Best Color Profile For Imac 5k

Hi all,

I’m grading on an iMac 5k brandish and I’chiliad wondering if I am using the right settings to be grading off of it. (I know I need to transport the point out simply since I’one thousand somewhat of a newbie I’m not at the point where I need a broadcast monitor even so.) I fabricated a calibration LUT (iMac P3 to Rec. 709) with DisplayCAL and an Xrite i1probe. I applied that LUT to my display so in Davinci, I set my settings to “Utilise iMac display contour.” Is that all I need to do? Should I also apply the lut to my viewer? Any insight would be much appreciated.

How-do-you-do! I’thou not an OSX user but tin hopefully requite you some help anyhow.

Since you’re applying the LUT to OSX, “everything” that you lot brandish on your monitor through your operating system should be mapped to the Rec.709/sRGB color gamut (especially since OSX is supposed to maintain the selected color profile regardless of what software you’re using, from what I’ve understood at least). Therefore, by applying the LUT over again in Resolve would probably give you some very obvious problems in colour reproduction.

Please note that the LUT y’all’ve created is only designed to compensate for your display and how it reproduces colors, greyscale and white balance. In other words, it makes your iMac brandish a more accurate paradigm and doesn’t alter the stored data in whatever project you’re working with. Double check that you’re non applying the LUT to your timeline.

One thing you lot can exercise, if you have access to Windows, is to measure the gamut and white point in Resolve with the help of CalMAN Colour Checker (which is free and can employ Resolve as a blueprint generator). If information technology maps to Rec.709 properly y’all’re certainly fugitive the issues you’re asking about.

I call up i issue with Imac and Resolve was that the “use iMac Display profile” could merely use the standard profiles provided by apple tree, and not custom profiles. I’m non certain if that is the case anymore, every bit I’m not using Mac day-to-day. Hope some Mac users can chinkle in on this.

macs apply at least 3 different color profiles depending on model, screen size, and yr. http://www.astramael.com/
that resolve checkbox feature probably is difficult coded and about likely hasn’t been updated in years.

I remember virtually Imac users who don’t take an external monitor are grading in Apple tree P3 without realizing it…

i recollect it depends greatly on the NLE. In Premiere, for case, all input is impaired hard coded to rec 709 2.ii D65 regardless of what the source footage is, and there’s nowhere to override this without making a custom lut somewhere else. Also, it bypasses any profile calibrations fabricated as well. (Information technology basically ignores your monitor profile.) So for the last few years, all mac users have been thinking premiere pro doesn’t work considering information technology doesn’t match quicktime player or youtube, when in fact, quicktime and youtube are the wrong ones, existence 1.8 gamma and 16-235! Granted, at that place’due south exceptions to this for youtube being re-touched to convert vp9 to h264 or certain video level codecs, simply everyone’s assumptions are wrong. some other assumption that is wrong is that premiere’southward gui is not accurate. I have done extensive pixel sampling and information technology is 100% rgb perfect for rec. 709 for native video.

For resolve, the “Use iMac Brandish profile” is probably not interpreting the native colour profile of the monitor equally resolve is lut based not icc, icm based. I could exist wrong near this as I don’t own a mac, but it’s the almost likely answer. I know it does get them closer, simply closer to what? P3? that’southward withal another layer of abstraction that is wrong for youtube anyway. Has anyone actually done whatever tests with it? I experience like everyone keeps compounding the problem past regurgitating outdated, unverified information, nigh notably beingness.”NLE’s” are completely useless without an external Decklink monitor.”

You’re suggesting that Adobe Premiere is colormanged? Certain? I dubiety it.

There are two different approaches to internal brandish calibration.

One is to utilize ICC profiles, every bit you seem to be doing.
The second is to disable all ICC profiles and use a LUT in the ‘Output Display LUT’ or ‘GUI Display LUT’ slot within Resolve.
Either should piece of work, only the second arroyo is simpler, and therefore generally more reliable.

When using ICC profiles it is very easy to not really empathise what is active, and what is non, such as the VCGT, and if the software is interpreting the ICC correctly, assuming the software is ICC complaint, and even if the OS is really using the ICC organisation wide, or not.
(Mac is ‘supposed’ to utilize ICC systems broad, while Windows doesn’t…)

I’d take the approach of loading a Null/Bypass ICC, and using a separate 3D LUT.
(Mac doesn’t seem to be able to ‘turn off’ it’s color management, while Windows can. Hence the need for a Null/Bypass ICC.)

But, it is always a very good idea to apply an external organization to verify the display later on scale.
Whatever system that tin can read data from a probe should work, depending on what Os y’all have admission to.
There are a number of free options, including LightSpace DPS and HCFR.

Steve

Am I the only ane who thinks that option “Use Mac Display profile” makes GUI image similar to grading monitor?

For me, this choice removes oversaturation and fixes contrast. When turned on, image in Resolve viewer looks almost similar my grading monitor (much amend than disabling that pick)… I did’t calibrate my GUI monitors with 3D LUT, but simple ICC calibration using DisplayCAL.

If you take a good ICC profile, that is matched to your brandish’s underlying characteristics, it should indeed exercise as you say.
Information technology’s unlikely to accurate plenty for ‘grading’, simply should indeed amend things.

