Should You Use Resolve Color Management or CSTs?

In this article, I want to answer one of the most common questions I get about color grading: Should I use Resolve Color Management or Color Space Transforms? Which is better? What is the ideal color management workflow for our images?

Let’s dive in and do a side-by-side comparison of both approaches and see which one works best in DaVinci Resolve.

Grading with Resolve Color Management

Here we have some log images in our timeline. The first one is from a RED camera, the rest are ARRI.

I’ll start by showing you Resolve Color Management. As you can see, we’re starting from zero, with just a few log images in our timeline.

To set up a project using Resolve Color Management, first go to Project Settings, choose Color Management, and set the color science to DaVinci YRGB Color Managed. You also want to flip Automatic Color Management off so that you can have full control to make the most out of Resolve Color Management. After that, navigate down to Color processing mode and choose Custom.

Set the Color science to YRGB Color Managed, turn off Automatic color management, and select Custom for Color processing mode.

After that, find the dropdown menu for Input Color Space. For this menu, you want to make your selection based on what kind of footage you’re working with. Today, we’re working a lot of ARRI footage, so I’m going to choose ARRI LogC3.

Choose your Input color space based on what kind of media you are working with.

Next, set the Timeline color space to DaVinci WG/Intermediate. I’ll also choose Custom 10,000 nits for the Timeline working luminance. That’s just my preference. It ensures that I’m not clipping anything out in the high end of the image before I’ve had a chance to grade it.

We’re also going to set our Input DRT to None—we’re working with a custom Timeline luminance, so we don’t need it. For Output DRT, I’ve chosen Luminance Mapping because that is my preferred way to work. And for Output color space, we’ll choose Rec. 709, Gamma 2.2. Finally, hit Save to get a look at what we’ve done.

These Project Settings…

…give us this image to work with.

Because I’ve set up my color management in Project Settings, I can’t change my input color space setting for the first clip in our timeline, which is RED R3D format. Resolve is actually going to handle that for me automatically. It doesn’t need my help, and there’s no option for me to do it either.

Manually tagging images

Some of the clips in our timeline need to be manually tagged. To do that, click on shot two and hold down the Shift key. Then, click on shot six. After that, right-click on the selection, navigate to Input Color Space, and choose Project-ARRI LogC3.

To manually tag clips, select the group of clips, then choose the Input Color Space that matches the material.

Now,  our color management is set up on our final five images. This is a functional example of how to set up Resolve color management, which gives us a foundation from which we can begin color grading creatively.

Grading with Color Space Transforms

Setting a project up for Color Space Transforms is a little different. To do that, go to Project Settings and set the Color science to DaVinci YRBG. Next, set the Timeline and Output color spaces to DaVinci WG/Intermediate, Rec 709 Gamma 2.2.

Here are the Project Settings I’m using for color managing with CSTs.

Before I hit Save, I want to emphasize that in this example, we could set our Timeline and Output color spaces to whatever we want. These choices do not change the image that we’re about to see because these dropdown menus do not directly control color management.

Because we’ve set our Color science to DaVinci YRGB, these menus now only control metadata tags for some of the other processes inside of Resolve. So, once we hit Save, we’re going to see our image return to its original camera log state no matter what options we choose.

Our image after hitting Save.

As predicted, our image is back in a log state. Now, let’s set things up using CSTs. First, go to the Node tree, create a serial node, and pull a Color Space Transform onto the Clip level of the image.

On the Clip level, create a serial node and drag a Color Space Transform onto it.

Then, set the CST’s Input Color Space and Input Gamma to ARRI Wide Gamut 3, ARRI LogC3. For Output Color Space and Output Gamma, choose DaVinci Wide Gamut, DaVinci Intermediate. Then, set the Tone Mapping Method to None.

These are our settings for our first Color Space Transform, which takes us from our camera color space into our working color space.

Next, let’s add two new nodes. In the third node, add another Color Space Transform and set it up so that it takes us from our working color space of DaVinci Wide Gamut, DaVinci Intermediate out to our display space of Rec 709, Gamma 2.2. Then, set the Tone Mapping Method to Luminance. I also like to turn Custom Mapping on and to set the Gamut Mapping to my preference, which you can see below.

One thing I want to point out is the Apply OOTF function under the Advanced menu in the Color Space Transform nodes. These two checkbox options are nowhere to be found when using Resolve Color Management. The rule of thumb it to check Apply Forward OOTF when going from a large color space to a display space and to check Apply Inverse OOTF when doing the opposite.

Our third node takes us out to our display color space.

This is how I set up color management using CSTs. I do all of my grading in the middle node, and the other two are for Input and Output.

Comparing Resolve Color Management to CST

Now, let’s do a quick comparison. What difference do you think I’m going to see in our CST example versus what we set up using Project Settings? Wipe between the example images below and see if you can spot the differences.

Use the slider to compare how our image looks when it is color managed using Resolve Color Management vs. CSTs.

That’s right, there’s no difference at all! I could have just told you that the images would end up the same, but I wanted to prove that Resolve Color Management and Color Space Transforms are actually the same thing.

Resolve color management is simply utilizing Color Space Transforms under the hood. Which option is better is a bit of a misleading question. Neither is better. They both do fundamentally the same thing.

Of course, there are differences in how we got to our final product. In my professional practice, I use Color Space Transforms, or what is sometimes called node-based color management . That’s my preference because I like to be able to see my entire color journey spelled out on the screen.

Utilizing the Group function

The only tweak that I would make in this example is that I would use Resolve’s Group function to free up some real estate in my node graph. To do that, select all the shots you want to group together, right-click the selection, and choose Add into a New Group. I’ll label this group LogC3.

To utilize Resolve’s Group function, batch select your clips, right-click, and choose Add into a New Group.

A new pair of dots should appear at the top of the node graph. These new dots appear because we’ve added our selected clips to a group.

Creating a New Group will open up the Group Pre-Clip and Timeline levels of the node graph.

We’re going to use our new dots to Input Map all of our Group material for the same camera at the same time. But before we do that, go to the Clip level of the timeline, select the node that has our Input Color Space transform and hit Command+C to copy it. Then, delete that node.

The rightmost dot above the node graph will bring us to the Group Pre-Clip level of our node graph. This is the section of our graph that will apply operations before we get to the Clip level. That makes it perfect for applying input transforms. So, create a new serial node and paste the copied node onto it using Command+V. Now, every clip in our LogC3 Group has the same input transform.

Pasting the Input node into the Group Pre-Clip level applies that transform to all our grouped clips and makes our Clip level nice and tidy.

We’re going to do the same thing for our Out node. Navigate back to the Clip level of the node graph, tap on the Out node, copy it using Command+C, and delete it. This time, click on the fourth dot from the left. This will bring us to the Timeline level of the node graph. There, create a new serial node and paste the Out node onto it. Now we have the same output transform applied to all of the shots in our LogC3 Group.

Pasting the Output node on the Timeline level is a great way to apply that transform to every clip in your group.

Seeing every step

This is identical to how we set everything up in our Project Settings. I simply prefer to work using nodes because I like to see every step in the color management journey, and I like to be able to alter that journey if I need to.

If we’re talking about process, that’s my preference. But if we’re talking about image reproduction, Resolve Color Management and Color Space Transforms are the same. At the end of the day, if you’re doing everything correctly, they’ll be identical in terms of image reproduction.

This is something that confused me when I first started learning about color management in DaVinci Resolve. I hope this is helpful to your workflow and that it helps you get what you want out of your color grading going forward.