Turn your Apple monitor into a color accurate display in DaVinci Resolve

Hey Cullen. In a DWG colour managed project, are we able to use this LUT at the timeline level on the colour page, that way not having to turn it off on each individual clip and just once in a single node? Thanks so much for the info and look forward to the Gamma shift issue video.

Screen on auto brightness??

@CullenKelly so with this method, what I see in viewer will also see users outside of macos? Thats all I need.. Idc what is quick time showing me, I just want to see accurate gamma of 2.2 in my viewer.

I have question as a beginner..! So when provided lut is enabled, treat mac display as full sized reference monitor without referring to scopes data right?

Bonkers, thank you! But so if you calibrate your Apple display with a calibration tool into BT1886/gamma2.4 , and you set up Davinci accordingly (timeline WG/intermediate - output Rec709 gamma 2.4) then you would still advise to use the Viewing Transform lut in the grading process? - P.S. I'm on an iMac without additional display

I connected an external monitor to my Mac, how do I set it up for color grading pls, should I be turning something off and on?

Hey Cullen I'm curious to know how you're using your reference monitor AND this pipeline for macOS color sync? I'd assume this would affect the image being sent to your reference display.

Mate. I've been tearing my hair out trying to solve that gamma shift on export on my Mac. This fixed it, well explained. Legend

You could have just used the actual rec709 reference mode or a custom system gamma value and skipped all the lut nonsense alltogether.

Quicktime is actually accurate /matching reference with 1-1-1 tagged content in rec709 reference mode on XDR displays, your studio display uses the xdr profiles, other non xdr screens will have different options and there are better ways to get those to give you a reference response too, by setting those to rec709 and resolve to rec709 you will also get a no-op
from colorsync.

Hi Cullen. I've used this lut on a few projects. When exported, videos look great on apple products but show wayy too much saturation on products other than apple's. So I had revert back turning the mac display color option off and the old rec709, gamma 2.4 transforms and timelines. Am I doing anything wrong?

Hi Cullen; would it work for us to add the viewing lut on the timeline node since as i understand that comes after the clip nodes? Just eyeballing it it seems to give the same results but much easier to disable in the end!

Hi Cullen, does this workflow also work in color management or only in cst?

Thanks a lot Cullen, learning a lot here8 I do have a quick question: when you do color management through the nodes, which color management do you put in the settings ? DaVinci YRGB? Or can it be Aces or DaVinci Color Managed? Thank you!

Still bit lost... What would my export settings look like? Am I exporting to Rec 709/gamma 2.2?

I would love to see you do a video talking more about options for monitors and reference displays whether it be Ezios, LGC3 or Sony BVMs. A "guest engineer" to talk with you would be awesome.

Fantastic. Hill Cullen, i have a great grading set up at home but now i’m flying a lot & might need to just grade on the new iPad Pro. I would love to know accurate setting alone on the iPad, maybe just for online exports. Also… what if my iPad pro was connected to my windows PC but using the new Remote Monitoring’ set up as a reference display. Any settings change there?
I assume you don’t have windows but the iPad alone question i would love to know.

Many thanks 😊

Hi Cullen, what are some of the pre req's for your CCA course? Thanks!

You've upgraded my grading so much with your careful explanations. If there is one thing I could hope for, it's a deep dive on Davinci export settings!

Thank you!!!

it is awesome

Just so people know the LG display used by Apple is very good, but the white point is at a weird spot and the entire colour gamut is shifted away from P3 standard toward the green end I believe. The display has ~95% DCI P3 coverage (When Apple say P3, they mean to their own P3 standard). It's a great screen, but the C3 and newer LG panels are more accurate and also a lot brighter (you can get them up to ~850 nits) so you could feasibly do the low-end of hdr grading on those. BUT in all of these cases, please create a colour profile for your monitor using a sensor, also you will want to redo this at least once every two months at least in the beginning to see if there is any shift.

Until this video, I used to set my timeline to Rec.709 (scene) and my output to Rec.709-A, when using my Macbook Pro screen for grading Rec.709 footage.
But Cullen is using Rec.709 2.2 for output, and feeding his custom LUT with a Rec.709 2.2 input (using the second CST node before the custom LUT).
So, given that I follow the exact steps shown in the video, should I stop using Rec.709-A altogether?

is it applicable for macbooks? what if I output to some other display from my macbook? (not apple display) some generic srgb monitor for example

i tried it, and it works :D.. i usually use rec709-A as my output instead of gamma 2.4.. but now i can confidently use gamma 2.4 as my output.

What about screen brightness ?

@Cullen kelly Thanks a lot for this. What calobration would you recommend thats not going to cost an arm and a leg.I have a spyder III but it makes screens green like very green using their own software and DisplayCal does not work on M1 Macs. We tested it on many systems and the same green result always ocurs. Except using DisplayCAl but no luck with the Apples computers

Bro question: how can I use cineon film looks when I have resolve color management on ?

