Cinematic Color

Motion-Picture Color Management

This paper presents an introduction to the color pipelines behind modern feature-film visual-effects and animation:

Cinematic Color: From Your Monitor to the Big Screen (pdf, 6.6 MB)

A VES Technology Committee White Paper

Authored by Jeremy Selan, and reviewed by the members of the VES Technology Committee including Rob Bredow, Dan Candela, Nick Cannon, Paul Debevec, Ray Feeney, Andy Hendrickson, Gautham Krishnamurti, Sam Richards, Jordan Soles, and Sebastian Sylwan.

The VES Technology Committee has assembled an expert panel that can be reached at ves-tech-color@googlegroups.com with questions, comments and errata related to this document.

Topic Listing

Color Science Basics
Color Encoding, Color Space, Image States
Display-Referred Imagery
Scene-Referred Imagery
Color Correction, Color Space, "Log"
Motion-Picture Color Management
Digital Intermediate, Mastering, Delivery
Lighting, Rendering, Shading
Compositing
Texture and Matte Painting
Critical Inspection of Imagery
ACES
OpenColorIO
Lookup Tables (LUTs)
ASC-CDL
File Formats
DCI P3 and X'Y'Z'

External Links

OpenColorIO (Github) - Color framework for visual effects and animation
Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) - Future motion-picture colorimetry standard
ACES 1.0.1 OpenColorIO config - OpenColorIO implementation of the ACES 1.0.1 release
Bruce Lindbloom - Online resource for color conversion math
Open-Source VFX - A directory of Open-Source projects for the VFX community
Poynton - Information on video standards and gamma
Visualizing the XYZ Color Space - Visual exploration of CIE XYZ
DCraw - Free, high quality, camera raw conversion
DCI Specification - Theatrical digital distribution and colorimetry standard
Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) - Future motion-picture colorimetry standard
Real-Time Rendering (Blog) - A great online CG resource, often with a color theme.
Sony Pictures Imageworks (Open-Source) (Github) - VFX / Animation Studio

Siggraph 2012 Course

This document originated as a companion to the Siggraph 2012 Course, Cinematic Color: From Your Monitor to the Big Screen. Original course notes available for download: (pdf, 6.4 MB)