Steve

premiere’southward gui is 0-255 D65 rec. 709 gamma 2.ii verified confronting other colour managed programs via straight 1:one individual pixel sampling. information technology doesn’t back up colour management itself but its gui is a straight representation of this model, which means an adjustment layer transform lut tin ready this per sequence.

proof that premiere’s color engine is rec. 709 only and permanently clips all color gamut to that upon import.
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2383492

If yous have a non-colormanaged software like Premiere or Resolve, the monitor defines the color space, if information technology’s rec709, you’re grading in rec709, if it’s p3, you’re grading in P3…

i have no idea what you but said, simply my kickoff gauge is that yous are saying that, by default, the not-colour-managed awarding volition be affected by whatsoever icc profile is currently loaded by the bone. this is not true for premiere, as information technology force snaps back into rec. 709 a split second later any changes. try information technology!

Furthermore, if you lot apply an external p3 monitor for premiere, and grade in it, your exports will wait wrong because premere’south engine will export it as rec. 709 all the same. As Shaw has proposed, ‘using a “pass through lut”‘ <endquote> will only simply brand the other awarding look like premiere.

My monitor is hardware calibrated and information technology’s continued via decklink card to the estimator, so I’1000 bypassing the OS color management and have no icc-profiles in the chain.

yes, only is information technology calibrated P3 or rec. 709? there’due south the rub. besides, equally a side notation, mercury transmit forces all colors to output equally rec 709.

Something is not making sense here…
All color in any program is basically RGB eight, x, or 12 bit data.
Let’south say 8 bit for simplicity sake.
For whatever given colour the RGB range is 0 to 255 (or potentially 16-235).
Regardless, that is the color data that will be sent to the display.
So 100% red will be 255,0,0.
The brandish volition show that red at the maximum gamut it can, based on its ‘scale’.
If there is an ICC active, and assuming the artistic software is ICC compliant, the display max gamut for an input red of 255,0,0 may be limited to the ICC’due south target color infinite.
If there is no ICC agile, the gamut shown for the 255,0,0 signal will be the max the display is set to itself.
That could be whatever gamut, depending in the internal calibration if the brandish, if it has ‘calibration’.
The ICC can merely perform gamut limiting IF it knows the actual max gamut of the brandish.
Creative software cannot limit colours to a fixed gamut without the use of an ICC (or better, a LUT), based on the actual gamut capabilities of your display.

Steve

I have an older MacBook that is calibrated with i1 display. It’s non a wide gamut display and the consequence is very shut to my truly calibrated Rec709 display.

Turning on the “utilize Mac display calibration” in resolve makes an inaccurate display. It should brand very little difference with my display, but it does.

Something. Is broken with this feature and I propose not using it.

The proper approach is to create a 3D LUT with the display in whatever country you ordinarily employ it and employ the LUT in resolve. It’s the only style to limit the wide gamut Mac display to REC709

I take just tested Premiere on my Windows PC, with no active ICC profiles.
(I simply always employ external 3D LUTs for display calibration.)
Every bit expected, there is no attempt past Premiere to perform any form of colour direction.

I have a display that is calibrated with internal 3D LUTs, and take different calibrations for different slots – Rec709, P3, and native gamut.
The image frm Premiere is exactly equally information technology should be when the selected display calibration slot is changed.

There is basically no way Premiere could perform any color management, equally there are no active ICC profiles.

I’m not a fan of Macs, in office considering of the poor way it handles ICC profiles and calibration.
You cannot delete/remove all ICCs, and the but style I have found to defeat its internal calibration attempts is to load a Null/Bypass ICC.

Steve

Fix
Colour/GAMMA SHIFTS ON Apple (iMac) P3 RETINA DISPLAYS

TAKEN FROM MY WEBSITE, READ More AT https://www.sebastianleitner.com/
(cheque out my DCP course and hit “show more than”)

it’southward non really a issues, more of an Apple-feature gone wrong (sounds familiar?). Apple introduced something called ColorSync a longer while back, initially meant for images (impress/scan/preview) simply. A shorter while dorsum Apple broadened its functionality to cover video likewise – to ensure display accuracy beyond all Apple devices and systems. So, absurd, macOS now makes sure your pictures and videos look the aforementioned on all (Apple tree) devices – but there is a catch: simply Apple software (well, generally*) supports this – namely QuickTime, Safari, Concluding Cut Pro X and QuickLook) – and you volition come across lots of troubles with other, non-Apple, apps (east.g. Adobe Premiere Pro, VLC or say Firefox and YouTube), obviously this color sync would non work on a non-Apple hardware product likewise, then expect strong shifts in color and gamma in “the real earth”.

The reason being ColorSync enables certain LUTs for your graphics card in the background on a arrangement level to compensate and shift color+gamma levels accordingly, trying to brand the best of your wide gamut, P3 display. It sounds highly advantageous and absurd simply in the end you just don’t encounter the “existent” paradigm, meaning its raw values but shifted ones instead. Yous want to see a truthful reference prototype which is certainly possible on those really great Apple tree (movie theatre) displays.

The quickest, costless solution is like shooting fish in a barrel only kind of secret and not well documented at all! You need a brandish profile that circumvents ColorSync, tricking your system into displaying raw values just without transforming them! And the just profile (provided by Apple in 2012 by the style) to do so is called Hard disk 709-A. Some people don’t have information technology for some reason even though it’s by Apple, then yous can download it below (and put information technology in “User/Library/Color Sync/Profiles”)! It will accept care of this tedious issue once and for all. In my experience, colour and gamma are consistent across all kinds of different systems and hardware setups – yeah, fifty-fifty broadcast monitoring/referencing setups. NOT movie theatre manifestly, since the color standard in that location is DCI P3 in XYZ levels – non RGB (this is how all digital displays work).

download: https://www.sebastianleitner.com/HD709-A.zip