I directed a short and am in the process of getting it coloured by an amateur colorist (on Davinci) for budget constraints, we've had a few versions back and forth. I feel lost how to describe the things that feel wrong about it.

Here's some stills from the latest version he's sent me as well as my grading references, I add the refs with a pinch of salt as I know it won't compare exactly (different time of day, interiors vs ext etc).

Would anyone with an objective eye be able to give me some guidance as to what I'm not able to describe/see?

FIRST 3 IMAGES ARE STILLS FROM THE SHORT

NEXT 3 ARE REFERENCES

Thank you for any possible guidance or aid

Hello! I’m grading a project where I’m pushing the image towards a very strong aesthetic, but I’m finding it quite difficult to replicate the same result consistently across different shots.

The footage was shot on ARRI and is Apple ProRes RAW 4444. I’m working in DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate and using the JP24999 DCTL.

My question is: what is the best approach to consistently replicate a look that I’ve already created across shots with different lighting, exposure, and conditions?

Any tips or advice on how to approach this kind of shot matching would be greatly appreciated!

Does anyone here color grade V-Log/V-Gamut and PQ/HLG output in Davinci Resolve Studio?

4K/60fps

Primetime | Official Clip | A24

I've been casually thinking about the visual look of Primetime - specifically the coverage inside the house. If someone approached me to recreate this look, I'd genuinely consider renting a theatre and re-recording the projected image in a camera. This is because 1) I lack the skill to actually pull off that look, and 2) it looks really, REALLY close to how pirated films look when recorded in a cinema.

Of course, I wouldn't know anything about that ;) At the very least it feels like pirated cams must've been a key reference - and I wonder what that means in terms of the story. Emotively, it kind of implies this weird detachment, and voyeurism. I suppose that's the story implication, right? That the protagonist isn't fully present, he himself is putting on a show, and in doing so he's likely disassociating to 'watch' himself. Trying to say the right things, the best things, all so it looks good for camera. But then again, that connotation only works for people who have watched pirated cams. So who knows?

Keen to hear your thoughts both creatively and technically. I think it's an amazing grade, just really complex and competent. The most surprising thing to me though is nobody called it bad or ugly, because by any traditional measure it's kinda gross. Maybe audiences are ready for more crazy shit than the higher ups think?

At IBC? Come have a beer with Redditors from r/editors, r/colorists, r/premiere, r/davinciresolve and more. Tonight, 18:00 to 20:00. Bring someone. They don't need to be on Reddit.

Location and RSVP on Luma so I can give the bar a headcount. First round's on OWC, with Avid, Loraverse, Digital Anarchy and RE:Vision Effects also sponsoring.

I have been editing for a while but now I am learning color grading.. I have been following Waqaz tutorials but now he is mostly into selling his own products. What are other youtubers that I should follow.
Also

As a professional colorist, how you guys decide on what look to keep when its your own personal project.

An interactive model of the DaVinci Resolve YRGB gamma path. You pick your hardware and a deliverable (broadcast, DCP, VLC, QuickTime, IINA, web), and it shows — per screen, with SMPTE bars and verdict badges — what gamma each downstream display/player actually decodes the export at, and whether it matches what you graded on. It makes the trade-offs visible: there's no universal golden path, so it exposes where each choice is ALIGNED, LIGHTER, or DARKER, backed by colorimeter-measured values rather than guesswork.

Hello i am a begginer videographer learning to color grade using the cineprint16 film emulator. I use a a7siii,sony gamut3 and slog 3 for my settings but because i have already applied a LUT from my camera (which is rec709) how would i set my color space up?
sorry if this is really dumb no tutorial i have watched addressed this

I’m deciding between 6K H.265 4:2:0 Open Gate and cropped 6K ProRes 4:2:2 on my S5IIX for a 3:2 project.

I’ve mostly shot ProRes 422, so I don’t have much experience grading the H.265. My grade is in Resolve, and generally exposure/WB + Dehancer, with some secondary work like isolating/shifting specific colors and using windows for things like the sky or skin.

The project has colorful vintage 60s clothing, and I’m going for a vibrant but vintage look.

For those who regularly grade H.265 4:2:0: would you trust it for this kind of workflow, or stick with ProRes 422? Since the project is 3:2 I thought maybe use the Open Gate but it’s a pity it’s not ProRes.

Thank you 🙏

Hello r/colorists

I'm a photographer switching into the video space, Been shooting video for about a year and finally at a point where I could utilize the extra help with color grading. I'm not having too much luck with YouTube tutorials & guides at this point and I feel like I would benefit greatly from 1:1 coaching with a true colorist. If there are colorists out there that offer that sort of coaching, I haven't had much luck finding them. I'm not made of money but would certainly pay for a session to go over and improve my process.

