Resolve 12 +/- two stops darker with CR2/DNG

I'm working with several programs including Dragonframe, After Effects, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro X and DaVinci Resolve 12. Using a MacPro 10.11.3 & a Macbook Pro, same OS.

When shooting Canon CR2 files (in this case from a 6D or 7D), all programs but Resolve show the same properly exposed frame. Resolve, on the other hand, shows the frame as roughly 1.5 to 2.5 stops darker.

Converting the CR2s to DNG does not change things.

Using the Camera RAW tab in Resolve, and changing "Decode Using" to "Clip" and setting Color Space/Gamma to BMD Film and checking Highlight Recovery on. I will then have to boost the exposure by several stops to match what Adobe Camera Raw or Final Cut show natively without correction. Furthermore, when capturing in Dragonframe, the image matches Adobe and Final Cut but is way brighter than Resolve.

Here's the frame in ACR:

Adobe Camera Raw import

ACR Window.jpg (78.86 KiB) Viewed 3621 times

And here's the Resolve frame:

Resolve Image in Color Window

Resolve Window.jpg (75.16 KiB) Viewed 3621 times

As you can see they're vastly different. This is a problem because when we're lighting on set, we need to be able to get our exposure pretty close to what we're going to have in Resolve. Something is going on with Resolve because Dragonframe, Canon, Adobe and Apple are all showing the same exposure settings (including the same histogram) and Resolve is really dark.

Anyone else getting this result?

How are you monitoring? Resolve is different in this respect: don't care for the display in the GUI, only a calibrated monitor connected by a video I/O card will show the correct picture.

im not sure if it was this much of a difference (i dont think so), but maybe in the preferences-color management disable ''use mac display color profile''?

or try changing the colorspace and see if that helps

Check that 'Use Mac Color Profile For Viewers' is switched off in Colour Management. It affects the appearance of the image in the GUI.

Do you have resolve color management enabled and do you apply any LUTs after the BMDFilm initial conversion?

To answer, this affects my grading monitor too. I'm running a Flanders CM240 off my UltraStudio MiniMonitor.

I agree that under Color Management, unchecking "Use Mac Display Profile" does make the GUI image lighter, it does not affect my grading monitor.

Basically, all apps (FCPX, AE, Premiere, Photoshop) show a similar density when displaying on the external monitor. Resolve seems to be a stop or so down.

I'm going to do more extensive testing using a gray-scale graduated chart to see if this can be quantified further. One thing I've noticed is that if I capture both JPEG and RAW, the JPEGs display similarly across all software platforms. It is in RAW that Resolve marches to the beat of its own drum...

take highlight recovery off and try...

I had a same problem , when i imported recently graded film, DPX 10bit, ProRes HQ,
they were both 2 stops darker in Davinci 12.2 then in AE, Premier Pro, and FCP7. but all other current projects, i have tested, exported and they are ok

AE, Premiere and Photoshop use Adobe Camera RAW. Resolve doesn't. If you opened up the image in Bibble or Capture One or whatever it might look different because they all have their own settings on how they deal with RAW images from different cameras.

Turning on and off Highlight recovery does not seem to matter with no adjustments made. Saying that Resolve treats footage differently does not really explain why.

For me, it's a workflow issue because you're shooting & monitoring with one app (in this case Dragonframe) which accurately translates to every other image app except Resolve. You want to know that how you're lighting is faithful to your intentions.

If Resolve is treating simultaneously captured JPEG & RAW sequences differently, then this is a problem. We know that JPEGs and RAW files have different dynamic range, but their baseline exposure should be more or less identical without adjustment.

Something else is going on...

http://www.nomadlens.com/raw-converters-comparison/2