How to calibrate your monitor | Color Grading Tips

[@Menoke]

Hey, Thinking of coming to Australia to pursue Filmmaking (Not studying) because I think Australia is where my art will be appreciated the most. Already wrote few films. But Your Studio is definitely a piece of art and team. I"m inspired to see you guys going all along together like a true team. Love you guys. May one day, we'll hang together and most probably work too.

[@Tommirock]

Thanks for your kind words Menoke! Australia is a small industry compared to the USA for example, but it is growing constantly. When you get to Australia be sure to come visit! ❤️

[@mittanorath]

That’s such a lovely thing to say. Thank you Menoke ❤

[@Menoke]

@@Tommirock Definitely! Ah No worries, I'll make this industry big enough. Yes! I'm that person.

[@Menoke]

@@mittanorath Thanks Buddy. Teach me Drums buddy! I would love that.

[@Tommirock]

@@Menoke go get it!! ❤️

[@kirbypfilms1]

Thanks My Guy i just got a new monitor out of all the videos on the sub your video is the only one that makes sense once again Thank You😎

[@Tommirock]

You’re welcome! Glad I could help

[@adamblair-smith3063]

Can you do a deep dive on your displaycal settings? In this video, you only show the 3D-lut page

[@ScandinavianCoward]

The DisplayCal situation is a bit of a pain in the behind - particularly because the software is not maintained anymore.

[@chariesbergero9662]

​@@ScandinavianCoward It's a real shame that it's not updated any more, in fact it doesn't work on a Mac with silicon processors. Have you been able to run this calibration software on an Apple silicon?

[@nashhall694]

Nice work Joel, I use a data colour spyder to calibrate my monitors. (I wish they were Flanders) lol, it’s mainly for accurate colours when printing photographs. I do colour match exactly my photographers wedding photos with my video colours which sometimes can be a challenge, but so far, I’ve been able to do everything very accurately in Resolve. 🤘😝👍🙌

[@Tommirock]

Thanks Nash! That’s great to hear!

[@Benagins]

Which Spyder and monitor do you use? I have an Lg C3 I want to colour match to my MacBook Pro!

[@Tommirock]

@@Benagins I use the xrite i1display pro in this video

[@arweddingfilms]

Timeline Visualization: When you apply a LUT generated by calibration software to your monitor, it adjusts how you see the colors on the timeline of your editing software (e.g., DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, etc.). This LUT is not automatically embedded in the final exported file unless you explicitly apply it during the export process or directly to your footage.

[@Tommirock]

This is correct. However I do not suggest you apply your calibration LUT to any footage you are exporting, this would create some very big issues on your exports.

[@FloAndre.]

Very helpful this video an i have a question i was wonder myself 😊 If i calibrate my monitor and someone else wach my content on another uncalibrated screen do will look the same?

[@Tommirock]

Not that it will look the same, but all the content that person watches on their monitor is what they are used to seeing. We can’t control what or how people view the video, we can only make sure we are setup with the best possible outcome from our end. If your monitor is calibrated, you can ensure what you’re seeing is as close to true as possible, which will translate everywhere else the way they perceive it on their monitor.

[@chariesbergero9662]

when you calibrate the monitor at the side, I mean the monitors where you display the Davinci interfase, which color space did you choose in the calibration software? sRGB or Rec 709? you need to select customs in the monitor, right? In the LG TV, what kind of setting did you choose filmmaker mode? and then you did the calibration ?

[@Jeff_Lathrop]

You want to keep your timeline color space in whatever color space you grade in, lilkey davinci wide gamut. You do want to match your output setting to your calibration, however. The timeline is color space aware, so different tools will behave differently depending how you set the timeline colorspace, but it will not impact the color space transformations.

[@Tommirock]

Thanks Jeff! You are correct!

[@Jeff_Lathrop]

​@Tommirock you bet. Great video!

[@marietafarfarova]

Thank you for sharing your process, Joel! It's so helpful to see how you go about your calibration considering there are so little resources on this online. May I ask one question - is it needed to use a LUT box if the clean feed is going out to a single reference display (unlike your setup where you have two - FSI and LG C2)? What I've been doing is setting the calibration LUT I get after calibrating with DisplayCal in 'Color viewer lookup table' in the Color Management section of Project Settings to ensure this is correcting the clean feed I'm seeing. Would you say this workflow is correct? Thank you for your input in advance!

[@Tommirock]

Hi Marie! My LUT box only serves the purpose for the LG C2. The Flanders holds its own calibration data. The work flow you have there will work just fine if that’s how your using your clean output

[@marietafarfarova]

@@Tommirock Perfect, thank you very much for your helpful reply! ☺️

[@Saba_Demitri]

Sorry to say expected an in-depth video about c2 calibration like how to prepare OLED before calibration, how you connected 2 displays using a single lut box .

[@Tommirock]

Hi Saba! I don’t connect both displays to a single LUT box, the LG C2 is the only display running on the kit box (the Flanders can hold its own calibration data so it is not required) The LG connects to the LUT box inline of the HDMI input cable coming from the ultrastudio 4K

[@morsmediatv-undfilmprodukt3958]

Hi, what LG TV settings do you use for that (service remote, main settings for calibration?) thx!

