How to choose between Gamma 2.2 and Gamma 2.4 when color correcting?

Gamma 2.2 vs Gamma 2.4 – How, Why and When (in DaVinci Resolve)?

August 23, 2017

When you start delving into the finer points of color correction you'll eventually learn about Gamma 2.2 vs Gamma 2.4. Learn how to choose between them.


How do you set up DaVinci Resolve for different Gamma settings (and why)?

We recently had a question come in about a common source of confusion:

What color & gamma settings should I use in FCPX & Resolve when it’s going either to the internet or onto DVD’s?

It’s a great question – but opens a can of worms when it relates to setting your gamma on your reference display and the various options in DaVinci Resolve. Why a can of worms? Because you have to consider not one but two different scenarios for setting your gamma:

  • Scenario 1: Your color correction / mastering environment matches the delivery / viewing environment. For example, your mastering environment is set for broadcast and you’re delivering for broadcast.
  • Scenario 2: Your color correction / mastering environment does NOT match the delivery / viewing environment. For example, you’re set for broadcast but delivery is for the Internet.

Each viewing environment has a different recommended gamma setting. And when it comes to setting gamma for color correction, what’s the rule for setting gamma?

1st Rule of Setting Gamma: It’s Based on Your Viewing Environment

Most discussions of setting gamma start with the display you’re using or your final delivery – but that misses the point of Rule #1: When mastering / color correcting your images, you set your gamma based on your viewing environment.

In fact, the differences in the standard gamma settings used by Mac and Windows versus the standard gamma settings for television or cinema are all based on overall brightness levels in the room!

Why?

It’s due to the Simultaneous Contrast Effect of human perception.

The Simultaneous Contrast Effect and How it Relates to Gamma Settings

Wikipedia has a good explanation of how Simultaneous Contrast works. But a single pictures really is worth a thousand words and in the image below, the gray square in the middle of both boxes have precisely the same brightness values (if you don’t believe me, just pull out a color sampler and check for yourself:

The Simultaneous Contrast Effect
The middle gray boxes have precisely the same RGB brightness values – yet they look different. Why? That’s the Simultaneous Contrast in action.

The reason the two middle boxes look like they have different brightness values comes down to human perception. The human brain make brightness assumptions comparatively, not absolutely. None of us has a built-in eyedropper tool that gives us absolute RGB readouts. Our perception of the brightness of an object in a room is effected by room itself.

And if those middle gray boxes are a television or computer screen, and the surround fields is the overall brightness of your room… what implication does that have while color correcting??

The exact same image, in two different rooms—one bright and one dark—will look different! Particularly the brightness values.

Using Gamma to Solve the Simultaneous Contrast Effect

How would you fix the problem of Simultaneous Contrast on the two boxes above? Let’s call the top box our ‘reference environment’; it’s the one with the dark surround field. To get the bottom box to match, we can apply a brightness adjustment to push the middle gray box brighter until its ‘perceived brightness’ matches our reference environment.

And that’s what precisely we’re doing when we move our images between Gamma 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6. We adjust those middle boxes to make them brighter or darker so their apparent brightness in the different viewing environments is equalized.

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From understanding Dailies to round-tripping CDLs in DaVinci Resolve, there’s more to explore!


Accelerate Your Resolve Skills

For most of us, the question comes down to choosing: Gamma 2.2 vs Gamma 2.4?

In this Insight, I’m not going to dive any deeper into the technical explanation of gamma (you can read that explanation on Charles Poynton’s site). But if you’re going to make an informed decision about choosing your gamma settings then you need to understand the standard gamma settings for different viewing environments:

  • Gamma 2.2 – This gamma setting is generally used for brighter viewing conditions. Think: Office setting with bright overheads and lots of indirect daytime light from exterior windows. Under these conditions, the viewing screen needs to pop the shadows or the image becomes a mushy mess and ‘lowering’ the gamma setting helps the image fight glare. Hence, gamma 2.2 is the standard gamma setting for Windows and has been the standard gamma setting on Apple computers since Mac OS 10.6 (prior versions of the Mac OS used gamma 1.8) since computer displays assume a bright, daytime viewing condition.
  • Gamma 2.35 & 2.4 – This gamma setting is generally used for darker viewing conditions. Think: Watching Prime Time television at night in a living room. Under these conditions the danger of the image washing out is much less and the darker parts of images are easier to see. Hence, Gamma 2.35 and 2.4 are used in dim (but not blacked-out) viewing conditions.

