Light gray UI

I've made a feature request for a light (18%) gray UI, like one sees on Avid (an option) or FCP7. I hope that others will do the same.

Dark Mode (white or gray text on a dark background) doesn't work for me, on any device. And a tweak of monitor settings isn't going to solve the issue. It's a deal-breaker actually. Too bad, as I prefer Resolve, for many reasons. I like the way one organizes projects, the Fairlight screen etc.

About 50% of people have some astigmatism, making reading gray or white text on black difficult. There are multiple comments about the downside of dark mode on other forums (e.g. Premiere).

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywyqxw/ ... wfdwqkM1Ts

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forum ... ht-mode-ui

https://levelup.gitconnected.com/why-da ... f8359bb46a

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere ... 773?page=1

https://www.pixelmator.com/community/vi ... f=4&t=7630

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6825751

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=65628

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-dark ... his-is-why

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/dark-mo ... os-science

https://levelup.gitconnected.com/why-da ... f8359bb46a

https://www.androidauthority.com/dark-mode-1046425/

For what it’s worth, I have astigmatism, and have never found it a problem reading text in the Resolve UI. I can’t stand bright UIs!

Resolve’s UI is dark because of its color grading roots. A gray/bright UI is not what you want when doing color critical stuff, especially in a dark room.

That said, I do think that developers (including BMD) should pay more attention to “Accessibility” features in their UI. Even though I don’t have problems with reading the UI, there are others who probably do, and there should be some level of UI configurability to make things easier to see/read. I would not object to an user defined option for UI brightness, especially since Resolve is no longer just a grading tool, but a full fledged NLE.

I have astigmatism, and have never found it a problem reading text in the Resolve UI.

Same here.

That request is counter intuitive to the eyes physical responses for accurate color grading.
Put your computer screen closer to a window or turn on a 2700k lamp so you can see your screen better. (Actually... don’t.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That request is counter intuitive to the eyes physical responses for accurate color grading.

Resolve isn’t just a color grading app.

An editor has less need for a dark/gray UI than a colorist does. I personally hate lighter UI colors, but I can totally see the need for configurability in this regard for editors, for accessibility purposes.

I like the dark grey UI as it is. But I can understand that there are also people who have problems with it.
Personally, I use a dark mode wherever possible. My eyes get tired much less quickly. I also use this forum in a dark version thanks to the Vivaldi browser.
But the blue-ish UI version in Resolve makes no sense to me, I definitely prefer the neutral version.

Hello

I'd like to add my voice to this also.

I'm a beginner and learning the program, and im sitting in a light-filled room, learning the software. I get that pro colour graders maybe work in dark studios, but it would be nice to be able to work in the daylight and switch to a light mode where required.

I found another thread here, but decided to chime in on this one.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=95419&p=529599&hilit=light+DARK+mode+UI+resolve#p529599

Cheers

About 50% of people have some astigmatism, making reading gray or white text on black difficult. There are multiple comments about the downside of dark mode on other forums (e.g. /

Hi, I am an optician, and I am curious why astigmatism would cause difficulty reading lighter text on darker backgrounds?

I can't think why that would cause problems, if the astigmstism is porperly corrected with glasses or contactlenses.

As an optician I have never heard of this.

im sitting in a light-filled room

Change that.

I agree that a choice of gray could be a welcome addiction: in the user:color: you can have a slider or selection between white/black/all in-between....

for the comment on the optician, (Wouter Bouwens) I think that the darker is the surrounding the more the iris open, decreasing the focus ability of the eye, and vice-versa.

I have a mild one and yes with corrective lenses i can see better, but I'm challenged in a way where I constantly switch between long focus (need glasses) for when I watch the projection and near focus (i need another pair) when i watch the GUI. (i use bifocal... it's a pain...)

I agree that a choice of gray could be a welcome addiction: in the user:color: you can have a slider or selection between white/black/all in-between....

for the comment on the optician, (Wouter Bouwens) I think that the darker is the surrounding the more the iris open, decreasing the focus ability of the eye, and vice-versa.

I have a mild one and yes with corrective lenses i can see better, but I'm challenged in a way where I constantly switch between long focus (need glasses) for when I watch the projection and near focus (i need another pair) when i watch the GUI. (i use bifocal... it's a pain...)

This is hardly the place for a discussion on astigmatism and other refractive issues, but there are some things you say which I should explain.

A larger iris does not make it harder to focus, however, a larger iris does make the astimatism (or any "flaw" in refraction) larger. If you'd need a -6 lens during the daytime, you would perhaps need a -6.5 lens at night, because of the larger iris.

The problem with being able to see in the distance and not well nearby is not related to astigmatism, but to the ability of the eye to focus on nearby object, an abilty that decreases at around 45 years of age, and which leads the having to use reading glasses. Or bifocals. A single lens with only the "near" prescription would be a lot more comforable, but you would lose the ability to see in the distance...

The reason why looking at a brightly lit monitor in dark surrounding can cause eyestrain and fatigue is because the human eye is made for either bright or dark surroundings, not a place where only one square in the middle is bright and the rest is dark. The eye/brain does not know whether the iris should be small for the monitor or large for the dark around it, and thus starts to strain. The solution, as far as watching tv at home, is placing a light behind the tv.

There are cases where surrounding is dark (during coloring) and the ui should be dark and cases when the surrounding are brighter (like in a editing room) and the ui should be brighter.

That's about it.

There are cases where surrounding is dark (during coloring) and the ui should be dark and cases when the surrounding are brighter (like in a editing room) and the ui should be brighter.

That's about it.

