Resolve Color Managed - Export Lower Contrast Back in Resolv

Hi there,

I'm fairly new to HDR workflows and Resolve Color Management and keep encountering an issue I wondered if anyone could help with.

I'm working in a project for various image fixes (noise reduction, dead pixel removal etc) which I think is set up for an HDR workflow/color pipeline, however, whenever I export my clips and bring them back into Resolve they appear to have a lower contrast and saturation.

My Color Management Settings are as follows:

Color Science: DaVinci YRGV Color Managed
Use Separate Color Space and Gamma: Checked
Input Color Space: Bypass
Timeline Color Space: P3-D65 - ST2084
Output Color Space: Bypass (i.e. same as Timeline Color Space)

I'm exporting in ProRes 4444XQ

Once exported I bring the .mov back into Resolve and the color is completely different to how the original appears in the timeline. I've tried exporting with Data Levels set to 'Full' / 'Video' / 'Auto' but none make the clip look as it did before in the timeline.

Any light anyone can shed on the situation would be greatly appreciated! I'm sure it's probably my lack of knowledge regarding Color Spaces and HDR workflows so forgive me if it's something obvious.

Cheers,
MK

I'll call it a Davinci “issue”. It’s sort of in the manual.

As I had a nearly identical problem. Here is what I found.

The “Auto, Video, Full” data setting is not only in the rendering section. Each clip imported is set to auto, which is a setting you can change individually (or highlight a brunch) by entering clip attributes.

Here is where the “issue” come in. Becuase it is an MOV, Davinci settings to Auto makes it recognise it as Video when even your video is Full.

If you manually select Full, the colour should look right again.

This issue can also happen on output even when your clip attributes has been set correctly, so beware about the Auto, Video & Full setting.

My Color Management Settings are as follows:

Color Science: DaVinci YRGV Color Managed
Use Separate Color Space and Gamma: Checked
Input Color Space: Bypass
Timeline Color Space: P3-D65 - ST2084
Output Color Space: Bypass (i.e. same as Timeline Color Space)

You are effectively not doing any color management with those settings provided the clip level input transforms are not overriding input values.

What are the settings on the clip level input color gamma and gamut on the original version? And the encoded to ProRes version? Metadata may not have been passed on during encoding to ProRes and could result in different clip level input transforms.

I would advise not to use bypass at all and always check the clip level input transforms.

If you only do fixes but no grading I would run Resolve using YRGB (i.e. not color managed), this avoids any complications.

If you only do fixes but no grading I would run Resolve using YRGB (i.e. not color managed), this avoids any complications.

I think this is very wise advice. Keep things as simple as possible.