Gamma 2.35 & 2.4 have been the unofficial gamma settings for television since its inception. I say ‘unofficial’ because for the first 40 years of TV, the gamma setting was determined by the cathode ray gun on phosphor-based tubes. And the gamma setting of the CRT was fixed and unchangeable. When the gamma of CRTs was measured by the BBC in the early 2000’s, they determined the effective gamma of professional CRTs was between 2.3 and 2.4.

  • Gamma 2.35 – This was the BBC’s initial recommendation for plasma & LCD televisions, to most closely match professional CRTs. This gamma setting has largely been abandoned.
  • Gamma 2.4 – Many professional post-production facilities resisted gamma 2.35 and opted for gamma 2.4 – because they could match their LCDs and plasma displays to their CRTs more easily if they used gamma 2.4. This trend became so strong that the BBC now recommends gamma 2.4. And this is the current standard if you’re mastering for broadcast.
  • Gamma 2.6 – This is the gamma setting is used for ‘blacked out’ viewing conditions, typical of a movie theater. Gamma 2.2 and gamma 2.4 generally look too flat and dim in black box conditions. Hence, for DCI delivery to cinema a Gamma 2.6 is specified.
  • Resources for further research: If you want to dig deeper into this yourself then check out these links below (which open to a new window)

Gamma 2.2 vs Gamma 2.4: How do you choose?

Notice the common thread in my description of each gamma setting… gamma is based on the expected viewing environment. So…

In my grading suite, I have my room’s viewing conditions set for broadcast mastering. All exterior sources of light are blocked, and I have dim (but not completely dark) and controlled sources of light. Therefore, I always set my entire workflow for gamma 2.4.

The delivery destination makes no difference when I’m color correcting! I set my gamma appropriate to my viewing conditions, not my delivery specification.

IF I wanted to master at gamma 2.2 then I need to brighten up the overall levels in my grading suite to more closely match that of a not-too-well-lit office – for the gamma 2.2 setting on my reference display to make any sense.

IF I was grading to the viewer on my computer display and didn’t have a professional external reference display, what gamma would I choose? Well, if the computer display is at its native gamma then I’d set my viewing conditions to match the gamma setting appropriate for that display (usually 2.2, unless you’ve calibrated it differently).

But what if you’re delivering for a different viewing environment?

There are two common scenarios here:

  1. You’re mastering in a broadcast environment but delivering to digital cinema.
  2. You’re mastering in a broadcast environment but delivering to the internet.

In both scenarios, you color correct using the gamma appropriate for your mastering environment and then do a gamma adjustment when rendering – to transform the image so it looks similar to your image, in those darker or brighter viewing conditions.

Colorists often get more detailed – and after applying the overall Gamma adjustment they make scene-by-scene or shot-by-shot adjustments.

When you start getting really detailed like that, colorists call this making a Trim Pass.

If you’re delivering to multiple viewing conditions, Prime Time, internet and cinema – then you might consider doing several trim passes (with each trim being a separate export), each with slightly different gamma settings for those viewing conditions.

How to make overall Gamma adjustments to your timelines in DaVinci Resolve

This video Insight is all about using DaVinci Resolve to transform your images from your viewing / mastering environment and make a gamma adjustment to prepare the images for the delivery viewing environment.

Note: I wrote this post after recording and editing the video – so I don’t quite put my explanation in the video as neatly as I have done here… but you’ll see the workflow for executing this theory.

Have questions?

That’s what the Comments section is for! And don’t forget, if you want email notifications to the comments on this Insight, press the ‘Subcribe’ button at the bottom left of this page, just above the footer.