A huge thanks dear Cullen. Thoses precious advices on the DCI P3, the gamma 2.2, your macDisplay's LUT downloaded have solved my washed's flavors aspects when broadcasted onto plateforms, such as Vimeo or Ytube. As same as often I've read in the comments, I was questioning and dealing about this issue, then you've dedicated one tutorial in september onto this unsolved problem... Are you directly connected with us ? You've saved my day, thanks dear maestro. 🥰

It would really be important to know what settings we should set while exporting the actual output files. Project settings? (2.2)? Rec709a when exporting a h264? I can not get an accurate reproduction of what I see in Resolve in a final QT file with this workflow. I DO get an accurate reproduction when I don't do any of this, don't use the lut but just grade regularly and when outputting convert to rec709a via a CST AND a Gamma Tag when I want to export an h264. When I export ProRes Rec709 I just ignore all of this and export without any 709a tagging etc.

should we set the output CST to 2.4 when we render a Prores? Or do we leave everything as is and export a prores with 2.2 gamma? This video is incomplete without those informations..

as I see in a comments, we definitely need more information about gamma shift issue and 709-A tag. thank you, Cullen.

For PC I did this before for my mini home suite By bypassing Windows OS color management for my Eizo monitor and color mange it with rec709 ICC profile by targeting my Eizo monitor to rec709 2.4 and it works perfectly and it match my studio reference monitor with I/O box

Hi Cullen great video as always ❤

I have a question: Does this LUT work for any reference monitor calibrated to DCI-P3 D65 color space or just for Apple Monitors? Thank you in advance 😊

Needing to remove a lut from every graded shot before export makes this solution just seem unmanageable for larger edits or ones requiring quick turnarounds. This should be something BlackMagic integrates as a setting vs. requiring this much work to have a timeline view match an export.

I recognize that it's more complicated than that but it's still maddening that there isn't an easy way to make this work well on a Mac without so many workarounds. When you put a lot of stuff out with tight deadlines, this workflow a mess.

This how critical are the tone mapping settings? I don't usually change them when doing a CST?

You are a savior. :)

Rather than placing the LUT on a node, you can apply it to the color viewer in Resolve color settings. It only affects the color viewer, not the export or anything else.

For some reason the export looks brighter than in resolve.

First thing that came to my mind was to simply put Rec.709-A in the CST output node. Correct me if I tell bs, but isn‘t that the same or very very close to Gamma 2.2? I always thought Rec.709-A was especially designed for Apple displays to tackle the gamma shift of the output😅

Hi Cullen, very nice video, I know this topic is very complicated. The beginning I completely agree, I think there are many ways that lead to the goal, at the end I see it a little differently. So my approach is to the end to make the transformations "technically" correct.
The whole problem with the gamma shift comes from the fact that QuickTime expects gamma 1.9 in a video. And that's what DaVinci did with "Rec.709-A", which is like Gamma 1.9 Why it's not called that, I don't know.
So my workflow is exactly backwards. I grade in e.g. Rec.709 - Gamma 2.4 When I export, I switch on a node at the very end, which transfomates from Gamma 2.4. to Gamma 1.9 ( Rec.709-A) and Voilá the video looks in QuickTime exactly like in DaVinci. What is importand, in the Delivery Page you need to set the Gamma Tag to „Rec.709-A“!
I do the same with Still export. Photos are automatically tagged with "sRGB" in DaVinci with export, which means you have to bake sRGB in there too. That's why I make a node at the very end of photo export with transformation from Gamma 2.4 to sRGB.
And the whole problem with the gamma shift simply comes from the fact that QuickTime expects gamma 1.9, so you have to give it gamma 1.9.

When you do this, in the end, the Photo, the video and the Viewer gives you the same image.

Thank you for this video! I have a question though, I have an Apple Studio Display and an Eizo CG279x as my reference monitor. It's connected straight to my Mac Studio via USB-C and set to BT709. Do I need to uncheck the "Apple Display Color Space" in resolve so that it doesn't mess with the colours on the reference monitor? What would that workflow look like?

What would this workflow look like if you instead receive footage that is already 709 2.4?

That's very helpful, I always end up when grading on my Macbook on the go, darkening the image cos off using the display incorrectly, but after this you just save me too much of rendering and testing out lol.
And ofcurse for my professional grading I always go with a trusty reference monitor in the grading room.

So awesome! Thank you very much Cullen, this workflow is pretty straightforward, the explanation quite clear, and I’m sure this will be much appreciated by the amateur color community.

Was very excited about this video - but feel like it has only confounded my Apple MacBook workflow. I use display BT1886 preset and turn off Mac displays in DVR while working in rec709 Gamma 2.4 color managed project. Exports looks same on OLED; but stills always have a gamma issue with stills/exports when viewed on other apple devices etc not in that 1886 setting.. I am sure Cullen has more illuminating and susinct insights on all this Apple silliness.

lol suggestion for next video: how to calibrate a monitor and create a 3d lut with DisplayCal.
This could be very useful for many starting out and wanting to get serius about grading :)

Thanks
Does it work the same with the video clean feed ?
What would be the settings to benefit of the entire ColorSync profil of the Apple Display (Gamut P3D65 & Gamma 2.2 with 300 nits) ?
Why not put the lut in Project Setting ➧ Color Management ➧ LUT ➧ Color Viewer LUT, instead ?

Excellent work, Cullen!

Great video tnx. One question though, is this good for outputting a DCP for movie theatre screening?