Math & Colour Science For Colourists (MCSC)

2026‑01‑10

Many practising colourists are accomplished in using their colour grading systems, but are missing the deep fundamentals of colour science and math. There are no textbooks that cover cover the math and science of grading, and available training courses have incomplete – or worse, misguided! – coverage of these topics. In this course, I will fill-in the foundations.

Starting mid February, I’ll present Colour Science and Math for Colourists, in twelve, 90-minute online sessions: one session weekly, across three months – so, 18 hours of course time in total, equivalent to about 2.5 work days.

  • One 90‑minute online session weekly, proposed on Tuesday, expected to include questions and vibrant discussion (with video recording available afterward). To start Feb 10: 18:00 Europe, 17:00 UK, 12:00 Eastern, 09:00 Pacific.

  • PDF course handout each month, ~100 pages in total (30 pages for each of 3 months)

  • online forum for discussions among participants & instructor

I expect that many people interested have already had training in a colour grading system (most probably, DaVinci Resolve). What I am offering goes beyond training into education in the principles of colour science as applied to image systems in general – and specifically, cameras, displays, and grading systems. You’ll gain a deep understanding of the building blocks and the pipelines. The course material is directly applicable to Resolve, Baselight, and other grading and on-set systems. I’ll teach the fundamentals of techniques that are often used without a complete understanding of the big picture. (I will not teach hints, tips, tricks, or user interfaces.)

Graphs and equations will be shown and explained. If you have first-year university math: great! You’ll gain a deeper understanding of log coding, the CIE chromaticity diagram, and other things. If you have high-school math, you’ll still follow, and you’ll increase your understanding of how math informs image and color science.

To enable lively interaction, I plan to limit the course to 20 participants, and plan to have “cameras on.” If the course is oversubscribed, I will consider a second (parallel) cohort, potentially with time of day adjusted (possibly Toronto 22:00) to be more convenient for India, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. You’re expected to attend classes; however, video recording will be made available after each session for those who are unable to attend, and for those who wish to retain a recording for their own personal use.

Price is USD 1080.00 (equivalent to 90.00/session).

The material will be presented in 12 sessions, roughly as follows:

FUNDAMENTALS

  • questions & axioms: Dirk [most important piece of equipment], Charles [Axiom Zero, “reproduction”], Troy [image formation]
  • fundamentals & terminology; radiometry & photometry; units of light;
  • RGB/CMY mixtures; idealized additive RGB; mosaic & Bayer [RGB cube; visualization]
  • photon path; sensels, pixels, subpixels; perceptual uniformity;
  • the “‑nesses”; CIE metric lightness \(L^*\); bit depths

MATH (I)

  • notation; functions; linearity & nonlinearity; \(y = A·x + B\)
  • vectors; 3×3 matrices; introduction to linear algebra (“channel mixer”)
  • computing fundamentals & tools (W|A, python);
  • algebraic & numerical approaches

CLASSIC COLORIMETRY

  • from spectral distribution to tristimulus values;
  • LMS, CIE XYZ, [x, y] chromaticity,
  • RGB; white point, CCT; affine transforms;
  • colourspaces; luma; colour difference systems; LAB;

DISPLAY TECH

  • various display technologies including LCD, OLED, QD‑OLED, Xe and laser projectors;
  • display signal processing; EOTF
  • CONTRAST & BRIGHTNESS (and a 75‑year‑old terminology problem)

IMAGE SIGNAL CODING

  • digitization; sampling & quantization;
  • full/legal range;
  • SDI, HDMI;
  • luma & colour differences; chroma subsampling; 4:2:2; \(Y’C_{\mathrm B}C_{\mathrm R}\), \(I’C_{\mathrm T}C_{\mathrm P}\)
  • LUTs: 1D, 3D; technical & creative LUTs; interpolation (eg, tetrahedral)

MASTERING, METADATA, DISTRIBUTION

  • fundamentals of HDR & WCG; colourspace summary
  • colour calibration;
  • metadata (incl. colr, nclc/nclx, gama, and “Rec. 709‑A”); delivery

MATH (II)

  • perceptual uniformity refresher;
  • log, exponential, and power (gamma) functions;
  • bit depth; stops & density units; LV & EV; optical density; Beer’s law;
  • gamma & log coding; OpenEXR; floating point; PQ; HLG;

PHOTOCHEMISTRY & DENSITOMETRY

  • photochemical film: H & D, D-log E;
  • classic colour timing;
  • OCN//IP//IN//RP; printer lights (“points”);
  • Cineon/CPD/DPX;

SENSOR & CAMERA TECH

  • OETF; camera spectral constraints, Luther/Ives condition; introduction to metamerism
  • gamut, gamut mismatch, gamut mapping;
  • IDTs/CFMs; why “colour correction”/CCM is the wrong concept for cameras

COLOUR APPEARANCE

  • appearance attributes;
  • Axiom Zero; classic HD pipeline;
  • chromatic adaptation (eg, Bradford); hue uniformity;
  • colour appearance models including CAM16, T-CAM, JzAzBz, OpenDRT;
  • display mapping, ICTCP

COLOUR PIPELINES & ACES

  • HD; scene referred and display referred pipelines;
  • modern cinema pipeline;
  • ACES 1.x & 2.0 (OETF//OETF⁻¹//LMT//DRT//EOTF⁻¹//DM//EOTF)

COLOUR GRADING

  • modern grading: “video” and “film” grading;
  • grading controls (lift-gamma-gain-offset; exposure, saturation, “temperature”);
  • node graphs; LUTs; formula transforms; ctl, OpenColorIO

Registrants successfully completing the course (after passing the final exam) will receive a certificate and, upon request, be listed on Poynton.ca.

WARNING: The presenter is Canadian; colour will be spelled with a “u.”

Charles Poynton is an independent researcher and image/colour scientist based in Toronto. He wrote the book Digital Video and HD Algorithms and Interfaces, now in its second edition. Thirty years ago, he chose 1080 image rows for HD standards, by which “square pixels” were established for HD and digital cinema. He earned his PhD in 2018 from Simon Fraser University with a dissertation entitled Colour Appearance Issues in Digital Video, HD/UHD, and D‑cinema. ∎