Enjoy!

-pi

UPDATE – March 2018: Revised an incorrect statement about gamma 2.4 / 2.2 viewed in a black box setting. HT: Steve Shaw.


Comments

Homepage Forums Gamma 2.2 vs Gamma 2.4 – How, Why and When (in DaVinci Resolve)?

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  • I guess where I have the most trouble is trying to ensure sure my non professional displays are actually at the 2.2 or 2.4 gamma in the first place. I had a ton of trouble calibrating my LG OLED, I kinda of gave up trying to use calman on it, everytime I restarted the tv and checked the gamma it seemed off.

    With apple computer displays can an icc accurately set a gamma or is the graphics card reading some meta from the icc and handling it?

    I’m also a bit confused on when to use viewer lut, should the computer monitors be sRGB 2.2 and the viewer lut convert that to 2.4, or does Davinci adjust the gamma in the viewers somehow?

  • Hi Patrick,

    I’m delivering a job for the Kazakistan Expo 2017. It’s a double video installation in a not properly black environment because several displays in the room. I asked for the specific gamma of video projectors, but they don’t know.I color graded the footage on my reference FSI CM 250 gamma 2.4 So I delivered at gamma 2.4, because I think that the video projection should adhere to the Itu-R BT.709 specifications.
    I did wrong?


  • rneil@rneilphotog.com
    Guest

    Seemed quite clear, and thank you! I keep hoping that PrPro will become a “manageable” app … but this sorted out for me very specifically what I need to do with my work when in Resolve.


  • Mark Kipling
    Member

    A topic that has haunted my learning for the last few months. I feel this has answered all of my questions and it was all laid out very simply. Thank you very much. This article and video alone is worth the months sub fee, in my opinion.

    Now if only I hadn’t forgotten to bring my notepad to the library today, I’d be able to make notes…Haha.

  • Hi Patrick,

    Can you link to the managed color workflow insight you mention in the video? I couldn’t find it.

    Do platforms on the internet adjust gamma at all? For instance, I want a Gamma 2.2 workflow for bright office/computer display viewers, but if I upload my video to YouTube, do they do anything to my footage to make adjustments – or is this solely based on the display the viewer is watching on.

    Do you guys/can you guys make a video on how Premiere handles color? Is it entirely REC709? Can you adjust to another rec? What should I do if I want to master for REC2020 but need to round-trip back to Premiere after Resolve?

    Thank you!


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    Hi Daniel – In DaVinci Resolve, it’s called Resolve Color Management. Here are two Insights on the subject:

    First Look: https://mixinglight.com/color-tutorial/davinci-resolve-12-first-look-resolve-color-management/

    RCM with RAW: https://mixinglight.com/color-tutorial/resolve-color-management-raw-footage/

    Also – ACES is a color managed workflow and Robbie’s ACES series will get you started if you’re working to that specification. Here’s the first Insight in that series:

    Getting to know ACES Part 1: https://mixinglight.com/color-tutorial/getting-know-aces/

    RE: Platforms adjusting gamma – Gamma adjustments happen all over the place; on your computer, in your browser, when uploading to a video sharing service, when displaying from a video sharing service. You can, and should, expect your gamma will get bounced around once you’re outside a carefully color-managed room, like in digital cinema or a grading suite. That’s why we grade to a standard… the standard is a center-point around which all our devices will orbit.


    • Jim Robinson
      Member

      Really old insight but –
      I have been wondering lately if gamma 2.4 referred to as “industry Standard”, if the standard has changed?
      There are people that never have any other target other than the Internet. And considering that Macs are generally displaying gamma 2.2 ( or close to it ). And apparently modern TVs are almost all gamma 2.2 these days, the question is : Is rec709 2.4 being industry standard something that’s just being passed down from person to person, as the “Industry Standard”? And is it possibly no longer applicable to consider it as standard? With no actual NCLC transfer function, and if a person wants to grade in a lit room and deliver to the internet.
      Why isn’t rec709 gamma 2.2 the standard?

