquisition (Input) > Working (Timeline) > Display (Output). As far as the Ninja V, it should not be baking any looks into your footage at all unless there is an option that you have turned on to do that, so if unchecked for a baked look, the display LUT should be togglable only for viewing during monitoring or togglable for an NLE.
I would agree on the Legal V Full range point in that it is often not obvious which the camera is recording in. There is no, in my experience detriment to recording outside the legal range, but there is a problem with displaying outside the legal rang. Some people have complained about problems with renders because they check "data levels" on output when they should not.
THe SDR/HDR transition is proving to be very troubling because the standards are all over the place for display (some people have no idea how to even turn HDR on with their monitors!) and its kind of like an Indiana Jones research process in finding the correct way to even display things correctly in HDR. Also... having an HDR image backwards compatible is also an issue....
I think that the more we move toward HDR and rec2020 as becoming a standard output for displays, the industry is going to lean more and more on color management and leave LUTS completely behind.
Great lesson, info perfectly explained, thank you so much!
I recently bought a Sony A90J Master Series 65" TV and have been trying to figure out the color space options. When set it to sRGB/REC.709, the color was not as full and pretty dull. When I set it DCI-P3, it really brought the video to life and added a lot more color and made Regular/SDR Blu Ray Discs look a lot closer to 4k Ultra Blu Ray Discs. But when I went to Adobe RGB, it didn't provide much visible difference in the full color gamet, however it gave me additional control over Gradation (i.e. in HDR Tone Mapping) in HLG mode and when I played around and set the Gamma (like you mentioned in this video) it really made standard Blu Ray Discs reach there maximum potential.
BT.2020/REC.2020 doesn't do much good for 4k Ultra Blu Ray Discs because 95+% of them all are mastered in DCI but delivered in a BT.2020 container. So theoretically, DCI would be a great setting but the TV will only give you control of Gradation (i.e. in HDR Tone Mapping) in the Adobe RGB Color Space.
If the movie is mastered in DCI-P3, then that would likely be a better setting for that particular media. Generally speaking, rec709 is standard broadcast. I think as we move forward DCI-P3 with a d65 white point will be the new standard well before rec2020.
I have found that calibrated sRGB settings tend to not look great, but they are accurate, and you have to be sure you are viewing the content in a correct environment if you are using certain color profiles. sRGB and rec709 cannot technically be the same color space since they have different gamma curves and require viewing in different environments. sRGB should be viewed in a brighter environment, rec709 in a darker environment. They have about the same gamut, but the gamma is not the same.
Something to keep in mind is that accuracy and looking good are not always the same thing. Accuracy is a lot more important for somebody that is working in coloring content and "looking good" is more important for viewing content as a consumer.
Looking Accurate = Objective
Looking Good = Subjective
You can calibrate your monitor and then adjust to taste if you like. Even though it won't necessary be "technically" accurate anymore, if it looks better for you as a consumer of content, then that would be the correct choice. I would definitely not adjust to taste if you are a colorist.
@@TonyDae Thank you for your detailed response and your expert advice. I sincerely appreciate it! 👍🏻👍🏻👊🏻
My TV has 5 color space settings, and these are the exact names...
1) Auto
2) sRGB/BT.709
3) DCI
4) Adobe RGB
5) BT.2020
While I'm sure that they all have a base Gamma setting within them, there is a separate Gamma setting that allows a person to adjust the Gamma level from -3 to +3.
After taking your advice and doing some more testing, I have found that DCI seems to be a little better than Adobe RGB as it doesn't minimally crush very small detail in fast action panning of the video like Adobe sRGB sometimes does... ...although the color gamut appears to visually be exactly the same to the naked eye.
sRGB doesn't show nearly as many colors (you can easily and immediately see the limited color range) and BT.2020 changes the entire hue to a purplish-pink tone.
BTW - I agree with all of your statements regarding DCI.
I prefer to dial my TV in for Max Performance and not Creator's intent (i.e. Film Maker's true intent). The way I see it is that I didn't pay over $4000 (including tax) for a Home Theater TV to have minimal settings engaged.
Therefore, I also prefer to set my TV to what my eye finds most appealing. For example, I like my color temperature (i.e. white temperature) to be set to Cool. ...versus, Neutral, Warm, Expert 1, or Expert 2. The way I think is that, since the human eye has the least amount of color receptors for the color Blue, I want my TV to show the Bluest Blues as it looks better and amazing to my eyes.
...like the opening Ocean scene from the (newer) movie Star Trek: Into the Darkness. I prefer the water to look blue, versus blue-green.
I'm a beginner and this was very helpful. Thank you.
Great Job! Appreciate the time you put into this. You made a complex subject easy to understand.
Great topic Tony, this is clear and understandable when deciding the right colorspace when grading in Resolve. We appreciate you!
Excellent. Thank you
Thank you, this really did clear up my uncertainties about colour space and I'm now more comfortable with deciding what to do with my projects. I wanted to go into HDR production, but judging that I literally edit viewing on a 43" Hisense TV, it's only in Rec.709 colour space and even though it seems that Final Cut Pro X has tone mapping for editing HDR on monitors that can't display it, I still find that might not be a real good idea as I have nowhere to actually see if I've done it well or not.