[@Tommirock]

I’ll do a video on these settings

[@asvestomixZ]

whats the difference between doing it with the way you saw with the lut and with in the calibration software that creates display icc profile??

[@Tommirock]

I’m running my reference display using a Blackmagic ultra studio - this bypasses any operating system graphic processing. Our GUI monitors are running off the operating system, so those are colour corrected ICC profiles.

[@PascalPayantfilms]

Can you explain the lut box? I have the c3 LG . do I need to purchase anything else to color correct the TV ?

[@Tommirock]

Sure! It’s the 12G bidirectional SDI/HDMI converter by Blackmagicdesigns. I think it may be easier if I make a video this week detailing just the LUT box for you

[@PascalPayantfilms]

@@Tommirock that would be great and maybe displaycal too cause it’s not working anymore for some reason. Is there an alternative as a software.

[@Tommirock]

@@PascalPayantfilms we use displayCAL still, just downloaded the latest version also so you should be able to Download it from their website

[@sakisdimoglou1834]

Hi,that’s very helpful video and thank you!! Quick question,having a c2 straight into the gpu of a pc without any output monitoring device,could possibly save the calibration to tv or pc display profile??

[@Tommirock]

Unfortunately I don’t think there is a way to save the profile directly onto the C2 that I know of. Which is why the LUT box does the job for me.

[@sakisdimoglou1834]

Yeah i don’t think so either. I think only Calman will replace existing profile that you’ll choose for the Tv after calibration.

[@superangrysnowman5869]

Do you have any advice on the cd/m2 or brightness level setting? What would be the difference between using 80,100, 120?

[@Tommirock]

SMPTE spec for rec709 is 100nits

[@MrAlifarrukh]

Can you do it with any monitor or specific one?

[@Tommirock]

You can calibrate any monitor using a LUT box and loading a correction LUT into it, however it can’t turn any screen into the perfect calibrated monitor if it’s not built to display the correct colours in the first place.

[@mikes4459]

Hello got a few questions, so once you calibrate the LG in P3 and Rec709 color spaces, Calman will produce a LUT for the two color spaces? So you will have a P3 LUT as well as a Rec709 LUT which you then load into the Lutbox? So for example, if your color grading for Rec709, you open the Lutbox interface and load the Rec709 LUT generated by Calman? Likewise, if your project is intended for P3 - you load the P3 generated LUT in the Lutbox? And from what I read, you output an HDMI cable from the computer into the Lutbox “input”, then from the Lutbox “output” you run a HDMI cable into the “input” of something like the UltraStudio 4K Mini - which you then run a HDMI cable from UltraStudio “output” into the LG tv?

[@Tommirock]

Hi there! Yes I calibrated twice (1 for each Color space) then load the LUT for the Color space I’m working in. The LUT box is placed in between the Ultrastudio HDMI’s output and the TV hdmi input so it corrects the Color in the signal being sent to suit what the TV displays.

[@arweddingfilms]

"Can I ask you a question? You applied a LUT inside DaVinci Resolve, but it was for preview purposes only. How do you export, considering that this LUT doesn’t exist in the export, correct? Can you help me with this, please?"

[@Tommirock]

Hi! Do you mean the calibration LUT we created in this video to load into the LUT box for the LG tv calibration? This was created in DisplayCAL software

[@arweddingfilms]

@@Tommirock Yes, exactly. This LUT is created and applied for visualization only, correct? But how will I export it through DaVinci if it is only for visualization and not embedded in the file? I’m not sure if my question makes sense.

[@arweddingfilms]

@@Tommirock How do you export your videos in DaVinci so that they retain the same color as the LUT used for monitor calibration? When I exported mine, the videos didn’t have the LUT or the same colors...

[@morsmediatv-undfilmprodukt3958]

@@arweddingfilms the LUT used here "only" bends the colors of the preview into a perfect (standardized) picture. So it does touches the export at all.

[@SwoonMotionography]

Thanks for the video, I've been searching for a calibration method for the LG C3 that doesn't require a PC. I see this is very recent. I have the exact same version of DisplayCal on MacOs 14.6.1 and it quits on launch just after the splash screen, is there a trick to this? Cheers Mate.

[@Tommirock]

You’re welcome! Unfortunately I haven’t had an issue ever running DisplayCAL on my Mac, so I’m unable to shine any light on your issue there unfortunately.

[@morsmediatv-undfilmprodukt3958]

I encountered that to be a Apple Silicon thing - intel (I run an older Macbook with Intel + Catalina for that) is fine.

[@rumorscameras]

Why not a dm160 it s oled and nice

[@Tommirock]

Dm160 is a great monitor!

[@deepmusic2456]

P3 gamma 2.4 why not 2.6

[@Tommirock]

The suite isn’t as dark as a cinema, and all monitors are calibrated at Gamma 2.4 for this reason. It is also a nice half way point between 2.2 and 2.6 projects. Once a project is completed we do a transform on the output to our target gamma of 2.6 for cinema delivery.

[@deepmusic2456]

@@Tommirock then what will be nit 100 or 48? With gamma 2.4