User Manual

Table Of Contents
Display Referred vs. Scene Referred Color Management
The default DaVinci YRGB color science setting, which is what DaVinci Resolve has always
used, relies on what is called “Display Referred” color management. This means that Resolve
has no information about how the source media used in the Timeline is supposed to look; you
can only judge color accuracy via the calibrated broadcast display you’re outputting to.
Essentially, you are the color management, in conjunction with a trustworthy broadcast display
thats been calibrated to ensure accuracy.
DaVinci Resolve 12 introduced a color science option called “DaVinci YRGB Color Managed,
ormore simply “Resolve Color Management” (RCM). This is a so-called “Scene Referred” color
management scheme, in which you have the option of matching each type of media you’ve
imported into your project with a color profile that informs DaVinci Resolve how to represent
each specific color from each clip’s native color space into the common working color space of
the timeline in which you’re editing, grading, and finishing.
This is important, because two clips that contain the same RGB value for a given pixel may in
actuality be representing different colors at that pixel, depending on the color space that was
originally associated with each captured clip. This is the case when you compare raw clips shot
with different cameras made by different manufacturers, and it’s especially true if you compare
clips recorded using the differing log-encoded color spaces that are unique to each camera.
Scene Referred color management via RCM doesn’t do your grading for you, but it does try to
ensure that the color and contrast from each different media format you’ve imported into your
project are represented accurately in your timeline. For example, if you use two different
manufacturer’s cameras to shoot green trees, recording Blackmagic Film color space on one,
and recording to the Sony SGamut3.Cine/SLog3 color space on the other, you can now use
RCM to make sure that the green of the trees in one set of clips match the green of the trees in
the other, within the shared color space of the Timeline.
This sort of thing can also be done manually in a more conventional Display Referred workflow,
by assigning LUTs that are specific to each type of media, in order to transform each clip from
the source color space to the destination color space that you require. However, RCM uses
mathematical transforms, rather than lookup tables, which makes it easier to extract high-
precision, wide-latitude image data from each supported camera format, in order to preserve
high-quality image data from acquisition, through editing, color grading, and output. RCM is also
easier to use, freeing you from the need to locate and maintain a large number of LUTs to
accommodate your various workflows.
The preservation of wide-latitude image data deserves elaboration. LUTs clip image detail that
goes outside of the numeric range they’re designed to handle, so this often requires the
colorist to make a pre-LUT adjustment to “pull back” image data in the highlights that you want
to retrieve. Using RCM eliminates this two-step process, since the input color space math used
to transform the source preserves all wide-latitude image data, making highlights easily
retrievable without any extra steps.
How Is DaVinci Resolve Color Management Different from ACES?
This is a common question, but the answer is pretty simple. Resolve Color
Management (RCM) and ACES are both Scene Referred color management schemes
designed to solve the same problem. However, if you’re not in a specific ACES-driven
cinema workflow, DaVinci Resolve Color Management can be simpler to use, and will
give you all of the benefits of color management, while approximating the “feel” that
the DaVinci Resolve Color page controls have always had.
Chapter – 7 Data Levels, Color Management, and ACES 222