Correct, you'd need a properly calibrated monitor, like a Flanders Scientific
Very much appreciate the time and energy you took putting this very understandable video together. I'm just diving into Gamma, Color Spaces etc. and have yet to shoot a video - but this will happen in the future. From what I've learned in the last week or so, I heard one statement that caught my ear (although I know what you mean). "In real life there are colors out there. There are colors out there. There's green etc". Again, sorry about this, but from what I have learned, there are not colors out there. Just spectra. Colors are spectra that are given names by humans to describe them. Silly technical point, but the video is so good, that at least I'm listening closely. I can honestly say, with the reading and watching I've done over the last few days, this entire video made sense even though I have no "learned" experience with any of this. Really appreciate the detailed and simplified view. Very helpful. I hope you have some videos for getting started with DaVinci Resolve and how to find the values needed (i.e. Nikon Z9 video, luts, etc). Very nicely done. If you don't have it already, a video on minimum requirements to work on such video would be sweet! I do have one basic question (if you come back here and check some DAE: Is the statement you make at the end, that is, working in a bigger color space and then squeezing the information down into a smaller one (i.e. REC709) a desired thing? The reason I as is two-fold. 1st: As a new photographer, I've frequently heard that picking a color space like ADOBE RGB, when your output devices are in sRGB can lead to undesired color shifts (i.e. math rounding errors) is is not worth the hassle. This point was also made with respect to the potential gamut of even sRGB of the camera, software (i.e. Photoshop), and monitor might not overlap even though you are using the same space. So, in photography and video, is working in the bigger space worth it? Depends on the intended output display? 2. Does working in a larger color space benefit from a higher bit-depth? Lastly, can you recommend any of your videos (or others) recommended for a beginner getting started with video?
There are a lot of questions in here and I will try to answer what I recall.
1. Colors are a thing we see and I am using the term in a colloquial sense. I'm not going to make a philosophical debate in this video about blue actually being only a reflection of a certain goobadygoob and the object is actually every color but what we see etc. as that's not the point of the vid.
2. Shooting in a large color space and working in a large color space has advantages since capturing allows lots of information that you can then edit in a program later. Working in larger color spaces tends to allow more room to make micro adjustments to dial in the exact look you want for the final output. When you view the image while working, it should be presented in the actual output color space and all of the large gamut math is happening "under the hood" meaning you don't see it... You only see the output. Make sure your output file is in srgb for web. You can output adobe RGB for prints if your computer monitor is correctly calibrated and able to display it and if the printer can properly print argb.
3. Higher bit depth capture is always desirable if you are looking for the most flexibility in post production. In video, 12bit log encoded raw is usually more than enough data as it is practically the same as 16 but linear. In photo, 14 bit linear is enough for the vast majority of photographers.
@@TonyDae Tony, thanks for the response and getting back to me. Really appreciate it. One last quick (like, right) question: Is shooting video in 8bit H264 or equivalent, like shooting in JPG? That is, is the color space and gamma "baked" in the codec? (i.e. compared to video working in RAW S-RAW, C-RAW, N-RAW)? Again, thank you for your kind response and time. I'll make sure to follow the other videos as they apply.
Yes that's a good way to think about it. 8 bit gives far less room to edit than 10 bit, 12 bit far more room than 10, etc. The difference is a magnitude of ^2 where for example, 8 bit has 256 varieties per color and 10 bit has 1024. The difference is absolutely huge.
But also, real raw files are different from h264 because they don't have an established color balance baked in. A 12 bit raw should always provide more room to correct than a theoretical 12bit h264 because of how the data is stored.
@@TonyDae Thank you Tom.
Best explanation!
That video was answer my question. Thanks man.
Thank you for this. It's the best review of color spaces that I've come across.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video which explains the fundamentals clearly. Thanks :)
Excellent explanation I learned so much. Thanks so much Tony for creating and sharing, I know it takes a long time to produce these type of videos.
Finally i understand the difference
Great explanation! Thanks!
Very informative, thank you Tony
One of the most understandable video on this topic!
Thank you very much Tony for explaining CST. I payed for an online course and the guy just keeps on using CST without ever explaining his choices in the Input and Output sections.
Will be rewatching your video to understand it more clearly.
Thank you Tony! Just ‘subscribed’. This was so helpful. I’m really trying to understand the world of color correction/grading.
Excellent video, thank you
Good video mate. I knew the basics of colour space coming from a graphics background but the games side of things was very enlightening. Cheers
Very useful video! It's a complicated topic and there is indeed much more to know, but it's explained very well. Thank you!
Wonderful. I am new to this and will have to watch it several times to truly understand. Meanwhile I have a work trip to Africa coming up where I will have to shoot a lot of wildlife on Canon R5. I will be shooting at 4k 120. Should I keep the profile at Cinema Gamaut or one of the BT? I will not grade the footage myself, but will go to a professional grade facility. I want to ensure I give them the best possible footage. I hope you reply! THX
Contact me via email. Would love to help you out with the project.
Thank you for this. A couple questions:
1. The changes you were making, was this specific to the clip or to the project as a whole? If it was for the specific clip, is there a way to set these settings for the project as a whole?
