Input and working colour space conundrum in Baselight For Avid

[Darren Shearer]

Good morning colour gurus, I noticed yesterday that my input and working color space had changed over to Rec 1886 2.4 Gamma/Rec 709  (from rec 709 video legal) and I had graded a whole sequence already, but wanted to make sure I wasn't making an error in this. For some reason, I like the gamma better in 1886. I am on a typical Avid set-up with a Sony Trimaster at 2.2 gamma.   Is it OK to be using the input and working colour space as  Rec 1886 2.4 Gamma/Rec 709 with "legal full scale" on or off as needed?  

***I have since done some more research and watched the Lukepost tutorial on Baselight Colour Management, and I think now, I just need to figure out my three color spaces as when I set anything but Display Referred, it crunches my shots. Display Referred is the only one that makes no change until I grade it. So, with no real intention of getting someone to tell me how to set this up correctly, using S-log 2 footage (matrix turned on), I would be forever grateful if someone could help sort me out on this as I really migrating all my studio's grading over to Baselight and want to make sure I am setting up correctly.

Thanks in advance  for your help!

Darren

Edited August 24, 2023 by Darren Shearer
Got some more information on the topic

[Andy Minuth]

Hi Darren,

for 709 footage, you can keep all colour spaces on 'Rec.1886: 2.4 Gamma / Rec.709'. This will then give you a classic video grading pipeline.
The more modern approach would be a scene-referred grading workflow:
InputCS: According to the footage
WorkingCS: e.g. T-Log / E-Gamut 
DRT: e.g. TruelightCAMv2
CursorCS: Rec.1886

'Legal to Full' and 'Full to Legal' in the cursor should be set according to the footage and Avid project settings. Most people have a legal range project in Avid, that means you should set the cursor to 'Full to Legal' in Baselight for Avid. 'Legal to Full' can be turned off for certain shots. 

I hope this is helpful.
Andy

[Darren Shearer]

Thank you Andy.  Once again, most helpful.  I still need to work out the exact Sony S-Log 2 (Matrix on) camera profile to use the scene-referred workflow (you had given me some direction and even a profile for this a while back). My studio should be switching to S-Log 3 soon, which will make things much simpler!

Thanks again. I really appreciate the personal attention you and the Filmlight crew give for these things.

Darren