Colour Grading with Colour Management

Many productions today shoot with more than one model of camera which create images in different colour spaces. The final project also often needs to be mastered for delivery to different displays (Rec709, P3, Rec2020, HDR). This is a problem best addressed with carefully constructed colour management, yet there is an overwhelming trend in the industry for colourists to simply take images as they come out of the camera, look at them on their display, and twist the knobs until it looks “good.” This is something colour grading tools were never designed to do well, leaving many scrambling to try and find LUTs to achieve the desired look without generating image artefacts. There is a better way — using comprehensive colour management as a foundation for creative colour correction. — Comprehensive colour management takes into account the colour space of cameras and displays, and connects everything through a common colour space for grading. The space chosen to grade in needs to be carefully chosen as it can have a huge impact on the look, quality, and dynamic range of the images that can be produced with common colour grading tools. The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is an example of a framework that can be used in whole or in part to provide comprehensive colour management.

Published

2015-07

Content type

Original Research

Keywords

colour management, colour correction, ACES

DOI

10.5594/M001610

ISBN

978-1-61482-955-3