Stills exports are washed out

Hey all,

I've recently run into an issue with exporting stills from the color tab (grab still, go to gallery, export jpegs/pngs), and have had very inaccurate results from this. I've included some screencaps of what I'm seeing in Resolve's viewer vs opening the jpeg in photoshop. For client reviews I'd like to stick to these two file formats, either .jpeg or .png.

Anybody else running into this issue? I'm on a 2022 M1 specd out Macbook running Resolve 18.0.4.

Thanks,
Cory

A Data/Video levels issue in Photoshop maybe?

Just searched through the forums to find out if anyone else had been experiencing this as well -
not very encouraging to see almost no replies.

I too am experiencing some sort of color space/gamma shift with my stills exports.
I recently was asked to share stills of two different color versions for comparison.
After exporting the stills, I found them to be lower contrast and less saturated than the viewer, my calibrated OLED reference monitor (r709/2.4) which is bypassing GPU through an Ultradeck, as well as even the rendered videos played back in quicktime or other players.

This is really problematic when trying to demonstrate changes through stills.
I ended up having to work around it by taking a screenshot of the fullscreen viewer in Resolve.
This seems to me to indicate that it's not a problem with the Mac Preview software, but seems to be something in the way that Resolve is tagging (or not tagging) the exports?

Hoping that someone out there has some advice to workaround it, or at least an explanation of what may possibly be occurring.

Thanks!
Daniel

Resolve 18.5 Studio | Mac OS Monterey | M1 Pro Macbook

For clarification on my last post,
I am managing my own colorspace transforms in CST nodes in the timeline, but the project timeline is set to a log working color space. Perhaps this is my issue? If so, can someone elucidate on a better workflow and the why's behind it?

Best,
Daniel

I’m having the same issues here. I updated to 19 beta 2 and still the same issue. Whenever I have my timeline set for ACES and transforming to REC709, i can export quicktime videos with no issues. However, when I’m exporting Stills from the Gallery I get a lower contrast image. I’m on a Mac M1.

When stills are exported, what color space and gamma do they use?

Based on my experience, I believe the same as the timeline.

What about if you simply go to export, current frame as a still. That is in color and edit pages, easiest way. Otherwise in Fusion just right click on the image and choose save as. Do you still have the color issues?

Hey all! Been experiencing the exact same issues for a bit now myself. Wondering if anyone has found a solution? Exported stills (JPG/PNG/TIFF) And opened them with preview/photoshop/lightroom and they are all the exact same - lowered contrast.

Edit: My personal workaround has been to simply take screenshots with my computer vs. exporting a proper screenshot. The colors look accurate if you do it this way.

Hey all! Been experiencing the exact same issues for a bit now myself. Wondering if anyone has found a solution? Exported stills (JPG/PNG/TIFF) And opened them with preview/photoshop/lightroom and they are all the exact same - lowered contrast.

Edit: My personal workaround has been to simply take screenshots with my computer vs. exporting a proper screenshot. The colors look accurate if you do it this way.

Hey, so i found a workaround. (At least for Mac)
1. First make sure that you have the latest version of resolve (19.1.2 as of this writing)
2. in your colorspace & transforms settings make sure that your color science is set to Davinci YRGB, timeline color space to Rec709, and output color space to Rec 709 Gamma 2.4
3. In Preferences > System > General make sure "Automatically tag Rec709 scene clips as Rec709-A" is checked, and "Use Mac display color profiles for viewers" is unchecked.
4. Add a node at the end (IMPORTANT) of the node tree for the footage your trying to grab a still from. it must be the last node.
5. In your primary wheels increase saturation from 50 to 65 (i tried several values, this number seems to be the sweet spot).
6. Grab still, export as png.
7. Deactivate the node (activate only for grabbing stills)

I found that my exported images are indistinguishable from what i see in resolve.
Hope that helps.

I have also had this problem for years. The stills from Resolve look washed out in various photo viewers and Photoshop. When they are imported back into Resolve, they look correct on the timeline. So there must be some kind of problem with the interpretation.
I created a Rec709 Gamma 2.4 to 2.2 LUT in Resolve using a CST and placed it over all the stills in Photoshop. It still doesn't look quite right but at least I'm getting closer to the grade.
Maybe someone has an idea what the actual problem is.

I have also had this problem for years. The stills from Resolve look washed out in various photo viewers and Photoshop. When they are imported back into Resolve, they look correct on the timeline. So there must be some kind of problem with the interpretation.

Sounds like a color management issue. Without knowing more information its hard to speculate.

I created a Rec709 Gamma 2.4 to 2.2 LUT in Resolve using a CST and placed it over all the stills in Photoshop. It still doesn't look quite right but at least I'm getting closer to the grade.
Maybe someone has an idea what the actual problem is.

You should be trying manually match anything. Color management should be both system wide if possible and among applications. There is a chapter in Resolve's reference manual which you can get from help menu. Chapter about color management. Look for cues there. You problem seems like a problem of color management, I'm not sure where in the pipeline do it happen, but you can start with resolve and work your way from there, until you find it.

Setup and Workflows | Chapter 9 Data Levels, Color Management, and ACE, page 220

Hi,
I recently stumbled upon this issue myself. Here is what I found out and my workaround.
The problem is related to the fact that DVR exports stills with no colour space information. Many apps (including Apple Preview) implicitly assume sRGB when rendering untagged images, others, like Photoshop, can be configured to ask what to do or implicitly assume sRGB as well.

In DVR you know what Display Space your are rendering to (e.g. REC709/REC1886, REC 2020, P3-D65 etc). If you want to be sure that the colours in the stills can always be correctly interpreted (both on your systems, on a client's computer, on a printer etc.) it is necessary to embed an appropriate ICC profile into the stills. This can be comfortably done using the exiftool shell executable, providing the appropriate ICC to the tool. The syntax would be like follows:

exiftool "-icc_profile<=profile.icc" yourfile.jpg

or, in order to batch process all stills inside a directory:

exiftool "-icc_profile<=profile.icc" yourStillDirectory

profile.icc being the appropriate profile according to your DVR setup.
I googled around and found the icc profiles I'm using from this site:

https://haraldbrendel.com/iccprofiles.html

This, as far as I've tested, ensures me always a correct rendering of jpg or tiff stills on many devices.
Hope this helps.