Custom ACES Part 2: Grading Custom ACES With Fixed Node Structures

Series	Custom ACES Working with Fixed Node Structures (in Resolve)

Custom ACES Grading With Fixed Node Structures

In Part 1 of this series – you learned why I like to skip setting up project-level ACES color management, and instead build the ACES pipeline myself in the node tree. This workflow opens up lots of exciting possibilities!

In this Insight, I’m going to expand on the custom ACES workflow by combining it with one of my other favorite techniques – a pre-built, fixed node structure. I’ll also show you some practical examples, using my fixed node tree to solve real-world grading problems.

If you aren’t familiar with fixed node structures and the workflow benefits they bring, check out my previous series on fixed node trees.

Practical uses of a custom ACES node tree

In the video I’ll walk you through the node structure that I use, and you can:

Tag clips for different input colorspaces in custom ACES
Use colorspace transforms to dial in film grain for various formats
Use formats that don’t have ACES IDTs
Recover Highlights
Do paint/repair work in camera space
Get great qualifiers while still grading in ACES
Fix saturation problems that normally are difficult in ACES
Adjust node colorspaces for control feel and preferences

So if you can’t tell – this one is pretty jam-packed. I’ve also included a download of my node structure, so you can get started with this workflow yourself. As always – leave any questions or comments below, I would love to hear how other people feel about this workflow after trying it!

joey

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Comments

Creator

Discussion
May 20, 2020 at 10:43 am #32397

Joey D’Anna
Participant

This is the discussion thread for the Insight: Custom ACES Part 2: Grading Custom ACES With Fixed Node Structures
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Grant McNair
Guest

May 31, 2020 at 2:07 am

Wow! Some really amazing tips stuff here. Thanks, Joey.
Peter McCabe
Guest

June 18, 2020 at 8:29 pm

Awesome workflow Joey!!! A lot of great ideas and work arounds
Greg Greenhaw
Guest

June 26, 2020 at 3:12 pm

Resolve should let you tag clips with the correct input transform without being in aces or rcm and then have the transform plug could default to the clips default transform.
Greg Greenhaw
Guest

June 26, 2020 at 10:41 pm

So you transform the clips to aces but primarily work of nodes in the timeline colorspace/gamma of say req709? Would that explain the wonkiness of that hue vs sat?
David
Guest

October 29, 2020 at 3:28 pm

Fantastic! This seems so intuitive and I look forward to trying it. Thanks for the detailed description/walk-through.

I’m gearing up to deliver to Netflix and their deliverables make me think I might not be able to leverage this method. It seems it could be difficult to deliver a non-graded linear/AP0 archive of a show if the IDT is in a node – since turning off correction disables the IDTs. Am I missing something?
Tom J
Guest

January 30, 2022 at 1:50 pm

Hi there, great video.

I wonder two things:
1) does this workflow still work with color space aware tools like the Warper?
2) when handing off to VFX, at which part of the node setup would you export & which corrections would you already have applied?

Thanks and best wishes
Joey D’Anna
Guest

February 16, 2022 at 5:27 pm

Thanks!
It does work with some color space aware tools. The HDR tool can be manually tagged with what colorspace and EOTF it is using. The warper will take the timeline colorspace setting (which you can set to ACEScct).
It’s not as seamless as a project level workflow – but i think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

For handing off to VFX – obviously theres a few ways you could handle it depending on the project/workflow – but going node based makes it a lot more flexible. If you wanted to hand them a graded shot in ACES, you could just change the output transform and render accordingly.
Stephen Becker
Member

March 11, 2023 at 10:39 pm

Joey! You rock. Great series on Aces. One question. Maybe I missed it. I Built the node structure like yours. Only when I finished, resolved seemed to reorder the node numbers starting with 1 on the left. Maybe your numbers are like that for illustration purposes? As long as I build the structure from the left to right, the numbers shouldn’t make a difference . Right?

Thanks

Steve
- Joey D’Anna
  Member
  
  March 11, 2023 at 10:52 pm
  
  Thanks Stephan!
  
  Yea the node numbering honestly just comes down to your preference – the only thing to know is that there is a preference under user, color to tell resolve NOT to renumber nodes when you add or delete. Turn that on so the numbers don’t get changed underneath you.
  - Stephen Becker
    Member
    
    March 11, 2023 at 11:00 pm
    
    Got Ya. Had a feeling it did not effect the structure it was a preference thing. Thanks for the quick response.
    
    Steve
Author

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Custom ACES Part 2: Grading Custom ACES With Fixed Node Structures

Custom ACES Grading With Fixed Node Structures