      • Good questions. And yes, we do seem to be in some sort of odd transitional period here, don’t we? But whatever it is, it’s certainly a messy transition!

        The history is pretty simple. The original Rec.709 camera or “scene” transform/function/whatever was designed to ‘fit’ a linear digital image to the native or inherent curve imposed by all CRT tube-based displays. Rec.709 didn’t have a display component at the beginning because it didn’t need one.

        Then “flat panel” digital displays came into use, *over several years*, while CRT screens were still the primary professional judging tool. The camera or “scene referred” image data didn’t translate even nearly correctly. Hence Bt.1886 was added to Rec.709 for use with any digital screen.

        Which was the simplest way to add in digital screens at the time, as it just worked, right? But … by the time CRT screens were toast, Bt.1886 was in itself problematic. As it forces totally unnecessary shifting and scaling of image data based on a need that no longer exists. Steve Shaw of LightIllusions/Colourspace has written about the (unfortunate) odd things this essentially does to the image math. And what it forces the display to do, which it can’t always completely do ‘nicely’.

        So arguably, the entire Rec.709 ‘standard’ is outdated. The camera or ‘scene referred’ part was to match a tech that no longer exists. The Bt.1886 ‘display referred’ gamma/tranform function was added to ‘fix’ another issue with other tech that no longer exists.

        But, at least, it was The Standard used for many years, by all broadcast/streaming services for SDR media. At least, in it’s messiness, a unifying factor.

        Then Apple in all their glory chose to use the scene-referred data transform … well, essentially, though I know it probably ain’t technically the correct terminology/verbiage … as if it was the proper display data transform. Really mucking things up.

        And of course, the other gorilla popping up is, as you mention, that many web-based devices & services have always used a different display gamma, 2.2.

        Yea, it’s a freaking mess out there for SDR work. And personally, I was hoping that as HDR came in, we’d leave this all behind at some point. But … clearly I was rather overly, perhaps childishly, optimistic.

        Jeepers creepers people, HDR seems worse than Betamax/VHS! So frickin’ many ‘standards’ or versions, the current screen devices are all over the place in which flavors they support, or more likely, mangle (rather than cleanly implement) … and more variants keep popping up.

        I was hoping to get some sense of clarity, or idea or hope of a better future than the current messy time, at NAB 2023. Yet from talking with several people from all three ‘sectors’ … hardware, software, and professional workers in the trade … it seems to be just getting worse. Different capabilities, more suggested ‘standards’, all coming in daily. Oh. My. Sheesh.


      • Patrick Inhofer
        Administrator

        And apparently modern TVs are almost all gamma 2.2 these days, the question is : Is rec709 2.4 being industry standard something that’s just being passed down from person to person, as the “Industry Standard”?

        Nope. The gamma should be set based on your viewing environment. Gamma 2.4 was chosen for displays in a dark room with a dim bias light. The reference display gamma is designed for that reference-level situation. The reason professionals use 2.4 is that they are working in well-defined controlled settings.

        Gamma 1.8 / 2.2 were chosen for general situations where you’ve got more prominent task lights and outside light leaks. The extra gamma helps us see the image.

        In theory, if you work in a controlled setting with a gamma set at 2.4 – when displayed in a general setting, the local display/software will adjust the image to 2.2. That also explains why you don’t want to evaluate your YouTube videos (which assumes a 2.2’ish general lighting situation) in your reference setting – it’s mismatched (and why I rarely do a special 2.2 gamma conversation on final render/delivery).

        Does that make sense?


        • Jim Robinson
          Member

          Patrick – thanks for the reply.
          When you say that the gamma should be based on the viewing environment, is that the viewing environment of the end user ( target) or the colorist?
          Because my concern is that the end target is changing and ever expanding. Twenty five years ago, a good number of the home viewers in the world were using CRT T.V.s and computer monitors, and the phone and tablet were not part of the gamut of media that’s out in the wild now.
          ” The pro working in a well defined controlled setting” is true, but the the darkened room and gamma 2.4 used for broadcasting might be the chicken and the egg question, where the industries practice evolved through the tech that people had in their living rooms and their viewing habits. I have heard both concepts – I tend to lean toward the colorist trying to keep consistency but recreate basic concepts of the target’s environment as well.
          I am old enough to remember how difficult it was to watch television during the daytime with older CRTs, using blackout curtains or blinds to keep the room dark, so you could make an easy assumption back then, but it appears to completely different now.

