How to fix the color shift when exporting from Resolve to Quicktime. (The viewer in Resolve and the resulting Quicktime file don't match color wise.)

[majoraxis]

When you export to a Quicktime file from Resolve, if what you see in the viewer in Resolve does not match what you see when you playback the resulting Quicktime file - check out the following article: (It's a long article, so I summarized what worked for my scenario below.)

https://www.thepostprocess.com/2020/03/16/color-shift-fixes-from-davinci-resolve-to-mac-displays/

Here's the steps I followed for my 2017 iMac running 10.13.6 and Resolve 16.2.8:

1. In System Preferences->Displays->Color (Display profile:)->Display P3

2. In Resolve Preferences->General.“Use Mac Display Color Profiles for Viewers.” to grade through Apple’s P3 display profile.

3. In Resolve Delivery->Custom->Advanced Settings->Color Space Tag->rec.709, and Gamma Tag->rec.709.

In my tests, it worked great.

[kye]

Yeah, this is a major issue.  It's because the environment for colour management is basically a huge mess, and why BM still sells and recommends their own hardware monitoring - because it bypasses all the OS and UI colour tomfoolery.

I read in one thread about applying an extra node in Resolve to compensate, I think it was a gamma conversion of some kind, and the idea is that you just grade as normal, apply the extra node, export, then disable the node again.  I've found it makes a pretty close match, including all the way to viewing your video on YT, certainly close enough considering the woeful variation in colour performance of the various devices out there.

[majoraxis]

@kyeThanks for the information!

I’m not applying and removing the LUT with the Display P3 work flow and the results match.

For people on iMac with Resolve I would try the 3 steps listed above (without the LUT), as it is a no fuss workflow.

That said, if you do try the 3 steps (to color consistency), please report back your experience to confirm or deny the validity of this workflow (for iMac users).

 

Thanks!

[KnightsFan]

Why would you set your display to P3 if you are grading for Rec 709?

[majoraxis]

@KnightsFan Great question!  Honestly, I don’t, but I switched the color profiles back and forth and P3 looked the best to me. It looked very similar to the default iMac color profile.  I think the key is to bake the color space and the gamma settings into the resultant QuickTime file and set Resolve to Use Mac Display Color Profiles for Viewers

I assume if you had your own calibrated color profile it should work just as well.