2. What if your color space and gamma are set for the correct OUTPUT source (like rec 709 for a standard television) but you deliberately choose the wrong INPUT color space and gamma for what the source material was shot on because you like the resulting look? What you are seeing in Resolve if the OUTPUT is rec 709, is also what you are going to see on those intended rec 709 displays, correct? So if you shoot in Canon LOG, but set the input source for, say, ALEXA, and the output source for rec 709 because you will display the final movie on rec 709 monitors… as long as you like what do you see in resolve, that’s what’s going to show on the intended monitors?
If you select color managed workflow on davinci, you can right click on the video and select input color space.
2. Yes. The problem is that can have some horrible artifacts.
subjectively , nothing is wrong, but i think select the correct input color space is beneficial for a stream lined work. It is just a good practice, objectively, there should not be anything wrong with it as long as it looks good. However, it might work with one scene, but might not work with other scene simply the intended color space that designed for this camera was accounted for it, but not with the "looking-good" ones.
That is just my guess, please correct me if anyone knows better.
Thank you so murch. So helpful !
Well presented - thanks
Thanks . Very informative.
Thank you, so much for this information!
Good topic ....I have doubt how to find out the color space support of currently available tv models...They not mention the color space support and how much % it support..
How to get color space of tvs to view exact color space of Blu-ray movies (rec 709 ) in tv
Try this: www.rtings.com/tv/tests/picture-quality/wide-color-gamut-rec-709-dci-p3-rec-2020
@@TonyDae Thank you for this link! 👍🏻👍🏻👊🏻
Hello, it is a pity that I cannot follow your comments, I do not know English, I can only follow the image. In Davinci in Color I have disabled Settings, next to library, how can I enable it.
Thanks for everything
Muchas gracias!
Hi Tony! I was trying to understand what am I shooting and what am I gonna be streaming? What my screen Color Gamut should be? And finally I found your video. Thank you so much!
I’m kinda in my color space struggling / suffering period and this video put a lot of things into place!
It’s just awesome
Thanks for doing this vid Tony, pretty good explanation for starters. So,basically for any project,there are 3 things that must be noted down with regards to color space and gamma? 1.from the camera 2.the monitor being used for grading 3.the display the finished video is going to be viewed at. What are your recommendations for good color grading monitors? 4k 10-bit with native hdr, or will a standard 8-bit monitor would suffice?
No problem!
Regarding the things to be noted in regards to color space for each project...
You need to know the color space and gamma for the source (from camera), timeline (if applicable, Resolve let's you choose a different timeline color space and gamma for tool functionality), output (finished video), and monitor(s) that will show the content.
The output (render) and monitor color space/gamma should be the same, otherwise you can't know exactly how it will look on the monitor(s) that will show the content.
I do not have recommendations for any particular color grading monitors. The bare minimum for rec.709 would be an sRGB monitor and be sure to calibrate for the environment that you expect the product to be shown in. I can do another video about this but basically you need to make sure your environment you grade in matches the environment you expect to show your product. Just check the specifications and make sure that it is compliant with whatever your content is going to be.
I do not think that a 10 bit 4K HDR monitor is necessary unless you are expecting to grade for 10 bit 4K HDR distribution. I use an inexpensive sRGB HD monitor for most of my grades because the products I "sell" are in eithere 1080p or 720p, are not HDR, and are always for rec.709 monitors.
Your monitor and environment should really be whatever is necessary for the product.
For example, if you were grading material for theatrical distribution, you should get access to a projector and movie theater screening room and use the proper color space and gamma in order to be sure the content will look right. If you are not grading for theatrical distribution and instead were grading for facebook video content, then this would be unnecessary.
@@TonyDae I see,thank you👍.Ah yes,situational monitor and environment calibration would be a great topic for the next video. You might also be able to answer in your video a very common problem which is youtube content that we have no control on what display device it's going to be viewed at. Most of it is going to be viewed on phones/tablets but even that's a challenge,right?Because different brands use different color spaces lol. Plus because of the fact that tv's,monitors, and high end phones give users color presets and adjustment tools.😬yikes
The first issue is most people are not grading content into rec 709 or sRGB so the software tries to conform it itself. The second issue is that the software is doing something to change the way the content is displayed based on it's settings or how that software decodes content. Play the same content on three different players and you may see a difference in how it's played back. Browsers can cause issues too like Google Chrome needs to have a hardware acceleration option turned off and other players need to have contrast and color adjustments turned off. The last issue is likely the monitor displaying content that looks different isn't calibrated. Many TV's are tinted blue and cause other issues with color or overall quality because they are not calibrated or have dumb settings turned on like Tru motion, the worst software introduced to televisions I've ever seen.
You can't control everything, but grading to the right colorspace is the first step to getting it to look correct and really one if the few things you can control as the content creator when it comes to color.
@@TonyDae I guess it's up to the viewers themselves if they want to calibrate their display to watch content the way the colorist intended. What brand of color calibration tools can you recommend?Also, how does a color checker passport tie into all of these?
I can't tell you what display calibrator is best but I use the xrite i1 display tools. The color checker passport or any other color checker is used for color correction on footage, not for color correction on a display.
I got a questions, I'm confused between Color Spaces & Gamut.
Color spaces is basically how much of color can it hold/displays. That is why some monitor advertised with 100% sRGB, REC709 etc.
Then what is gamut?
