Color Grading with Color Management

Many productions today shoot with more than one model of camera, which create images in different color spaces. The final project also often needs to be mastered for delivery to different displays (BT.709, P3, BT.2020, HDR). This is a problem best addressed with carefully constructed color management, yet there is an overwhelming trend in the industry for colorists to simply take images as they come out of the camera, look at them on their display, and twist the knobs until they look “good.” This is something color grading tools were never designed to do well, leaving many scrambling to find lookup tables to achieve the desired look without generating image artifacts. There is a better way-using comprehensive color management as a foundation for creative color correction. Comprehensive color management considers the color space of cameras and displays and connects everything through a common color space for grading. The space chosen to grade in needs to be carefully chosen, as it can have a huge impact on the look, quality, and dynamic range of the images that can be produced with common color grading tools. The Academy Color Encoding System is an example of a framework that can be used in whole or in part to provide comprehensive color management.