Less saturated colors in Quicktime render

[Aaron Rosapepe]

Working on a grade and I am noticing a really big shift in saturation levels between what I see when working in Resolve and what I am seeing in the Quicktime 422HQ render (indie project so working from home off of my iMac. No external monitoring involved). I'm having to boost the saturation by +20 to get the render to match what Im seeing in the Resolve window so something must be off.

If this is pilot error on my part, any solutions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Jussi Rovanperä]

Is "use Mac display color profile for viewers" checked in Resolve, and what color profile is selected for the monitor in the OS X settings?

[Abby Bader]

In the 'color management' settings you can check "use mac display color profile" and see if that solves the issue. Unfortunately, it might not take you all the way as matching the Resolve viewer with a player that doesn't read video attributes on an Imac could be a lost case. Also check your video vs. full range settings.

 

 

[Abby Bader]

Jussi, seems like we posted our posts simultaneous 

[Aaron Rosapepe]

Got it, thanks!

My monitor display is set to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 based on a previous recommendation.

 

 

[Aaron Rosapepe]

Saturation is much closer now. Thank you both!

[Anton Meleshkevich]

In addition to "use mac display color profile" you can try to set OSX color profile to sRGB  in OSX settings (seems like you already did that).
Also try to use different players (VLC, IINA). I'm sure you can find a right combination of these factors and to get the similar colors in davinci resolve interface preview and in a video player app.
Render the related (or any similar) image to prores and h.264. Open it in some player apps and in davinci resolve simultaneously. Then use OSX color picker app to compare darker squares on the rendered image. You can also upload the video file to youtube and compare it to your players using color picker app.
You can even test FCPX preview. You'll find, that FCPX shows video in a different way compared to davinci resolve preview.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Anton Meleshkevich

[Aaron Rosapepe]

Thanks for the info Jussi, Abby and Anton. This forum is the best!

[Seth Tonk]

Also, when viewing the rendered quicktime file, use VLC instead of quicktime as it does not shift the gamma and is a more accurate display of the file.

[Willian Aleman]

Besides taking care of the external monitor calibration, the usual culprit of the contrast and saturation shift is a mismatch between full and video range in the Color Management preferences setting and the Delivery page.

If in Preferences the range is set to video and the Delivery page it’s set to full range, it will cause the shift in contrast, and since contrast has an effect in saturation it will affect this too. Leaving the setting in the Delivery page to Auto will output the correct image too.

Another point to take in consideration is that difference NLEs by default expect the file to be in full range while others expect to be in video range.

All this applies when grading only in a computer display too.

 

Patrick Inholfer at Mixinglight has an extensive insight on the subject. 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Willian Aleman

[Andreas Kalteis]

Hi there! I found this topic via google search for the same problem. Putting the Mac color on, and changing the iMac screen to sRGB helped a little, but what really did the trick for me was to set the Data Levels to FULL and then export in ProRes. If I export in ProRes, the saturation and contrast are there, and then I personally use handbrake to convert to h264 and it works fine. However if I render h264 directly from Resolve, even with Data Levels set to full, contrast and saturation are lost a lot. So this is how it works for me now. Set Data levels to full and render to ProRes first. 

Thanks everyone for their inputs too! 

best

Andreas