[Javier Gonzalez]

Walter,
your questions are great,
i will keep researching and hopefully i find some light,

i have read that adobe was time ago considering adding to after effects
the capability to embed icc profiles on quicktime files, as apparently the latest quicktime spec can read icc profiles,

anyway, lets see,
using an external HD monitor like you do is great,
for critical color evaluation in any case, we can have something like what you do or anyway within AE color managed, and in a profiled monitor, evaluation is good

the issue is more, any of you, once you produce a video, im sure sometimes you want to display it on the internet for example,
all right, now, you know that tons of people are getting wide gamut monitors out there, are people aware that their final video is not going to look ok in people’s wide gamut monitors unless
a) those wide gamut monitors happen to be set to the SRGB mode
b) the internet browser or video player happens to be truly color managed, which means is able to interpret Untagged material, as currently videos are untagged

well
good luck to us all 🙂

[Javier Gonzalez]

obviously yes, if not i wouldnt be posting here 🙂

1) i have profiled my system yes with a good color profiler,
to demonstrate that it works, as i wrote above, Still images look exactly identical in

* After Effects
* Photoshop
* Firefox or IE9 browsers

Identical, therefore my profiling is ok

2) again yes, system wide color management indeed

a) color management on in after effects,
color space is REC 709, when i export i convert to SRGB,
in the case of stills ICC profile gets embedded in file,
in the case of video, video cannot take ICC embedded as we know
in AE

b) I use Firefox latest and IE9 which are color managed
c) my computer is color calibrated, and again
to prove it still images look exactly the same all across all apps and softwares etc

the issue is with videos. That stills are perfect demonstrates my system is well calibrated.
Videos are the only problem.

I see all around the web people complaining about problems with wide gamut monitors + STILL IMAGES, but i hear nothing about VIDEOS

i would love to hear more about people having issues like me with Videos + Wide Gamut monitors

and any suggestions, tips, help

there must be lots of After Effect and Colorist Experts out there
dealing with Wide Gamut Monitors and wanting to see their videos in browsers or through standard windows video players

some people have suggested to switch the wide gamut monitor to SRGB, this is possible yes, but its not recommended for complex reasons which i wont bore you with here

looking forward to any help 🙂

[Javier Gonzalez]

yes, some people have recommended the software
Media Player Classic Home Cinema

i already tried it
however it is not working for me,
the video still shows with the same problems than in other non
color aware applications

i have tried all the combinations of values in the media player classic home cinema software, but with no luck

renderer settings – color management – enabled + options below

[Javier Gonzalez]

This makes all the sense, thank you very much and it also matches with others saying that linear space is good for compositing and VFX but not that needed for color grading

great, so i will go back to Non-Linear in REC709 working space and 32 bits in AE

i wanted to use universal print density working space in case i go to cinema in future, but it doesnt seem to work well in non-linear mode so i guess i will go to REC709 as i read there are some LUTs that potentially allow to go from REC709 to the Cinema Log spaces in case thats needed in future, any opinion about this? (setting working space REC709 as opposed to non-linear universal density print in AE if thats possible, im using Canon 5D Mark II native non transcoded footage)

thank you very much 🙂

[Javier Gonzalez]

maybe color grading in linear spaces (and universal print density) only makes sense with a da vinci resolve, lustre, color or similars?

[Javier Gonzalez]

i read this article
https://prolost.com/blog/2005/1/26/color-correction-in-linear-vs-gamma-corrected-space.html

and now i start to understand some of the weird things i have seen while using colorista ii in some tests yesterday in linear,

i could see that in the highlights strange tintings were happening, obviously after some gamma changes, so now i start to understand some of the risks…

its obvious that to use linear in grading one has to be careful and know what one is doing, at the same time doing any gamma changes at the end, i dont know, sounds complicated, im used to be doing all gamma changes either at beginning or combined with the rest through the process,

all in all it may be safer to stay in non linear with colorista ii in AE, and then i guess stay in a REC709 working space (instead of the intended Universal print density space as that one doesnt seem to work correctly in non linear)

[Javier Gonzalez]

so if a few people are advising not to use linear with colorista ii, then i may have to change, and at the same time if i take linear out, the Universal Print working space i wanted to use seems to behave weirdly in non-linear way,
so i may have to go back to REC709 in non linear as long as use Colorista ii for the grading, oh well, thats a pity

in future i plan to move to using Resolve from davinci and i guess that will be linear all the way

im still trying to find out though for sure that the latest version colorista ii is ok or not to work with linear, or to understand what those changes in gamma people talk about mean

thanks 🙂

[Javier Gonzalez]

i understand and yes i have read many articles and i was worried about that as well; when you mean any gamma change, you mean changes in the luminosity of midtones, shadows or highlights (gain, etc) as opposed to pure changes of color in the color wheels?

im trying to understand if gamma changes refer to actually any changes of brightness in the colorista color wheels

i have been testing and certainly i see how it behaves differently, its very clear to me, although it also seems totally usable, it just behaves differently, but as you say, i have read in other places also about the problems that can happen when changing gamma, so i need to understand what exactly you are referring to when you say changes in gamma, (as we all know gamma is a word we use for describing 1000 things 🙂 ),

are we referring to changes of luminosity in the outside of the color wheels (in shadows, midtones or highlights)

or are we referring to changing the gamma with the Curve controls instead?

or are we referring to what exactly

are we saying that its only safe to change the chroma channels but that anything that changes luminosity can have risks to degrade the image?

are we saying that in general is just a more delicate process that can potentially degrade the quality of the final result?

please give me some light on this 🙂
thank you 🙂

[Javier Gonzalez]

the final doubt i have is this,
i want to work in linear space, 32 bits, and all my grading is done with the Colorista ii plugin in AE, it seems to be working but i read today this

“The advantages and techniques of working linear are well-covered on my blog and in Mark’s book. Linear isn’t better for everything, and Colorista is an example of an effect that works better in gamma-encoded space (or log) than in linear. ”

so i need to find out if Colorista ii is not really ready for linear space, or if the new version, the ii, is ok for linear space,

any ideas?
best
jav

[Javier Gonzalez]

hi and thank you for the reply,
of course my monitor is calibrated properly, also i have read all the adobe whitepapers and other 50 articles online,
i have now found all the explanations thanks to a couple of VFX experts that helped me yesterday, its all good
the gamma shift is due to having a wide gamut monitor and color management off, once color management is on we are seeing the right response as the output adapts to an specific color space
have a great day
jav