How to color transform from ACES to DaVincy YRGB?

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I know this might sound like the noobiest of questions. I just spent a year editing a film I directed on DaVinci Resolve. It was shot on a RED camera, and before I started editing, I created ProRes Proxy files in DaVinci out of the R3D files.

Now I know there are stories of filmmakers/editors who get used to that flat LOG look because they spent so much time editing the footage. This is not the case. Those ProRes Proxy files look beautiful. We shot mostly with Tungsten lights and the Proxy files came out with this soft "one-tone" look (Orange scenes are mostly orange/green scenes mostly green). Whiplash-y /Fincher-y kind of vibe. Even the DP was impressed with the way the Proxies turned out. In his words, "will just have to adjust a bit here and there."

For the final film, that’s the look I want. Or at least, that the look I want to START with before coloring the film. My colorist started working on the film, and the footage he was starting with looked SO different than mine. I later realized he was coloring with ACES color space, while I was viewing the footage with the default DaVinci YRGB.

To double check, I changed my color space to ACES and boom: it looked just like his. Instead of asking him to change his color space, is there a Color Space Transform node I can apply to every shot on his timeline that will give us the DaVinci YRGb look as a starting point?

Instead of asking him to change his color space

Unless you need ACES for the pipeline, that might be the better approach.

I don't know the amount of experience your colorist has and if there is enough time to do sort of a 'trim' pass. But there is probably a way.

Let me start by quickly explaining what is going on. DaVinci YRGB does not have any color management by itself but rather expects you to handle it. The likely reason you still saw a normalized image is because the RED raw files have their own management system to convert to display. This system is called IPP2 and is what you also see on the monitors when you are on set. The raw image is decoded to the same settings as was used on set via the metadata present in the files which is why it's not log when not managing it. (see the camera raw tab on the color page in DaVinciYRGB mode)

What your colorist absolutely shouldn't do is change to YRGB and grade on top of that look because it will greatly limit the amount of control you have over the image. Luckily Resolve actually does provide IPP2 within their own management system DaVinci YRGB Color Managed. Instead of the default DaVinciDRT as outputDRT you can pick IPP2 (if your output space is set to Rec.709 Gamma 2.4) and pick the same flavors as was used on set for the tone mapping contrast and roll-off. The two options you will see in a dropdown after switching to IPP2. As the grading space the colorist can keep the same as with ACES which would be ACEScct probably.

2024-03-29 23_44_09-Project Settings.png (54.26 KiB) Viewed 125 times

Now what you still have to do would be to adjust the global look if there was any to the newly placed DRT.
That's the best shot you have at it I think. The good thing about this is that the grading operations were scene referred if having used ACES so the look shouldn't change that much, only the difference in global rendering. ACES is quite contrasty so you'd also have to compensate for that a bit but most shot level decisions should still feel right.