What happens if you apply the DCTL on a node?
The same thing, unfortunately. I’ve been reading some other posts, and wonder if it’s to do with not using Cuda? I’ve AMD graphics cards.
I really like your plugins btw, the Film Grade one for Resolve is almost a standard for setting the contrast levels of a grade here. Thanks for all the work you do!
Have a look at your DaVinci Resolve log file for an indication as to why the DCTL is not working.
You’ll find the relevant file in this location:
/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/logs/davinci_resolve.log
Thanks for you continued help, I will take a look when I’m back in on Monday.
Hey Michael,
Any luck with the CTL? I get the same error and I’m also on Resolve 16 (16.1.2.026) + AMDs.
Also, thank you @Paul_Dore for sharing it.
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Hi, here is my version of the IDT to ACES.
My coefficients are a little bit different from Paul’s as I found the chromatic adaption for DJI is not use CAT02, I use the same chromatic adaptation of the DJI and I tested on colorspace transformation to REC709 to check it.
I share it here.
@tommyzenth Thank you for the IDT. Does it convert to AP0 or AP1?
edit: Don’t mind the question, I investigated the file and got my answer. Thanks again for the transform
Dear all,
Based on the information in this, more than a year old, thread: I guess that many of us today are using a DCTL-based IDT based on DJI’s White Paper from year 2017 (link earlier in this thread).
Lately, the VFX artists (ACEScg, i.e. Linear AP1) have complained that DJI Drone footage feels “contrasty”, not linearised equally, in comparison to ARRI footage.
Without having dug deeply into the VFX artists’ subjective perceptual experiences yet:
Question 1) Are there any experiences/tests available that are describing whether DJI’s drones, during the five years of new model releases, still are creating nearly identical D-Log & D-Gamut based footage?
Question 2) If there are evolutionary differences between the D-Log & D-Gamut based footage over the years, has anyone or DJI produced additional White Papers, hence additional IDTs?
Thanks in advance!
Kindly, Lars
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Good question. I’m just a simple online editor but every now and then I edit/grade assets that have some drone footage. Every time I think I have the proper conversion lut something feels off again. There are a lot of different DJI devices today and I’m never really sure if it’s shot in true D-Log/D-Gamut and even if it is the sensors seem to vary so much in quality that you just get vastly different results encoding to the same space. I wouldn’t be surprised if the way they transform their sensors to that space varies a lot due to continued improvements over the years when the encoding space itself never changed if that’s a sensible thing to say.
Curious to know more about this.
I am trying to decipher what is going on with the footage I received in DNG format from a DJI Inspire 2 Drone (X7), and I don’t seem to find the correct path. In fact, all the documentation is geared to colorists eyeballing things and of course, that is not good enough for VFX.
Is there anyone that can point me in the right direction? I want to convert the material to ACEScg to be but the current result looks wrong to me.
Thanks in advance.
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Can anyone consider making an DJI IDT for their D-Cinelook capture space, It’s not 709 and it’s not D-Log - So annoying.
Have they published any information about it? Otherwise it would have to be reverse engineered using the black box camera approach being worked on by the IDT VWG.
Alternatively, if it is possible to lock off a camera and shoot exactly the same images in both D-Log/D-Gamut and D-Cinelook, it would be possible to find the corresponding values, and fit a curve and matrix for an IDT based on that.
Lots of great info here as I was searching for how people are handling DJI footage in ACES. Outside of Resolve in a dailies situation utilizing software such as Colorfront EXD, I’m curious how people are handling there not being an IDT for any of these cameras. Anyone’s thoughts would be greatly appreciated thank you!
I’m relatively new to ACES but I’m really trying to make it work for new projects. I also hit the wall on trying to incorporate DJI D-Log footage in Davinci Resolve. It seems odd to me that there isn’t an ACES input transform for this. Almost every television series or feature film I work on has aerials and the majority are DJI and much of the footage is D-Log. Aerial footage is not just a consumer happening, it is serious business in the film and television world. The best workaround I’ve found in Resolve is to apply no input transform and apply and Resolve Color Transform node to each clip used to convert from D-Gamut. This does not help much with gamma, as then clips need to be seriously dialed in to achieve the correct contrast.
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Both primaries and transfer function (gamma) should be converted in the process if you use the CST method. Everything else on the CST should be turned off/set to none except White Point Adaptation.
An alternative is to add a custom IDT to your Resolve via this handy tool.
But the link to directly download it was already posted here.
For Windows you need to place it here:
C:\Users[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\ACES Transforms\IDT
For Mac I don’t know from the top of my head but a quick google search should give you that.
If contrast is still far off from what it’s supposed to be I would suspect that the source isn’t shot in DLog but some other DJI variant that is already transformed to Rec.709 but with different a more sophisitacted curve. Think ‘cinelike’ picture profiles etc. Those custom transfer functions can’t really be defined and mathematically converted so in those cases treating them as Rec.709/2.4 is the best approach and work from there.
Thanks for this, Shebbe. I’ll give this a try and see where I get to. You’ve been very helpful since I joined the ACES community and I appreciate your help.
This looks like what I’ve been looking for to grade D-Log. Can you take a step back for me, if you have time. I’m a colorist, but I’m not technical enough to understand where to install this file? I’m looking through the Resolve library right now looking for an ACES folder that contains input transforms and I don’t see it. Maybe that is not where I should be putting it, anyway, but if you could let me know, would sure appreciate the extra coaching. Thanks
I’ve looked at this tool that’s posted but I don’t understand how to use it. I don’t see any instructions or guidance. I downloaded the ACES_DLog_DGamut.ctl that you are supposed to change to .dctl but where does this go. I’ve looked through libraries for Resolve and don’t see an ACES input transform folder. I would just pay someone to provide me an input transform for D-Log and yes it is definitely D-Log. I’m working on 2 TV series and a feature film, so I don’t have time to be experimenting and need solutions. I committed to ACES for one of the series and am a bit sorry I did. It doesn’t feel good to me and qualifying colors for secondary work is very poor. Resolve’s color tools do not seem to be ACES aware in my opinion. The finest eyedropper selection results in a near full image selection that must be dialed in painstakingly.
Hey Jack,
Perhaps you didn’t fully read my previous post but I already gave you the link to where you can download the .dctl file and also where to put it if you’re Windows based. For Mac you could also google to find the proper folder, I don’t know it from the top of my head.
Hope that helps.
It goes in the DaVinci folder in the User’s Library (not system library):
/Users/user/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/ACES Transforms/IDT
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