Color Space LUTs Required at all?

[Rak Avatar]

Hi all,

New member on this forum. Hope to learn and share with the community here. 🙂

So here goes..

I am grading( on Resolve 16) a footage shot on RED (raw). I have an EIZO CG247 and calibrated for DCI-P3.  It's my personal indie short film. Final viewing media will probably be film festivals and eventually for online streaming media.  I am following the RED recommended IPP2 workflow. 

 

My questions are:

1) What is your recommended workflow. (Display referred or scene referred). ACES recommends scene referred as it help integrate VFX footage better?  

2)Do I need to use a color space conversion LUT at the end of the grade chain everytime?  Let's assume i am working display referred. Given my monitor is calibrated for P3, do I need to use RED provided REDRAW to (P3/REC709) LUT at the end of the grade graph after my color correction and creative grading?

To elaborate, I start grading from scratch...no color space conversion LUTs yet.  As I continue my color corrections and creative grading - I reach a stage and am happy with I see on the the physical monitor with my eyes and also the scopes on Resolve(for better understanding on RGB values) - do I still need to apply a rec709(or such LUT) at the end of my grade chain? Can I be sure that with a calibrated monitor like Eizo(or LG/BenQ or any decent one) I am seeing the right thing? 

I keenly look forward to your response.

[Rak Avatar]

Any response guys? Or are my questions a bit too broad or not framed properly? 

 

[Amada Daro]

The academy recommend  scene referred because their system is based on it. It's perfectly fine to work display referred, that's what most people do.

You don't need to work through a LUT either, even though I personally prefer to do so for creative reasons. With display referred, what you see is what you get as long as your monitoring is set up correctly.

I recommend watching the color workflow course on lowepost as it covers both methods and also the IPP2 workflow for RED.

[Rak Avatar]

Thanks Amada! 

I have an EIZO CG247x which i believe is fairly good by industry standard? So assuming that my monitor is calibrated correctly, display referred workflow is WYSIWYG. 

So what I am unclear is this - the color space is defined and interpreted (and or) at the following relevant junctures:

1) Resolve's Timeline Color Space in "Color Management" section of project preferences.

2) RED IPP2 decode workflow where you tell Resolve how to handle the color space via Camera RAW->Project Settings->ColorSpace (this is based on RED IPP2 pipeline)

3) Monitors supported colorspace.

How are the three correlated?

And my next question would be that if the above is somehow doing secret handshake and colorspace info is passed correctly for argument sake - how is using a Rec709 LUT useful(or not).  Does it help put the colors in a "safe bracket" of rec709 gamut?  I personally feel eyeballing the colors and relying on scopes gives me more freedom assuming my monitor is 100% or close to rec709 gamut.

I am not vying for any option.. i just want to be clear about either choices. 

 

Thanks!

Edited May 3, 2020 by Rak Avatar

[Amada Daro]

A log2rec709 is to transform your footage into the rec709 color space. You can do the "same thing" with curves or any of the other controls. You don't need a LUT.  What you see is what you get.

You don't need to change the timeline color space either, it just changes how the color controls feels.

Just grade on your P3 monitor and be happy, don't complicate things. 

 

 

 

[Rak Avatar]

Gotcha. 

 

Yea, i agree with you about the purpose of LUTs - the whys. I was more curios about the "hows".