Where Should YOU Be Putting The COLOR SPACE TRANSFORM In Your Color Grading Workflow?!

When you're color grading LOG Footage, where is the best place to put your color space transform? At the start? At the end? In the middle? In this video, we'll take a look at some of the pros and cons to placing your CST in different places in your node graph!

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Table of Contents:
0:00 - Intro
0:35 - Project Settings and Housekeeping
1:38 - What Does A Color Space Transform Do?
5:05 - Understanding Nodes
7:19 - Grading Before And After The CST
11:25 - Why Put Nodes After The Color Space Transform?
16:39 - Color Grading Example
20:30 - Summary & Bonus
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[Studios]

I think it would have been better if it was explained what a color space. To the beginners that are reading this, Color Space is a, in simplest terms, is a space that holds the data in the video. The bigger the color space, the more data it can hold. If you put more data than it can handle, then the image will break producing banding etc. If you are thinking that you can just record in rec709 (very small color space) but edit in a bigger color space, then the image will still easily break because the data is already "baked-in" and the video would now be already limited to that colorspace in terms of how much data it can handle. That is why it's best to record in the biggest color space that your camera can record so you have the biggest leeway possible on post like Slog3 for Sony 10bit cameras. In relation to this, while it is not wrong, when you are now tweaking colors, it is very risky to grade in a rec709 space because it has a high chance that the grade will break. The reason for this is that rec709 is a very small color space, so you are basically limiting yourself by grading in this very limited color space. Yes, while it's true that some tools better react to rec709, starting from Davinci Resolve 17 up to the current version, majority of the tools are now color space aware so the reasons why you should grade in rec709 space is getting smaller. There are still tools that would react better to rec709 such as tracking and masking, but for the most part, in recent versions of Davinci its now color space aware so just grade in the biggest color space available like Davinci Intermediate then just switch to rec709 if the tool isn't behaving optimally

[iambenlerner]

Another thing you may want to do after the CST - magic mask and tracking, which tend to perform better with a rec. 709 input.

[jiggyb]

I'm so proud of myself because I completely understand all the concepts explained here and my man, did you explain something rather complicated very clearly. Well done! And thank you very much.

[DrDrift-rlcc]

Thank you Dunna, you really are putting up a color grading bible of sorts on Youtube. You and Darren Mostyn are doing something amazing. Thank you!

[EvanSchneider]

You have a gift of explaining complicated things clearly and concisely! Great video.

[BrianSellers]

Dude, this is a FANTASTIC video - just the right amount of technical juice for someone who knows enough to get him/herself in trouble, combined with great explanation to help keep us out of said trouble. Thanks!

[MikeAzul]

Appreciate in-depth explanations and examples such as showing what happens with nodes after and before color space transform 💚

[tripleinc]

Dude I just watched your "are you using S log right?" Video from a few months ago yesterday and now you drop this one - perfect timing! I'm wanting to transition from shooting all standard profiles into mainly S log and your videos have been such a huge help. Just got DaVinci resolve and it's a night and day difference color grading in there vs premiere pro. Thanks for all the work you do and keep the great content coming! 🤘

[nguynee]

Thanks a lot, everyone talks about color grading, best nodes map but no one really shares how it works and why? Best explanation, I finally got it after watching tons of tutorial videos.

[ShakeelNaim]

Fantastic video. Explained it all so clearly. I just spent 3 hours messing about with Apple log video I shot on my iPhone and wish I’d come across this earlier.
I will reedit my video tomorrow using the learnings from this video

[tonypinko]

Just finished my first project since switching to Resolve, and your videos were my primary resource for the colour page. Each tutorial has had so many useful tidbits, alongside a very clear explanation of the topic as a whole. Thank you!

[felixarm]

These videos are awesome Dunna. Thanks for taking the time to explain everything so well for us trying to work our way around the software. Keep them coming!

[tylercornelison]

Discovering Color Space Transform was one of the best days of my life. Don’t tell my wife 😂

[FenzirL]

I have had somany confusions with CST and all of that has been answered in this single video!
Thanks a tonn Dunna! You are a life saver 🌟

[alex_klinovoy]

wow... this is exactly what i've been looking for quite some time, thanks man

[NicholasLattimore]

This was one of the best Davinci Resolve tutorials I've honestly ever seen. Very succinct, great small tips along the bigger, more over-arching themes and useful. Expecting this to help my workflow a ton!

[krsnab]

The best explanation I found! I have been struggling for so long with the LUTs. Thank you 😊

[des]

Magnificent tutorial! Really appreciate your step by step example to show kinda real life workflow!

[RichardCejas]

this is the best explanation of this topic in YouTube by far. this content should be in a course not here in YouTube, that being said... thank you so much!

[PiDsPagePrototypes]

4:50 - There is a 'right place' - Colourspace Transform ALWAYS goes first.
If you don't do it that way, you get results like us Cion owners dealt with, where reviewers and colourists who'd never worked with Linear footage (but 'I know what I'm doing, ...'), treated it like Log and Effed It Up Badly.
Linear is great for CG and Unreal, and there's only a handful of cameras that can do it - some Sony's and Arri's and the AJA.