Some said that gamut is a reference for what colors can be display by that color spaces. Example Monitor A can display adobeRGB, Monitor B can display adobeRGB and same goes to Monitor C. All these 3 monitors claimed to be able to display adobeRGB, but that doesnt mean all color will be displayed correctly in all 3 monitors.
Is like I have 12 color pencils, but doesnt tell what colors I have in this 12 color pencils box.
can you elaborate more?
Gamut is more the extent of how many colors are possible to see in a color space. Color space is like identifying how colors are to be displayed and gamut is a part of that. Smaller gamuts like rec709 are more likely to have a color fall outside of it's visible range than rec2020 or ACES AP0. If a color goes out of gamut, as in its a color saturation or hue that can't be shown, it will be mapped back into a color that is visible in that color space.
Does this help?
I'm very new to color grading can i ask what is input color space and output color space mean ?
Input is what the footage is. Output is what you are transforming the footage to.
A camera shot in 10bit Slog3 Sgamut3.cine has an input color space of Slog3/SGamut3.cine. If you wanted to transform the footage into a standard rec709 deliverable, the output color space would be rec709/gamma 2.4.
Yesssss straight to the point !!!
May i ask you sir is there something changes about color space in 2021 ???
No changes as far as I know.
Thank you for this!
Thank you 🤙
Why this video color looks paler than my smartphone screen? My smartphone looks more saturated. I`m new in this screen color, color space, sRGB kind of things.
Rec709 monitors will have a different gamma curve than sRGB even though the color gamut is the same. This is why contrast can look different between a TV and a phone, tablet, or monitor. Apple monitors also have a different gamma curve than either sRGB (2.2) or rec709 (2.4) which is 1.8.
Also, the environment could be different and thus affect your eyes... if you are in a bright room and look at a standard calibrated rec709 monitor at 100 nits, it may look dark. Since this rec709 monitor is intended to be viewed in a dark room, think prime time TV, it is best viewed in a dark room.
Also, even if two monitors are using the same color space, they can have saturation or contrast adjustments that differ based on taste. Many monitors in a store will be in a setting that enhances the sharpness, contrast, and saturation of the image to appeal to consumers and get their attention. If you calibrate at home or balance it correctly, you may or may not like the "corrected" look of the TV and it will differ from uncorrected TV's.
Ah I see, this truly helps me understanding color in this field. Thanks a lot man, have a great day. 👌
Is it just better to export for Rec 709 since all monitors can view it properly? When will most devices be Rec 2020?
It depends on what your target is. If it's for standard SDR deliverables then yes, rec709 is correct. If it's for HDR then no. You need to know what your target viewing device is and use the correct color space output.
You are the man! Thank you
What do the different gamma settings really do though
Each gamma is essentially a luminance curve and choosing the wrong curve will give incorrect results regarding contrast and where middle gray/highlights/shadows are supposed to be.
Rec709 gamma 2.2 and 2.4 will have a different curve that is intended for different displays, 2.2 for sRGB and viewing in lit conditions, 2.4 more for standard rec709 viewing in a darker room. Play with the settings to see the differences.
@@TonyDae Thank you for that technical breakdown!! Sometimes its nice to read things in print. Sometimes just listening, we can miss things. I appreciate your time explaining this!!
Hey tony i do have some question for you about color space. i'm fairly new to this and i've been trying to get Aces to work on my LGUL850 (about to buy a Benq) and i just can't seem to get it to display properly. i went from changing the color space inside Adobe to the monitor's color profile the ICC file and still i'm unable to get it to display correctly. any help would be greatly appreciated
Send me an email
what color space is the monitor he's working on and then i'm watching this video on sRGB monitor so this entire video is sRGB and I never actually get to see any of these colors outside of the sRGB gamut?
You realize I am the first person to see each comment and only I would know the answer to your question right?
I am using an srgb monitor and if you watch, I attempt to illustrate things to you to demonstrate. It would not be possible to show you exactly what a rec2020 image would look like on a rec2020 monitor since nobody watching this would own one, but I could show you what rec2020 looks like on srgb or rec709, which I think I did when I explain that using the wrong gamut for your output will show colors incorrectly.
What is the different between Raw and log file pls ?
Raw is usually sensor data that has very low compression (compared to log) and requires demosaic to create an image that is readable. Raw generally is presented as linear color space without baked in white balance values as well regardless of the sensor or manufacturer, so particular input color spaces are usually not needed for a proper transform into a deliverable color space like rec709. There is also usually metadata provided in the raw data as well including captured white balance, ISO, etc.
Log encoding is a particular way to "pack" information that allows more post production freedom compared to something like rec709. Generally log profiles provide higher dynamic range and color tone values compared to rec709 and have a variety of color spaces used to create them. For example: vlog, Slog3, Clog2, etc. There is usually more compression in log codecs than raw and there is usually less freedom to fix something like white balance since it is baked into footage. Easiest way to see the difference between how far you can stretch log V raw is to shoot in a very wrong white balance and then correct in post.
Hope this helps.
@@TonyDae Thanks you so much !
Did you upload a video about 709 gamma 2.2 vs 2.4?
I have not :(
@@TonyDae I did a few minutes research. Seems that 2.2 is slightly brighter and for normal viewing and 2.4 is for watching movies with the lights off at home.
So I'm pretty new to grading, I usually start by making a shared node with a colour space transform to rec 709.
