Arnold uses the ACEScg color space by default. This tutorial provides information on how to configure Color Management to work with the OpenColorIO implementation of the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES), as well as a summary of what ACES is. The article is divided into two parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part will help you understand some of the basics of ACES, and how it works, before you get down to the practical part, and consider some of the nuances in setting up Color Management. The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) - is a free, expandable, device-independent color management and image sharing system developed under the auspices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is also a set of technical specifications for working with color, coding, and transformation. This system allows you to store all the data of digital images in the same mathematical space, which allows a more consistent workflow during the transfer of working material between different departments. It is also important that ACES allows you to create archival materials with a high dynamic range and wide color gamut, even taking into account possible future devices. ACES consists of several components: In practice, the RRT and ODT are combined and called an Output Transform. One of the benefits of the ACES system is that it provides Output Transforms for a wide assortment of displays and projectors. You'll want to choose the appropriate Output Transform for your situation based on the following factors: The D60 native white point of the ACES system was chosen because experiments showed that humans subjectively preferred D60 over other white points such as D65. It is also closer to the white point of the motion picture system. If the creative white chosen for your project is D60 but you need to work on a device calibrated to D65, the "D60 sim." version of the Output Transform for your device will give you a more colorimetrically accurate result. Nevertheless, some people prefer using the non-"D60 sim." version since having the image displayed at D60 but the surrounding user interface displayed at D65 can make color judgments more difficult. Gamut comparison (image courtesy of Haarm-Pieter Duiker and Thomas Mansencal) ACES contains different color spaces, we will look at the main ones: The main color spaces for conversion will be: When converting images to sRGB, they will become darker than the original. This is normal and gives you the opportunity to work with higher light values without losing contrast. Remember, if you create a project with ACEScg as the rendering space, you will need to set the Color Space so that all images get correctly converted to ACEScg. Images in other color spaces will look wrong without conversion.
What is ACES and Why is it Recommended?
Some of the ACES features include:ACES Workflow
ACES Output Transform Choices
ACES Color Spaces
Thanks to Doug Walker and Slava Sych for their assistance with this tutorial.