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.

This can be:

Setting up an accurate color workflow

In this Insight, we illustrate the differences between compositing in linear space and compositing in non-linear space.

While those differences are subtle, they can be seen in every transform, blur, merge, etc., so they really matter.

I will also guide you through manually setting up technically accurate transforms in Fusion through ACES Transforms, Resolve Color Space Transforms, or OCIO tools with matching transforms enabled in the Fusion View LUT.

Related Mixing Light Insights

Chapters

Questions or comments? Leave a comment!

Let me know if you have any other Fusion color management questions for your specific workflows. I’ll try to answer them in the comments or record another Insight if necessary.

– Bernd