Problem Summary: Because Davinci Resolve does not by default use Mac’s system color profile for its viewers, exports will look washed out when played in Quicktime and Web browsers compared to what you see when grading in Resolve.
Solution Goal: Ensure that exports match what is seen in Resolve when played back on Quicktime or Web platforms on iMac P3 monitors, but be able to easily flip a switch to create a version for rec709 monitors
Steps
- In Resolve go to Preferences > General, check “Use Mac Display Color Profiles For Viewers.” You will now see the washing out effect in the viewer that you would see in your exports.
- In Project Setting > Color Management > Timeline Color Space, select “Rec.709-A”
Switching from the default setting to Rec.709-A eliminates the need to change the tagging during render
- In Timeline node graph, add a Color Space Transform node with the following settings:
Input Color Space: P3-D65
Input Gamma: sRGB
Output Color Space: Rec.709
Output Gamma: Rec.709-A
This will now counteract the washing out effect, returning the look to how it was before checking “Use Mac Display” in Step 1. However, now this look will be baked in to renders so that renders will not be washed out compared to Resolve’s viewer.
- Grade as usual while keeping the Color Space Transform node at the very end of the node flow.
- (Optional) To create a version intended to be viewed on a Rec 709 monitor (without the added contrast that is compensating for Macs color shift), simply disable the Color Space Transform node from Step 3
Outstanding Problems:
Despite the above steps eliminating the color shift between Resolve and Quicktime, Youtube (and Frame.io to a lesser degree) still seems to shift the image to be slightly darker and redder. Although this is nowhere near as glaring as the washing out effect we were dealing with before.
I have not been able to eliminate this Youtube shift with any export settings.