Is this good practice?
I would have to see the node tree. Please consider joining the discord channel. Link should be in ABOUT page.
Wait so color space transform would replace me adding a rec 709 lut or is that totally different process?
Yes. One of the jobs of a lut is to transform acquisition color space to an output color space.
@@TonyDae thank you, I’m just trying to learn how to use davinci resolve
@@ramoncastillo532 Please feel free to contact me via email with any questions you may have or help you may need.
A quick question, I color for TV broadcast in REC 709, but I was told to set a reference limit line on the luma at 940 on the waveform in Resolve not 1023 and stay below that.. am I wrong?
I'm not going to tell you to disobey your bosses, however, as a default Resolve clamps values to broadcast safe range unless you change the settings to export data levels or retain super white and super black levels. The best way to check for broadcast safe is to have broadcast qa equipment and check for errors.
hi. thanks alot :)
I'm taking notes like there is a test at the end :)
Where’s ProPhoto RGB?
what is the difference between selecting color space transform under library, as you have illustrated, and right clicking on a node and selecting color space (rec 709) and gamma (C log 3 for example)? or just choosing the timeline? is this just 3 ways to do the same thing? thanks
The difference is the 2nd is not available by default.
If I'm working with a Rec.709 footage from a DSLR Canon and my final output it's exclusive for Web Delivery, will be a good practice to put a Color Space Transform to srgb with gamma 2.2 to the whole timeline? My goal it's to get more accurate colors from what I'm seeing on Davinci's Viewer.
Depends on the distribution. Rec709 scene gamma might be better because many distribution services like UA-cam will better identify rec709 scene over 2.4 or 2.2, check tags for gamma as well. Also mac computer software tends to read rec709 scene gamma more accurately than 2.4 or 2.2.
I would recommend trying different output settings based on your distribution method and pick the one that works best.
WOW MAN!!!!!!! The word "thanks" it's not big enough for this
Dear sir hi and thank you for your very nice tutorial about color space! Would you mind please to help me with the question, coming from Lightroom with tiff files rendered on a prophet colour space what settings would I use on a color space respect when I try to work on resole? I really look forward to your answer ! Thanks very much!
Sorry automatic correction took place I meant prophoto color space Thank you
Prophoto isn't a color space used in video so it isn't available in color space transforms. If you save raw to rec709 tagged dng it should open the file as a cDNG and you should be able to work from there.
@@TonyDae Thank you very much! I will try that.
This is the first time I am seeing this channel and I am enjoying the video quite a lot. I am excited to see what else you have in your channel. Looking forward to finally being able to get a grasp of seemingly simple but impossible colour concepts. Very, very helpful video.
Just the one question. Assuming I was using properly calibrated monitors: if I had one monitor that only covered the rec 709 space; and another monitor that covered the rec 2020 space (or a P3 wide colour space) that was fed a rec 709 signal; would the 2 monitors display the same?
I’m trying out colour grading/correction but I am getting very confused over the mechanics of how colour is actually sent. I have had my monitor display some very funky colours.
If both monitors are calibrated for rec709 and both cover rec709 color space fully, they should both show about the same results. The accuracy of the monitor can be hindered by several things (age for example), but they should be close enough. Getting two monitors of even the same brand/model can sometimes show slight differences. There should not be a big difference though. If you are worried about slight differences, you'll need to dish out some money on scientific monitors and fit your work station with perfect viewing conditions (very dim light, neutral walls, neutral eye reset color swatch, etc.).
I hope this helps.
@@TonyDae thanks, that helps!
im glad i found this i understand this so much better now but ive followed your instructions to a T. my devinci exports still look different than my project when viewing in quicktime BUT i can get it to look exactly the same (if it is off then its off by a hair) as my project when i select srgb for color space and srgb gamma tag.im using a sony a7iii, footage was shot using slog2/sgamut. should i be using the nodes workflow when choosing color space transforms.
What i do is. import footage and go to project settings and choose davinci color-managed. input is switched to S-GAMUT/Slog2 , timeline color space switched to REC 709 Gamma 2.2. output color spce to Rec 709 2.2. my export settings when rendering is set to color space tag Rec709 and Gamma Tag set to Gamma 2.2 and my colors still come out wrong in quick time But when i use ACEScct and choose Sony Slog2 and put the output device transform to Srgb and in render section change color space tab to srgb and gamma tab to srgb the export looks correct in quicktime. Am i doing something even worse by doing it that way idk. To be honest im a music producer lol i got into video production to be able to document my own come up but now since ive switched from fcp to DR my exports dont come out like they should. i switched to DR because i built a custom pc so i cant use FCP and premier is too buggy and complicated
One of the issues is you are viewing in QuickTime which is notorious for not reading rec709 correctly. Try using VLC or another media player and see if it looks more correct.
@@lolerie no. VLC tends to show rec709 correctly, quicktime does not. This is a known issue with Quicktime specifically thus the rec709-a was made by Blackmagic Design to work around the fact that Quicktime doesn't show rec709 tags correctly. This is clearly explained and demonstrated by the BMD team.
@@lolerie well, no, that's not standard at all. Rec709 g2.4 or g2.2 should not be tagged rec709a. It should be tagged correctly for the intended deliverable color space, which is never rec709a.
