In an article unironically titled Don’t repeat these mistakes about color spaces and HDR: insights from the demo “Debunking HDR” by Steve Yedlin (Part 2),” Daniel Bañuelos Cuéllar, a lead editor and post-production supervisor who specializes in HDR workflows and color management, shared some takeaways after watching Yedlin’s presentation. We unpack just a few of the outrageous claims and glaring inaccuracies.
“Extreme brightness does not necessarily improve the image.”
There is nothing extreme about a well-graded show with carefully deployed 1,000-nit highlights. The major studios don’t dictate the peak brightness level of films anyhow.
“When we talk about HDR, what we do use is Rec.2100”
No, we do not. Netflix/Disney/Apple mandate P3-D65 ST2084.
“This [visual anchoring] is key to understanding why some HDR systems end up looking weird or ‘crushed.’”
No, it isn’t. If a grade looks crushed, it’s the fault of the colorist – not biology!
“The eye doesn’t see in absolute nits (nor should it).”
The Claim: “PQ’s absolute values are unnatural because vision is relative.”
The Reality: PQ ST2084 doesn’t ‘fight’ human vision – it honors it. Our eyes don’t see in SDR’s relative percentages. HDR isn’t ‘unnatural’. It’s the first format that speaks your visual cortex’s language.
The author makes numerous dangerously misleading statements about gamuts and transfer functions, of which we’ll highlight just a few.
“Does Rec.2020 look better because it has more colors? Nope.”
Commercial work is mastered at P3-D65, not Rec. 2020.
“Display P3: the color space of Apple monitors, which in many cases simply maps from Rec. 1886 [sic]”
Display P3 is a color space. BT.1886 is a transfer function. One cannot simply “convert” BT.1886 to Display P3 in the manner described.
Bañuelos makes similar blunders in the two following definitions.
“sRGB: it is almost the same as Rec.1886 [sic], but with a slightly different transfer curve.”
sRGB is a color space. BT.1886 is a transfer function. Therefore, sRGB ≠ BT.1886 + “a slightly different transfer function.”
“Rec.2020: it is Rec.1886 [sic] with a wider gamut.”
Rec.2020 is a color space. BT.1886 is an EOTF. It has no primaries. Therefore, Rec.2020 cannot be “BT.1886 + wider gamut” It’s like saying that a bicycle is a toaster on wheels.
FACTS DEMAND CORRECTION
The Daejeon Chronicles 