Color looks different in Color picker on Text+ Titles

I am having a problem using the Color pickers in Resolve. It shows up whenever I am using titles over my video footage of animations. A good example is in the screenshot below:

Color Picker Problems.png (65.17 KiB) Viewed 2759 times

(scroll down picture to see example text color output)

The color the client gave me is #0057b8 (R=0/G=87/B=184). In the color picker window, it looks like I expect, but when applied to the title over my animation, it looks completely different (almost teal, and definitely not as rich as the normal blue).

I thought it may have something to do with opacity, but I have confirmed I am at 100% on the title. I have done no color correction on the animation clip.

Does anyone have any ideas what it could be?

Color management related issue. If you want to use your color values as-is, you must use non-colormanaged project. In that case values go directly to screen and in UI it should look the same.

In colormanaged environment you must use RGB values that relate to image state where text is rendered, project working space that is. Basically you want color Z, but text gets its color in state X. In essence text color goes through X > Y > Z and to get value Z you must reverse the transforms Z > Y > X to find out which color value to actually use. Afaik there are no good methods to achieve this in Resolve but I'm not a big Resolve user, maybe someone can point a good way how to do it.

That was definitely it, thank you Hendrik!

I turned the color science option in the Project Settings back to DaVinci YRGB (non color managed option) and I can confirm the Text+ Colors went back to as I expected. Of course, that makes the rest of the footage look undesirable but I am happy to know the root cause.

I think I can guesstimate a color that is close to compensate for it - too bad the Color Space configurations don't seem to provide an option to only function on video tracks and not titles, or have an alternate option to disable to option for specific clips/tracks.

Now that I understand this is a color space problem, I was able to find a really good thread on this forum that talks more about the principles of when to apply Color Management and how it really affects the overall project (and unfortunately, all of the associated titles). There seems to be a consensus from the thread that the Color Science transforms should bypass (or the editor given the choice to) Fusion titles.

https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=73386

I wholeheartedly agree and hopes this is something that becomes available in Resolve 16.

Until then, I would need to try and guess the color to compensate for the changes (unless someone has a handy formula to convert (Color Science: DaVinci YRGB Color Managed / Output and Timeline Color Space: Rec.709 Gamma 2.4).

Or...I guess option 2 is to render out without titles, import into a new project without Color Management, and then apply titles there. Ugh.

Next time - If there is not an option to bypass in a future update, I guess I won't use Color Management setting on my project. It seems to be a much more flexible choice to get basic corrections on footage and create a LUT to quickly apply.

This issue is still not resolved, even in Resolve 17. Text+ and Fusion Titles still incorrectly map luminance and chromaticity in any color managed workflow – be it ACES or RCM. Even using Blackmagic's new DaVinci Intermediate color space and gamma and the project-controlled "graphics white luminance" setting, titles are unusable.

There just must be a solution to this? If you want to coloir grade a video in ACES or whatnot you should still be able to add titles, how hard can that be? Even when you check "bypass color managed" it doesn't work.

That means that one only can work in a non colred workflow if you are not only grading but also adding titles of some sort. That's just crazy. Doesn't anyone know of a workaround that doesn't involve to grade, render out everything, start a new project, add the graded rendered clips and then start to add titles?

This is still a problem in DR 17.3.2. Text+ is Fusion and works in the linear colour space. My workaround is to take the Text+ into the Fusion page and add two CST nodes between MediaIn and MediaOut.
Color Space Transform 1
Input Color Space: Rec.709, Input Gamma: Gamma 2.4, Output Color Space and Gamma: Use timeline.
Tone Mapping Method: DaVinci, Use Custom Max. Output and set Max. Output (nits) 4000
Advanced: Apply Inverse OOTF
Color Space Transform 2
Input Color Space and Gamma: Use timeline, Output Color Space: Use timeline, Output Gamma: Linear

This should get you pretty close to the picked colour values.

NOTE: Probably due to the order of operations, the colour appears close in the timeline but does NOT appear correct on the Color Page!

I am in the middle of a project and can't upgrade but I read the latest release notes and it isn't listed so I will add my name to those looking for a fix for this.

I am in the middle of a project and can't upgrade but I read the latest release notes and it isn't listed so I will add my name to those looking for a fix for this.

The fix is not to use Color Management Workflow.

But if you are on V16, this wasn't a feature in that version, correct?

This is still a problem in DR 17.3.2. Text+ is Fusion and works in the linear colour space. My workaround is to take the Text+ into the Fusion page and add two CST nodes between MediaIn and MediaOut.
Color Space Transform 1
Input Color Space: Rec.709, Input Gamma: Gamma 2.4, Output Color Space and Gamma: Use timeline.
Tone Mapping Method: DaVinci, Use Custom Max. Output and set Max. Output (nits) 4000
Advanced: Apply Inverse OOTF
Color Space Transform 2
Input Color Space and Gamma: Use timeline, Output Color Space: Use timeline, Output Gamma: Linear

This should get you pretty close to the picked colour values.

NOTE: Probably due to the order of operations, the colour appears close in the timeline but does NOT appear correct on the Color Page!

In 18.6 I'm not seeing "use timeline" as an option in the dropdowns. Do you know what the equivalent new option would be?