As always ! Perfect
On your example you are using the transform node before you do the corrections, to my head this means you are loosing your color correction potential using this workflow on a real project. This had to be like flat input, color correction, and then rec.709 transformation at the end. Right? Could you describe the standard order of nodes workflow?
Transform nodes keep one hundred percent of information unless you use gamut or luma mapping features. You can try this yourself by using two transform nodes, go into a color space then back into the original color space in the second transform. Grade after the second transform. All information will be there unless you did something wrong, no exception.
@@TonyDae So even if you do it at first, the transform happens at the end and it is not a destructive procedure. Right?
@@constantinossamartzis1811 The transform node mathematically transforms data from one interpretation to another. When it does this, it does not destroy any information at all unless you choose luma mapping or gamut mapping or do something after the transform that would truncate values.
The transform is happening at the point in the node tree you place it, however, it doesn't bake anything into the pipeline. This is why even though you may transform from say, arri log c to rec709 and see spiking luma values going well into the super whites, when you transform from rec709 back into log c gamma, you will see the exact same image as you saw before any transforms took place. The information is all still there.
If you try the same thing with a LUT, those luma values are clipped and gone after the LUT and is irrecoverable.
If you use luma mapping in the CST, it will also truncate those values and you will not see the same image as if unchanged when you go from rec709 back into the original color space and gamma.
Does this help?
This is what I needed. Thankyou 😀😭
Beats pseudoscientific “color theory” that pollutes the art community. Every time I hear someone say magenta isn’t “real,” I loose 100 braincells. Good job!
What is the point to shoot in bigger colorspace if any way we are restricting all the information to rec.709? What about ACES? Thanks a lot for your content
This is a very important question in regards to imaging in general and is a question people ask in regards to not only color, but resolution and dynamic range as well.
If you create HD content, why would you ever need 4k or 6k? HD is only about 2 mega pixels, but 4K is about 8 mega pixels. Do you need that higher resolution? How much "extra" resolution is too much resolution?
If we are going to render in 8bit 420, rec709 and it only allows you to display 5 stops of dynamic range, then why do we shoot with 10, 12, or even 14 stop dynamic range in cinema cameras? How much dynamic range in your capture is necessary when we only use 5 stops on the display for broadcast?
If we are only going to render a final in 8 bit, rec709 with a very small color range, then why do we record 10 bit or even 12 bit color spaces? Why would we shoot raw with billions of color combinations?
The answer to all of these questions is dependent on what you are doing.
If you are doing live broadcast, you can't send out 14 stops of dynamic range and 12 bit color information on a signal to a television across the country, so you need to send a signal that conforms to the standards immediately. This means you would "record" or broadcast a signal that needs to be lit and colored appropriately for that narrow color space and gamma. You also would probably be broadcasting in 720 or maybe full HD, so 4k would not be necessary at all since there would not be a reason to really use that extra resolution.
If you are shooting a narrative, you will have time in post production to utilize the full recording capability of the camera you are using, so you can conform that huge 12 or so stops of dynamic range down to the standards by controlling the contrast curve. This can allow you to get the exact look you want. You can also record with billions of color combinations and possibilities for the express purpose of making sure you nail the exact colors you want in post production through corrections and grading. If you were to only record with rec709 standards here, you would have far less room to push around colors and contrast curves and would have to get more of a "baked" in look to your footage. Also, you can record higher resolution than your final product resolution for the purpose of getting better keys for background removal, cropping in post, super sampling for overall better details, etc.
Even though you can't display all of the colors of raw 12 bit or 14 bit footage on your screen, you can still use all of that color information to get the exact look you want if you could not get it straight from the camera. This is especially useful for situations where you are "running and gunning" and if you cannot perfectly nail exposure or white balance on the fly, having more information can allow you to later get the perfect exposure, contrast curve, framing (crop/digital stabilization), and colors without losing details, clipping channels, etc.
On ACES, it is color space that somebody from the Academy decided would be a standard for use while grading. I find ACES irrelevant for me and I have actually never found it to be helpful in grading since I am used to grading in other color spaces and output color space is still the same as ever. As long as you are grading properly to an output color space and you are not having to conform to any particular work standards/practices, the intermediate color spaces like ACES are irrelevant in my opinion.
@@TonyDae You can't even imagine how grateful to You for such interesting answer. Thank for Your time a lot. And still, what do You think about ACES? is it worth to learn it?
I don't think ACES is worth it to learn unless you are working in Hollywood or similar industry as a colorist and the people who may mentor you or control the process pipeline says to do so. I do not work in Hollywood as a colorist so I could not tell you much about it other than I don't like it compared to many other color spaces, but it could also be user error.
My understanding is that it is supposed to be a standard intermediate color space for grading since there are so many different color spaces out there, but since I find it more difficult to grade in than Arri logC, Red's wide gamut, or standard rec709 and there is no standard put on me personally for grading at all other than output, I don't see a reason for me or many others frankly to conform to it.
@@TonyDae Thanks a lot. I am not in Hollywood industry as well, working on some commercials, clips, short films, and trying to collect as much information about proper color grading as I can. It could be interesting for example if you could record a video while you color grading some of your projects, to understand the logic and pipeline, not only information is important but also wich decisions you make when see the footage and so on. And it's so amazing to find someone in the internet who shares his experience, and I will try to do my best to become better. Thanks a lot.