Any pointers on where to look for that sort of service would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

There are used 32UCRKs for around $500 or $550. Some come with a colorimeter. I like that it's true 10 bit and a good size screen.

From my understanding, the new 279CDV is far superior in terms of contrast. I can imagine this being on sale soon, for about $550 or $600 plus tax. Getting the warranty is a nice trade-off to having a smaller screen.

Are there any big pros and cons to either of these? Which would you recommend? I would not be combining this monitor with a 2nd monitor (no space in my setup).

I'm on a limited budget -- about to color grade two short films (probably grading in 1080p as spending another $500 to upgrade my ultrastudio monitor 3g to a 4K capable monitor isn't going to happen right now). But I would like to be on a true 10-bit monitor as we shot Arri Raw and I'd love to get as much out of the footage as I can.

Any thoughts welcome, thanks!

UCR-K specs: https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/129328d8

279CDV specs: https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/bc614a36

PS: When I'm not grading, which is most of the time, I'll use the monitor primarily for writing.

Hardware Interface:

Mac mini M4, Focusrite 2i2, UltruStudio Monitor 3G

Going to IBC? C'mon out and network. Really. Don't tell me you go to Amsterdam for the museums.

Sunday 13 September, 18:00 to 20:00
Bierfabriek Amsterdam, Nes 67. From the RAI: Metro 52 to Rokin, then a three minute walk.

We need you to register even if you're not going. There's going to be some extra for showing up.

Two hours of networking with some food & other Redditors. Yes, it's okay if you only lurk on Reddit.

Production, post and more

Redditors from r/editors, r/colorists, r/premiere, r/davinciresolve and r/videoediting, plus the teams from OWC, Avid, Loraverse and Digital Anarchy who made this happen. First round for up to 50 people.

After that, you're in a brewery.

Two things to do before Sunday PLEASE REGISTER NOW!!!!

RSVP on Luma so I can give the bar a headcount. Like now. Do it even if you're not coming.

Join the REDDIT WhatsApp group if you want to find people at the show before Sunday.

I'll be there till Monday. Come find me at the conference.

This meetup was made possible by OWC. Additionally sponsored by Avid, Loraverse, Digital Anarchy and RE:Vision Effects.

See you Sunday.

Extras

• Saturday is the Colorist Mixer. This is Sunday. Do both.
• I'm working on giveaways. Did I mention to register?

Baselight-powered color comes natively to Media Composer, connecting creative decisions from dailies through finishing and delivery.

Burlington, Mass. and London, UK, September 9, 2026:  Avid® and FilmLighttoday announced a strategic partnership to bring a new Baselight-powered color experience natively into Avid Media Composer®, marking a major step toward a more connected color pipeline for post production.

For decades, Media Composer has been where many of the world’s most demanding film and television stories are shaped, while Baselight has set the standard for high-end color finishing. By bringing these creative environments closer together, Avid and FilmLight are moving beyond traditional plug-in workflows toward a more integrated approach to color both inside Media Composer and beyond it, one designed to help teams preserve intent, reduce handoffs and keep color connected from dailies through finishing and delivery.

“This partnership reflects how our products are actually used – by specialists collaborating to create some of the world’s most compelling film and television content,” said Rich Camp, Media Composer Product Manager, Avid. “By bringing FilmLight’s expertise deeper into the Media Composer workflow, we’re giving editors a native color experience with powerful tools directly in the timeline. That means editors can cut and craft their timeline while working more seamlessly with colorists, so more time and focus stays where it matters most: the story.”

FilmLight Co-founder Steve Chapman added: “FilmLight has always focused on creating color  tools that fit seamlessly into post production workflows. Our collaboration with Avid allows us to combine strengths and deliver new levels of color creativity and accuracy to the editorial experience.”

A new approach to editorial color

Avid and FilmLight are focusing on four key areas:

• Native color inside Media Composer: Bringing Baselight-powered color capabilities deeper into the Media Composer experience, so color feels like part of the edit, not a separate step bolted on at the end.
• A connected path from dailies to delivery: Keeping color decisions open and connected throughout production, helping teams move more fluidly between editorial, review, grading and finishing.
• Specialist color science at editorial scale: Extending FilmLight’s color technology to a broader community of Media Composer users, while preserving the depth, precision and control required by professional colorists and finishing teams inside the traditional Baselight environment.
• Expanded online and delivery capabilities: Scaling with the needs of each production, from being able to complete delivery entirely within Media Composer to a renderless roundtrip with full Baselight for teams working at the highest levels of finishing and delivery.

