My rec709 PNG artwork with white text looks normal, but after a view transform, to get it into ACES, the whites look totally crunched up in the action/ Aces comp.
How can I fix this?
Thaaaaanks!
Grant
My rec709 PNG artwork with white text looks normal, but after a view transform, to get it into ACES, the whites look totally crunched up in the action/ Aces comp.
How can I fix this?
Thaaaaanks!
Grant
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Youāll have to Input Transform and grade.
An Input Transform keeps the math of a Rec to ACEScg at the expense of changing what it looks like, which can be overcome by grading. An Inversed View Transform from ACEScg to Rec 709 keeps the image looking to be the same at the expense of the math. The whites of your inversed View Transform are super white, vastly above 1, likely in the 5-7+ range, and therefore become the hottest thing in your new ACEScg comp.
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Try doing a transform from rec709 to smtpe2084 and then on the timeline go from smpte 2084 to aces.
The conversion from Rec709 to aces isnāt pretty but if you try the trick I mentioned you should be happier
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Cooooool thanks!
Hey Randy, does this mean rec to Aces will never be totally colour accurate? You just have to grade it as close as you canā¦Would that also imply that if colours need to 100% as supplied in rec, youād need to comp in rec?
Thaaaanks!
Welcome mate to frustration club. I know how you feel. 
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ACES is 100% color accurate (well, if done on calibrated displaying device and viewed with correct ODT, of course).
When you comp in ACES (or any other scene-revered workflow) you basicaly change real world colors, and should treat it accordingly.
From your screenshot it seems, that you try to make some kind of screen replace. Lets imaging, that there is no way to comp, and you need to shoot it in real life. You take your screen and try to play what you need to comp on it. Will it look color accurate on camera? No. It will never wiil be. The only option to make it color accurate in real life is to grade what comes to screen. Same here - just balance color accurate/looks right with grading inside your flame comp.
I hope I clearly explained what I wanted to say.
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Thatās cool Val, I hear you!
Would be super to catch up with you soon on a few small calibration questions?
Thaaaaanks!
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Drop me a line in Discord and we will try to arrange something
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Iāll look forward to that Val, just getting a job out of the way and Iāll be in touch!
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for bringing REC into aces there is always the question HOW as zou are bringing it into a scene.
Imagine you are provided a PDF and need to bring it into a real scene on set, how do you do it? You can either print it out and film it, now it depends on if you use glossy paper or matte and how its lit, so in that case the Rec stuff would be like a print out, this is the default behaviour of how aces works, now because of that it will look a bit dull.
OR you can bring it in as a self illuminating surface, but how should it be illuminated, same problem as putting a graphic on a phone and shooting it, it depends on how you do it.
So for screen replacement I generally approach them like this:
-if it should be realisticā¦ use the texture approach and dial in the luminance using a mastergrade set to linear and only use the exposure dial
-if you client doesnt give a flying *** and they want it to BE THE SAME and you can live with it breaking in grading possible you can use the inverse view transform, you get very weird values but if your ODT matches the IDT ānothingā will happen to the graphic other than a issue with yellows because the ODT /RRT is not 100% inversibleā¦
Just dont forget that you are comping in some possibly 8bit SDR crap into a High dynamic range imageā¦ and if you want all the flexibillity in grading this is the way.
Other option is of course just to comp in a display reffered space like rec709 or whatever. like if you grade in flame.
Basically how we used to do it is wrong, now we do it the right way and it feels weird. We have all been there 
Oh and for full screen logos and stuff, those are to be added after grading in any case so for those you can skip aces and just call it a day (i am not going to talk about how wrong it is to comp sRGb graphics over rec709 graded footage but thats what clients want)
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