FS7: Color Space for Editing Sony Footage

Joshua Milligan

Joshua Milligan

Well-known member
Hey friends. I recently made the switch from Premiere to Resolve for full blown editing and am now in the middle of calibrating my late 2015 5K iMac with a X-Rite i1Display Pro for better grading results. I am trying to figure out how I should monitor my edits. Would you recommend monitoring in REC 709 or DCI P3? Most of my work gets displayed online, but some of my work gets used in local movie theaters. I also have started to upload some of my videos in 4K.

In addition, I'm trying to better understand if I should grade my footage and do all my edits in REC 709 or DCI P3. Is it best to use REC 709 for web content and DCI P3 for theatrical content? And if so, should I both monitor and edit my projects in the corresponding color space?

For example, if I were working on a project that was going to be in local theaters and I'm editing in DaVinci Resolve, should I calibrate my monitor to DCI P3 and set my Resolve settings to DCI P3 and export from there to ProRes HQ? And if my next project was a web commercial, then set my monitor to a calibrated REC 709 profile and set my Resolve settings to REC 709, exporting to H.264?

I'm just trying to better understand what color space to calibrate my monitor to and what color space to work in when working in Resolve (or Premiere for that matter). This stuff gets above my head and I've read so much online that I'm starting to get a headache haha. Also, I'm shooting on a FS7, A7SII and A7RII all in Slog 2 or 3 if that helps my question any. I also occasionally use a Phantom 4 Pro and GoPro Hero6 for doc films. Thanks for your help!
 
When you are grading for web delivery, set your display mode to sRGB. sRGB is the color space of computer monitors, mobile displays, and HDTVs. Well, these days it's not exactly sRGB. It's sRGB primaries but with a uniform 2.2 gamma - sometimes 2.4. BT.709 is a standard way of rendering images for these displays.

As for the theater, it's probably worth checking what color spaces they accept material in. I'd be surprised if they don't accept sRGB/BT.709 in addition to DCI-P3. It might not be worth the effort to do a separate DCI-P3 grade.

If you want to grade in DCI-P3, you need to set your display to DCI-P3 mode and then render your output for that color space.

You can grade in one color space and render output for another color space if you use something like Resolve's color management to handle the color space conversion for you. DCI-P3 and sRGB aren't all that different from each other.

I question whether the 5k iMac is really suitable for video grading. It appears to have no sRGB mode.

Edit: found more info here: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=40397&start=50#p310502
The 5k iMac's P3 mode isn't really DCI-P3, and it doesn't have an sRGB mode. It's totally unclear to me how Resolve interacts with macOS ColorSync. If I were you I'd get a different monitor that has an sRGB mode and a DCI-P3 mode.
 
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Joshua Milligan said:
I am trying to figure out how I should monitor my edits
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How about on a real video monitor? One that will allow you to display the output signal from Resolve, Catalyst, Premiere, etc. at full-frame 1080P resolution so you can see what you are doing. Resolve is not intended to be used without an external monitor. All you need is one of these for your iMac and you are in business.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...dzminmon_Ultrastudio_Mini_Monitor.html?sts=pi

In fact you really need a minimum of three monitors for Resolve if you are serious about grading: 1) Your iMac display for the Resolve interface. 2) Video monitor for program output (via the BM device). 3) A second computer monitor just for scopes. The second monitor does not even need to be very good or calibrated because its just going to show scopes.
 
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