Proper color grading, and many other processes in my opinion, is a results oriented and technical process. If you get what you intended quickly even with a weird thing you do that everybody else thinks is wrong, you did it right. Some people for example can get exactly what they want straight out of the camera with no post adjustments and record straight to 8bit 420 with a custom profile and head straight to editing. I can't do that consistently so I don't try, there is always something I need to adjust.
The only times I really think something is wrong with a process is when you don't get intended results or your process causes headaches in other areas due to cutting corners or improper organization etc. Usually it is the problem of beginner colorists where they do not understand the importance of color correction and understanding the technical aspects of it and jump straight to getting creative, when realistically by the time you are in color grading, the creative choices have mostly been made already as far the look is concerned and you need to focus on accurately getting the looks correct and accordance to the plan.
I have some videos already on my channel that show the kinds of ways I do things, but I will likely not be posting any paid projects as the ownership of that material is not mine.
it is complex you're right for that:) thanks for the video
I was tryng to find the colorspace/gamma of my camera (sony a6400) last year and couldnt find any info..so everything looked really bad
I quess you will also have to calibrate the display to rec709
My question Tony is.. what output colorspace should we use for youtube uploads? and what gamma? i think premiere pro use rec709 and gamma 2.4 ?
I like that we have a choice on resolve though...should we change the output gamma to 2.2 for web/youtube?
I quess with 2.4 the blcaks on a 2.2 gamma display will look not that dark ...or am i wrong ? thanks a lot again!
For output... you should deliver to the gamma that you think people will need in order to view your content properly. If that is a little confusing, think of it like this...
Is your content meant to be viewed on a computer monitor or a cell phone? If so, grading for and rendering in gamma 2.2 will make sense since most people will be viewing the content in a lit environment with an sRGB screen. This will create more contrast in the image so it looks less washed out by comparison.
If your content is meant to be viewed on a television, then you would want it in rec709 gamma 2.4 instead of 2.2.
If you use ACES color management you can more clearly see the difference in the presentation of rec709 V sRGB on different monitors. Setting the output to sRGB after grading for rec709 will show a pretty substantial drop in the shadows in order to show the contrast difference and the inverse if you grade for sRGB and switch to rec709. You can also try setting the output to other device transforms such as P3-D65 or Rec2020 HLG to see how different the image appears and, if rendered and tagged properly in the output settings, the image will playback with the correct look on devices that display those color spaces/gammas!
@@TonyDae thanks a lot..yes i wasnt sure if for youtube videos i should use srgb or rec709 and what gamma..So i quess is best for output to use srb 2.2 instead of rec709 2.4 ?
Again, it depends on what device you expect people to watch your content on. If you are making like a movie or a TV show, I would imagine you would expect people to watch on a TV therefore you would probably want a rec709 render. If its a tutorial or some other thing intended for viewing in like an office building, go sRGB. UA-cam is viewable from all kinds of platforms so the intended viewing environment is what you would generally want determining deliverable specifications like gamma output.
@@TonyDae thanks Tony you are very helpfull and yes i completely undestand what you are trying to say..so in this case it is for web viewing so i should use srgb... but in case its for tv i should change it to rec709 !
So 1 last question should i turn on resolve management on the settings menu and set everything from there? or just use the color space transform tool? and the color space transform tool should i use it in every clip (copy paste) or once i do it once it just works on all clips?
RCM and the color space transform nodes functionally do the same thing as long as the settings are the same. RCM does the transformations "under the hood" as they say, so you don't see them.
Great video
👑
ありがとう。 👍👍👍
Great
Hi Tony! Thanks for the awesome tutorials. I have a few doubts. 1. If I shoot in HLG ie. Rec 2020 (from DJI Mavic 2 Pro) and want to convert to color space which should display on both HDR as well as 709 monitors. What is the proper settings in Davinci Resolve?
I haven't done a whole lot of HDR to be honest however the same principles apply. You have to provide information for the player to know which color space and gamma is supposed to be displayed. UA-cam does an auto conversion for HDR but you can identify a lut to use instead. My understanding is generally you are going to have to supply an hdr grade and an sdr grade to get the look you want. You can grade HDR on an sdr monitor but you have to convert to rec709 for display purposes while you do so otherwise you can't see what you are doing. If you use color management tools like ACES or RCM you should be able to more easily provide more accurate conversions between hdr and sdr finals.
The proper settings is to not do anything.
This helped so much! Thank youuu
hey men thanks!!
Thanks for making this very informative video! I have one question though concerning grading Rec709 on an srgb monitor. Would you advise grading in the smaller color space after the conversion to Rec709, or in a bigger color space before the conversion? Thank you!
The simple answer is "yes" in that it is a good idea to grade in a larger color space than your output color space, but I will explain further below:
Output color space and your grading color space can be different. In an ACES color managed workflow for example, you will have three color spaces going on:
1: INPUT
2: GRADING/TIMELINE/WORKING
3: OUTPUT/DISPLAY
I will now fill in the 3 different color spaces with corresponding color spaces when working with a Sony camera using Slog3/Sgamut3 working in ACEScct and a sRGB display output...