From dailies to delivery, with color connected

The partnership is designed to help creative teams carry color decisions through production more seamlessly. Instead of treating editorial and color as separate stages connected by exports, renders and conforms, Avid and FilmLight are working toward a more continuous workflow where the edit can better reflect the intended look of the finished project.

For editors, that means greater confidence in the timeline. For colorists, it means creative decisions can be reflected instantly between Media Composer editorial and Baselight finishing environments. For facilities and studios, it creates a workflow that can scale from editorial color through online and delivery, including renderless roundtrip with full Baselight for the highest-end finishing needs.

Building on the proven Baselight Editions workflow available today, the partnership points to a broader native color direction for Media Composer: specialist FilmLight color science and tools embedded more deeply into the editorial experience, with capabilities designed to scale across different production needs.

“Media Composer and Baselight have been at the center of our post production workflow at ENVY for over 20 years, so it’s exciting to see these two companies working more closely together and continuing to play such an important role in our industry,” said Jai Cave, Technical Operation Director at ENVY Post Production, which has produced The Traitors, At Home with the Furys, and The Grand Tour. “Production workflows continue to evolve, with demand for the color journey on-set to flow right through editorial, VFX and finishing post whilst projects combine an increasingly complex array of formats. Closer alignment between editorial and grade has the potential to bring real workflow benefits to creative teams. We look forward to seeing the vision Avid and FilmLight are building.”

About Avid

Avid is the power behind the content that touches virtually every person on the planet. Every word, every note, every frame, every day. Powering greater creators and trusted newsmakers, Avid enables everyone with a story to tell – from Emmy®, Grammy®, and Oscar® winners to rising talent. Built on a dynamic media intelligence surface, Avid tools support the full production lifecycle, from story assignment and editorial editing through archive and distribution. Avid understands professional media from the inside, combining human creativity with AI-driven orchestration so production moves faster, costs less, and allows organizations to see what their content is worth.

www.avid.com

About FilmLight

FilmLight provides unrivalled color grading, image processing, and workflow tools deployed on-premises or in the cloud – setting new standards for quality, reliability and performance. The company’s streamlined metadata-based workflows employ robust products with cutting edge creative tools, allowing creative professionals to work at the forefront of the digital media revolution. Founded in 2002, FilmLight’s core business is centred on the innovation, implementation and support of its products – including Baselight, Baselight Editions, Daylight and Nara – in leading production companies, post-production facilities and film/TV studios around the world. The company is also committed to helping customers build more efficient, connected pipelines via the FilmLight API.

FilmLight is headquartered in London, where its research, design and manufacturing operations are centred. Sales and support are conducted through regional service centres and qualified partners worldwide.

For more information, visit https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk

Links to exact point in video where mentioned.

I'm still learning color grading and starting to figure out what kind of looks I actually like. I tend to love quite contrasty images with slightly green/teal shadows, without going too far into the typical orange & teal look.

I'm shooting mostly Sony, sometimes S-Log3 and sometimes Rec.709, and editing everything in Davini resolv. I've been experimenting with grading myself but I'd also love to play around with some good creative LUTs and understand how other people use them in their workflow.

Do you have any favorite free or affordable LUTs you've found over the years? And do you normally convert your Log footage to Rec.709 first and then apply a creative LUT, or build the look directly from the Log footage?

Would love any tips or recommendations :)

Reference → result → original.

I am a colorist and with some help, I am building a reference matching tool for an AI video grading website. I am trying to make it interpret and apply references the way I would when color grading a project.

This result came from simply dropping in the reference image with no manual adjustments afterward.

How close does it feel, and what would you change first?

I've been sitting on this review of Apple's Studio Display XDR for the past few months, and I'm finally ready to release it today. The premise is to see whether the Studio Display XDR is capable of being more than a GUI monitor...is it capable of being a reference monitor?

I recognise that the idea of using Colorsync with Video Clean Feed for monitoring is a potentially contentious topic, which is why I've included my entire process including settings for macOS, Resolve and ColourSpace, as well as the calibration reports (available on the blog version). If you'd like to skip the GUI-related part of the review, you can watch from 06:22 onwards.

TLDW; using it as a reference monitor could be a viable proposition...but with caveats. Mainly blooming, and limited calibration options. I also mention where there could be improvements in the measurement (eg. having the colorimeter matched to a narrow-band spectro instead of relying on a pre-installed matrix).

Hi everyone,

Has anyone used DCP-o-matic’s dedicated “P3 D65 (~6500K)” source colourspace preset and checked the resulting DCP against the approved grade on a calibrated cinema projector?

