Desaturated Colors after Export on iMac (DaVinci, Premiere)

[Manuel Tröndle]

Hey,

I got a really weird issue going on. Whenever i look at my exports from DaVinci or Premiere on my IMac they look washed out. If i upload them, view them in the Finder etc. All looks Desaturated and grey. ONLY if i open it in VLC player, the Colors will be displayed in the right way!

Update: Its actually happening on all videos that i open. In my finder they look more desaturated than in VLC. And how they look in VLC, is how they looked in my Editing software! What am i doing wrong?

My Export Settings are all good. Mp4, h.264, Rec709.

If anybody has an idea i would love to hear about it, since this issue is driving me crazy! Got to deliver my grade tomorrow, and this issue seems like it should be fixed easily!

 

Kind regards

Manu 

[Nicolas Hanson]

Resolve is full range internally, so what you see on your desktop monitor is black at zero.

The MP4 file you are looking at is legal range in QT, so what you see on your desktop monitor is black at 16 IRE. 

You should not work this way, but watch your grade on a proper color grading monitor. What you see on the grading montor will match what you see on your QT if set up correctly because of the way it handles the video signal. 

[Keidrych wasley]

Sounds like a gamma tag issue. What are the gamma tags of your exported file? If it’s 1-1-1 this will be why QuickTime and finder are washed out. QuickTime and finder will read the gamma tag and adjust for 1-1-1 (1.96 gamma ). VLC is not color managed and so it does not adjust the file based on the gamma tag metadata and instead defaults to gamma 2.4. If you set Resolve gamma tags to rec709 gamma 2.4 (1-2-1) QuickTime and finder will look correct however bear in mind that YouTube/Vimeo will enforce 1-1-1 gamma tags when they encode making the image washed out again. You can help this somewhat by encoding a gamma 2.4 to gamma 2.2 conversion Using a CST node at timeline level in Resolve. 

[Brandon Chant]

I am a novice when it comes to Resolve and colour grading in general, however I did read an article recently that seemed to address this issue. I believe the fix has something to do with using Rec.709a on an iMac with a P3 screen, but I am too new to all this to explain it properly myself. Anyone who can explain these things to me simply will have my undying gratitude!!! 🙂

The article can be found here: https://www.thepostprocess.com/2020/03/16/color-shift-fixes-from-davinci-resolve-to-mac-displays/

[Tom Evans]

On 10/1/2021 at 8:13 PM, Nicolas Hanson said:

Resolve is full range internally, so what you see on your desktop monitor is black at zero.

The MP4 file you are looking at is legal range in QT, so what you see on your desktop monitor is black at 16 IRE. 

You should not work this way, but watch your grade on a proper color grading monitor. What you see on the grading montor will match what you see on your QT if set up correctly because of the way it handles the video signal. 

Agree with Nicolas, you probably judge the black level on your desktop inside of the Resolve UI when working. When you output and tag your QT with "legal" it will seem washed out. You need a rec709 monitor that remap the full range signal to legal and when you output your file it will look identical to what you have on your monitor.