1: Slog3, SGamut3
2: ACEScct
3: sRGB
Now I will fill in the color spaces with a swap to rec709 delivery after grading using an sRGB display...
1: Slog3, SGamut3
2: ACEScct
3: rec709
Now I will fill in the color spaces with a swap to P3-DCI delivery after grading using an sRGB display...
1: Slog3, SGamut3
2: ACEScct
3: P3-DCI
In an ACES workflow, you will be working in an extremely wide gamut in ACEScc/t so that you have a lot of colors and luminance information to work with. You can use a very wide gamut and wide gamma to grade for any output/display and I think it is preferred to grade in a big color space so that you have all of that information available to you. Even if you are outputting to a very small color space like rec709, the control that larger gamuts and gammas can provide you allow more control than working in a smaller color space in my experience.
Also, by working in these larger color spaces, you can change your output for whatever display you want, even to different and larger color spaces like P3-DCI if you graded with a standard sRGB monitor, and get a pretty accurate translation to that new output. It won't be perfect, but it will be close enough to do a "trim" pass if you can get time in a movie theater to do some tweaking for theatrical delivery.
So... using larger working color spaces allow you to grade using an sRGB monitor and output to rec709 or P3-DCI or Rec2020/ST2084 for HDR if you want by changing the output color space. If you had worked in rec709 instead of ACEScct, outputting to wider gamuts like rec2020 would not have very good results because your working color space was already smaller than the output color space.
Does this help?
@@TonyDae Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. It makes a lot more sense now. I´ve got one more follow-up question concerning Monitor Calibration. If I were to adopt the workflow you just suggested, would you advise me to calibrate my sRGB- monitor for Rec709, or for sRGB?
@@EpicxNL I think you should calibrate your monitor for whatever you tend to deliver the most. If you are delivering mostly sRGB material (intended to be viewed in a bright office building for example), it could be a better idea to calibrate for sRGB. If you intend to deliver for general or broadcast video, then you should probably calibrate for rec709.
Your environment also should be lit to represent the environment you are intending to deliver for. Rec709 monitors when calibrated correctly will often look wrong in a brighter environment because the gamma curve is different from sRGB. Rec709 should be in a darker environment and usually will have a gamma curve of 2.4 instead of sRGB's 2.2.
My current monitor has 3 different profiles that I can use for calibration and I have them set to Adobe RGB, sRGB, and Rec709. I have blackout curtains and plain gray walls to make sure I can control lighting and my eyes don't get tricked when I am grading for different things.
If you have seen people on youtube with grading setups with like, LED lights and backlighting on a screen to look all fancy, DON'T do that.
@@TonyDae Thank you!
@@EpicxNL The biggest problem is that you need to select output color space to be sRGB gamma which is different from 2.2 and 2.4.
Hello, this was one of the most informative videos on this topic which I have been watched so far. Thank you for it. Btw I have two small questions.
The first one is that my camera is kind of old (maybe 10 years and more) it can shoot full hd but I don't know how to find what is the native color space and gamut in which the camera took the footage. I was wondering do you know what I need to look like information into the net as terms/topics?
And the second question is: Is it any way to define into Davinci R. what is the color profile of the imported footage? The simplest example is let's say I download a video from pexels and import it in DR, can I see some specifications about the color space and the gamma from inside DR or this is only external information ?
Generally speaking if the camera is giving you a profile without specifying that it's log, it's likely rec709 color space with rec709(scene) gamma.
For the second part, video files often have a color space and gamma tag. If they do not, you will have to manually select the color space and gamma. If the footage provided to you is from either a set or stock website and it's in something other than rec709, they should be providing you with the codec specifications including color space/gamma.
@@TonyDae Thanks for your detailed reply. I made a small research about my camera it's Sony DSC-HX50. I found that maybe the color space is sRGB and probably the gamma would be sRGB as well. Anyway it's not that important because I tried these (input)settings(sRGB) with output settings - REC 709 (bcs that's mostly what I do - UA-cam/Video ads etc) in the color transform node in DR and saw that there weren't any kind of significant improvement/destruction into the quality of the image. In fact it looked the same.
And these tags about the color space and gamma, where they are written ? I have been looking of them in the properties/right click with the mouse over the particular video file and I didn't find anything about that kind of information. I made the "experiment" with a video from pexels- the stock footage site.
Very good. Rec709 and sRGB are nearly identical color gamuts so the color interpretation being no different makes sense!
EDIT: for video I am pretty sure it would be a rec709 and rec709 (scene) gamma and stills photos would be either sRGB or aRGB in jpgs depending on if you can choose aRGB or not. Raw stills will be linear gamma and pro photo RGB.
For video color, sRGB and rec709 are nearly identical so you wouldn't see any change there, but the gamma for in camera rec709 recordings are rec709 (scene). Try these settings.
Regarding where the tags are, many files don't have color space and gamma tags. You can try opening the file in VLC and checking the codec information or check the metadata in Resolve. There you should see some information if its there. If there isn't any, a player and Resolve will default to rec709/rec709 (scene).
@@sundrive2575 sRGB is for photos. Videos should use BT.709 transfer.
Dude... lets get married. Thanks so much. Cant wait for future videos.
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This is great. Do,you know of literature that covers this that would be beneficial to get? This would be useful.
Cambridge in Color is a good website with lots of information on the topic. Link is in the description.
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