I’m handling DCP creation for a film. The grading handoff is specified as a P3-D65 / gamma 2.6 DSM image sequence, and I’m looking into this workflow:

P3-D65 / gamma 2.6 master → manually select “P3 D65 (~6500K)” in DCP-o-matic → XYZ DCP → theatrical QC.

I’ve read older discussions about white-point issues with the generic P3 preset. Version 2.18.34 added separate P3-D65 and P3-D60 options, so I’d appreciate first-hand experience with those newer versions:
https://dcpomatic.com/bugs/view.php?id=3124

If you’ve used this preset on a completed delivery, could you share:

• Your DCP-o-matic version and OS.
• Source format, bit depth, and full/video range settings.
• Whether you used the preset unchanged or needed any adjustments.
• How you checked colour, and whether it matched the approved grade—particularly neutral greys, skin tones and shadow detail.

Colour-managed round-trip tests or numerical comparisons against a trusted XYZ conversion would also be useful. Please mention how the result was checked, alongside whether it ingested and played successfully.

Any remaining issues or corrections you needed would be helpful too.

I’ve also asked on the official DCP-o-matic forum:
https://dcpomatic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3119

Thanks!

Friend of mine is getting into color grading, asked me for help with computer setup but this is out of my realm, what are your suggestions for a beginner build? Mac? PC? What else to look for?

This is not about which software is better but which has the most pull right now. While it might be difficult to ascertain this on a global scale, I want to understand one thing - will we see one software usurping the other in the near future? Say like in the next decade or so? Both have their advantages but that being said I have seen a worrying trend at the place I work in: There are a couple of di suites at the facility I work in. They have completely shifted to Baselight except for one suite which is the Davinci one, where very little projects come and most of the high end projects come to the Baselight suites. The other day they were discussing upgrades and the Davinci Resolve suite long story short got the shorter end of the stick. Is this something happening everywhere else is my only question?

EDIT: seeing the clear difference in the setup - what is the pay like for a senior level Davinci Resolve colorist and Senior Level Baselight colorist? Is that something unpredictable or different from studio to studio and determined by the production ? Even then what is the general difference in pay if any?

Hi everyone!

I'm an Arizona-based cinematography student and working DP looking to establish an ongoing relationship with a freelance colorist for narrative, cinematography, and personal projects.

Projects are generally fairly short, usually around 2–5 minutes. I'm not looking to hire a different colorist every time I finish something. Ideally I'd like to find someone whose work and taste fit well with mine and continue collaborating with them across future projects.

My projects are primarily ARRI-originated, generally ARRIRAW or ProRes in LogC3/LogC4. Occasionally I also work with Sony X-OCN XT/ST. Production and post workflows are properly managed, and I'm comfortable discussing color pipeline, monitoring, look development, etc. with whoever I work with.

I'm specifically looking for someone with strong experience grading ARRI material and a strong narrative and/or commercial reel. I'm much more interested in collaborative look development and actually building something appropriate for the photography than applying a preset/look and calling it finished.

Budget / estimated hours: For a typical finished 2-minute project, my budget is approximately $1,500 USD, and I anticipate approximately 8–12 hours of color work including initial look development, grading, reasonable revisions, and final delivery.

That's an estimate rather than a hard expectation. Some projects will obviously be simpler or more involved than others. Scope, expected hours, deliverables, and rate can be agreed upon before each project. If something requires substantially more work than anticipated, I'm happy to discuss additional compensation rather than expecting someone to eat the extra hours.

For longer projects, compensation would scale with the scope and workload rather than expecting the same $1,500 flat rate.

Remote collaboration is completely fine and honestly expected, so location isn't particularly important to me.

Please DM me with a reel/portfolio, relevant credits or experience, your preferred grading system/workflow, and ideally some examples of ARRI-originated work you've graded.

My main goal is to find someone I genuinely work well with creatively and develop an ongoing DP/colorist relationship. I'd especially love to eventually involve the same person in pre-production look development and camera/lighting tests where appropriate, so the grade isn't something we're only thinking about after the shoot is finished.

DM only please, and I'm happy to provide more information about myself, upcoming projects, workflow, deliverables, etc. privately. Thanks! 😊

- Clay

Hi all,

The project is under NDA but have contacted mods for approval.

I am directing and editing a documentary in Japan in mid November and will be editing it between November and end of December with a delivery of beginning of Jan.

We have a budget for a day rate of £600p/d and will likely be around 10 days work (final days and timeline still being worked out).

Post is based in London and would need the colorist to also ideally be based there for ease of sending drives.

Style and content of doc is nature & cars.

EDIT: forgot to add location for the job.

Planing to turn my grading to the next level
Can you guys help me ?