The great part is, after you have applied the sRGB tool to the player once it will automatically be applied for each project from then on. Of course, you can remove it too if you do a composite involving files with a 2.2 gamma baked in.

Doing this has told Composite to calculate everything with a gamma of 1.0, put display it with a gamma of 2.2. If you would like to bake gamma 2.2 into your final output, simply add a Remap Color tool just before your Output node, and set the Gamma to 2.2 for the R, G and B values. The preview in your Player will look washed out, because the Player is taking the output of the Remap Color which changed the gamma to 2.2 and adding a display gamma of 2.2. This doesn't affect rendering though; your files will be saved with gamma 2.2 (Fig.11 – 12).

The Foundry Nuke – Node Based Compositor

Nuke is the industry standard in compositing applications. Its huge feature list, flexibility and raw power have made it the only choice for studios around the world. So, it can only be expected that Nuke works perfectly and is even optimized for an .EXR based Linear Workflow. Of course, you can also use other image extensions if you so choose.

All you have to do in Nuke is set Colorspace to Linear on your Read node (which is the default), and sRGB for your Viewer Process Operation (which is also the default in Nuke) (Fig.13 – 14).



That's it! Now your images will be processed with a gamma of 1.0, but displayed with a gamma of 2.2.
If you want to bake gamma 2.2 into your render output, on your Write node simply change Colorspace to either sRGB or Gamma 2.2 (very slight differences – may depend on your monitor calibration)(Fig.15).

Part 5: Final Thoughts and Comments

Using a linear workflow is a great skill to have in your arsenal, and once you have become accustomed to it you won't want it any other way.

What artists who are new to linear workflow get most annoyed at is the different working experience. To achieve the results you have been previously, you have had to cheat even if you don't realize it. Adding ambient lights to brighten areas, increasing GI or Final Gather settings to get the light to bounce further around the scene, setting light multipliers to high values, not using light falloff due to areas blowing out to white, using exposure controls to prevent clipping of white values… the list goes on.

It might take a short amount of time to get used to not cheating reality with your renders, but once you do you will realize what you have been missing out on all these years. So stick with it and you will be extremely happy with the results.

Extras

If you would like to see more of my tutorials, please visit my blog and YouTube pages:

• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/coldsidedigital
• Blog: http://coldsidedigital.tumblr.com

I can also be contacted through both of those websites, or you can email me: daniel@inthefleshart.com

I ask that you please don't redistribute this document, but rather share the link where you downloaded this from.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial, and found it helpful.

Regards, Daniel Dye