          Going back to your older insight – the simultaneous contrast explained in your article and in your video – also works in reverse. When the surrounding area is completely dark the brain and your vision will also change your perception of middle grey. So even when the local / display software adjusts to gamma 2.2 – it’s from a grade done with a different perception.
          My comments are in regard to the fact that we have always concerned the differences with one foot in the door of the original intention of how the viewer and target was consuming the media
          . And that we should be aware that as technology changes – that our workflow might as well.
          So questioning that I believe that gamma 2.4 and why it was the industry standard being broadcast to different media ( TV ) that was using a display that was completely different and consumed completely different, that maybe the standard might also be different.
          Films are still being projected in dark rooms – but home media has changed considerably and ignoring it might be like trying to mix the TV audio on a 5 inch Phillip’s speaker.
          Discussions on the topic might open up our conventional reasoning to come to new and better conclusions or we might be just fine as is.

          I started researching this because my clients have changed how they view my grades, and while looking at people with the same concerns on our FB forum ( thousands of posts ). I don’t know who to discuss this and find the answers.
          So apologies if I sound like I disagree.

          • I recall demonstrations where the reasoning for setting monitor gamma to correlate with monitor brightness vis a vis room brightness were shown. Essentially, grading in the darkened room with gamma 2.4 and a proper surround brightness to the wall behind the monitor, “induced” grading choices that were virtually identical to grading the same clip in a brighter room with gamma 2.2 monitor setting.

            So why the darker room preference? It was said it made color … hue and saturation variances … more specifically visible to the normal eye.

            And the instruction was in a brighter room environment, grade with 2.2 gamma, darker room, use 2.4. As you’ll get to the same image tonalities either way. Just you have a probability of better color discrimination while grading in the darker room.

            I’d love Pat or Robbie or anyone commenting on this … it was from a few years back now.


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see PrPro make a step in this direction.


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    LOL. Thanks! Don’t forget, you can ‘favorite’ Insights.


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    Nope. You did right. You graded to the spec. And they couldn’t tell you otherwise. To my eyes, the difference between 2.2 and 2.4 isn’t all that big. But it sounds like what you were delivering to had controlled light sources with the main source of light coming from other displays – so 2.4 is definitely appropriate (lacking further guidance from the venue).


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    The only reliable way to calibrate the consumer OLEDs is with a LUT box. In that case, powering down won’t lose your settings – and you’ll get far more accurate calibrations as a result.

    I’m not really the person to ask about how to color manage a GUI display… because I’m always using a calibratable professional external display and rely on that. If you’re grading to a computer display then you’ll always be at a disadvantage. But I’ll reach out to some people we know who might be able to get you a better answer. I’m about to start a calibration series – and as a follow-up to that series I’ll tackle calibrating GUI displays.

  • Thanks Patrick! That’s finally made sense to me.

  • Great, thanks a lot!


  • Remco Hekker
    Member

    Hi Patrick, another great insight! You’ve addressed an issue I’ve ignored for about the entire time I’ve been grading.
    I have just been focused on 2.4.

    Did you always convert your web-destined videos to gamma 2.2 Even when there were no Resolve Fx and no Rcm? Are all the Mixinglight.com videos gamma 2.2?

    I will definitely start experimenting with this.

    Thanks.


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    Honestly – I don’t usually do the Gamma conversion on my Insights. I’m not sure what Robbie and Dan do (or don’t do). When I look at the final renders I never see a shift big enough that I feel it needs to be compensated for.


  • Peter Brewer
    Member

    I have a JVC DT-V24G1Z and the gamma settings are either 2.35 or 2.45. How much of a problem is this?

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