Fusion Color Management in DaVinci Resolve 19 – Part 2

Working in Linear Color with Node-Based Color Management

In this follow-up Insight to Accurate Color Management in DaVinci Resolve Fusion Part 1, we’ll explore why working with linear color is so important and unpack how to use node-based color management workflows correctly in Fusion.

Key takeaways from this Insight

By the end of this Insight, you should understand how to:

Why Linear color is so useful

Linear correlations are easy to handle from a technical and mathematical perspective.

When we work with linear gamma, we can be sure that if we double the exposure time, we get twice the luminance.

Likewise, if a soft edge gradually transitions from opaque to transparent over a width of 10 pixels, we know that in the middle of the edge (5 pixels in), we have 50% transparency and 50% luminance.

Those statements are no longer true if we work in a log space or in gamma-adjusted spaces.

To ensure all our compositing tools work correctly, we should always remove any log or gamma curve and work in a linearized space.