I am just an amateur, but eager to learn. I always thought that while colorgrading, the monitor should be in front of a neutral white or grey wall illuminated with pure daylight lights. I understand now that that colograding is done in a pure dark room? Is this oersonal prefference, or is there a science behind it?

There are several major papers about proper grading environments.

They exist to eliminate ambient color from influencing the viewed colors on the monitor, and/or distracting the eye.

The environment should be a neutral gray with very low but precise color lighting. It's helpful to have one light neutral spot off to the side for a quick glance as a "color reset".

No ambient light should strike the monitor, and the "bias" light should lift the viewed wall or screen behind the monitor to around a middle (18%) gray and fall off quickly.

There are recommendations for lighting setups using a meter.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

There are several major papers about proper grading environments.

They exist to eliminate ambient color from influencing the viewed colors on the monitor, and/or distracting the eye.

The environment should be a neutral gray with very low but precise color lighting. It's helpful to have one light neutral spot off to the side for a quick glance as a "color reset".

No ambient light should strike the monitor, and the "bias" light should lift the viewed wall or screen behind the monitor to around a middle (18%) gray and fall off quickly.

There are recommendations for lighting setups using a meter.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

That is absolutely true for TV grading, but in a theatrical environment, all is dark…..

Thanks for the correction Walter.

And that's because theatrical (normally) has a max brightness of 48 nits and is displayed in a totally dark room.

Also typically with gamma 2.6.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

There are several major papers about proper grading environments.

They exist to eliminate ambient color from influencing the viewed colors on the monitor, and/or distracting the eye.

The environment should be a neutral gray with very low but precise color lighting. It's helpful to have one light neutral spot off to the side for a quick glance as a "color reset".

No ambient light should strike the monitor, and the "bias" light should lift the viewed wall or screen behind the monitor to around a middle (18%) gray and fall off quickly.

There are recommendations for lighting setups using a meter.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

That is absolutely true for TV grading, but in a theatrical environment, all is dark…..

In a movietheater, the screen is so large that the eyestrain I discribed earlier is a lot less. But I can imagine that grading for theater on a monitor can be really tireing.

There are several major papers about proper grading environments.

They exist to eliminate ambient color from influencing the viewed colors on the monitor, and/or distracting the eye.

The environment should be a neutral gray with very low but precise color lighting. It's helpful to have one light neutral spot off to the side for a quick glance as a "color reset".

No ambient light should strike the monitor, and the "bias" light should lift the viewed wall or screen behind the monitor to around a middle (18%) gray and fall off quickly.

There are recommendations for lighting setups using a meter.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

That is absolutely true for TV grading, but in a theatrical environment, all is dark…..

In a movietheater, the screen is so large that the eyestrain I discribed earlier is a lot less. But I can imagine that grading for theater on a monitor can be really tireing.

It is and when I grade in a Dolby theater you can go to 108 nits for a bright outdoor to pitch black in a span of minutes.

And when I color for Dolby theater, in a dark scene, any lights is really distracting at the point that I have to stand out of the chair and cover all my peripheral view of the GUI and panel light to actually see what I’m doing.

Usually I have a ND filter in front of the GUI monitor that is flipped on in the dark scenes and flipped of for the bright scene….

Hi all,
I would really benefit from a "Light gray UI". Of course, for the color grade job, I would use a proper dark mode. But for all the rest, like editing, fusion, fairlight and so on, I work in a simple "office" situation. Here, the dark UI is (far) too dark. It's sometime really hard to work fast, only because I can't identify UI elements robust and fast.

I hope & thank you!
Ueli

Hi all,
I would really benefit from a "Light gray UI". Of course, for the color grade job, I would use a proper dark mode. But for all the rest, like editing, fusion, fairlight and so on, I work in a simple "office" situation. Here, the dark UI is (far) too dark. It's sometime really hard to work fast, only because I can't identify UI elements robust and fast.

I hope & thank you!
Ueli

I support.
I have a window behind my monitor. Sunny side.
With a dark interface, nothing is visible. And the dark gray light doesn't help at all
I don't do color correction. All I need to do is cut/add video.
It's just hard to read the text. The menu items are not visible at all.
The program is interesting, but only because of the dark interface, I can't use it

The two bad general cases I've faced with dark UI, (unrelated with astigmatism)

- While editing under the classic white tend for production crew on a location to ingest footage.It was impossible to see a thing on the Media page.

- Also a repeated situation: the hammock on my garden beside the pool is the place where I use to edit audio with Fairlight with headphones while getting tan on the sun. The Dark UI on Fairlight is not necesary there, and makes it unusable on sunny scenarios.


How I miss the gray/light mode from Premiere.

And when I color for Dolby theater, in a dark scene, any lights is really distracting at the point that I have to stand out of the chair and cover all my peripheral view of the GUI and panel light to actually see what I’m doing.

Usually I have a ND filter in front of the GUI monitor that is flipped on in the dark scenes and flipped of for the bright scene….

Yeah, I've done the same thing before. I'd drive over to Filmtools and get a big roll of ND filter paper and try an ND2 or an ND3 to knock down the GUI brightness.

After reading this entire conversation, I wouldn't mind if we had a little more control over the brightness/contrast setting of the entire GUI screen, On the other hand, the moment you go to the Viewer, it's going to be as bright as it always was, so only adjusting the monitor will solve that.

I have a window behind my monitor. Sunny side.

My advice would be to invest in curtains or other window coverings.

DaVinci Resolve 20 continues without a light theme.

Is terrible!!!!

Another video editors, 3d editors, game engines, video-conference apps... all of them has a
light theme but DaVinci Resolve... not.

It's ridiculous!

Please, adds a light theme.

Not everyone works in a dark cave.