The grade looked right in the suite. Then the notes come in. The marketing manager watched on her laptop and says the interview is too dark.
The CEO opened the link on his phone late at night and wants to know why everyone looks orange. Both notes describe what they saw on their own screens.
Color is the one part of a review where the client’s screen gets a say. You can’t calibrate the client’s laptop, but you can control your own end and ask for notes that still make sense on a bad screen.
In short
- A grading monitor works to a known target, while laptops, phones and players each change the picture their own way.
- Grade on a calibrated monitor and keep one reference device with True Tone, Night Shift and auto-brightness off.
- A usable color note says where, what, which direction and compared to what.
- Agree on one reference frame first, and compare grade versions instead of remembering them.
- Grade after picture lock and stop sending versions once notes go in circles.
Why the same grade looks different on every screen
A grading monitor is set to a known target. The client’s laptop has never been measured, sits next to a window and is set to whatever brightness it had yesterday.
Netflix’s mastering guidelines list the SDR reference monitor as Rec.709 color, BT.1886 gamma (2.4) and 100 nits of peak white, and its remote review guide recommends a dim room lit at a neutral 6500K.
Phones
Phones also change the picture by themselves. On iPhone and iPad, Apple says True Tone is on by default and adjusts the color and intensity of the display to the light around it. Auto-brightness is on by default too and raises the brightness in bright places.
Night Shift, when it’s on, moves the colors to the warmer end of the spectrum, so a note about orange skin sent at 11 pm deserves a question about it.
Samsung phones have a Vivid screen mode that, in Samsung’s words, “optimises the colour range, saturation, and sharpness”.
Players
Players don’t agree either. A video file carries tags that say which color standard it follows, and players read them in different ways, so the same export can look different in QuickTime Player than it did in the grading software.
On the Mac this is an old headache, and Blackmagic added a Rec.709-A option to DaVinci Resolve 16.2.2 for QuickTime Player compatibility. A browser is one more player on that list.
The review copy
Then there’s the review copy. Netflix’s remote review guide notes that most review streams are 8-bit H.264, which can add banding that makes people question the grade. The same guide accepts HD for color decisions, so a 1080p review file is enough.
HDR
HDR is the last trap. On supported iPhones the camera records Dolby Vision HDR unless HDR Video is switched off, and HDR highlights go far above SDR white (Apple’s Reference Mode shows up to 1,000 nits for HDR and 100 for SDR).
An SDR delivery held next to the client’s own HDR clips on the same phone will look flat. Agree on the delivery format in the proposal and that comparison stops being a color note.
What to control on your side
Grade on a calibrated monitor in a room you control, and write the targets down so a freelance colorist works to the same ones.
Keep one reference device for the client’s view, a studio phone or tablet with True Tone, Night Shift and auto-brightness off and the brightness at a fixed level.
On supported iPad Pro models, Reference Mode does this for you. It targets a D65 white point, shows SDR video at up to 100 nits and switches off True Tone, auto-brightness and Night Shift.
Export the review file the way you’ll deliver. For an SDR job that means Rec.709 with color tags that match, and MediaInfo shows the tags if you want to check. Use H.264, which plays in every browser.
Then watch the export itself in QuickTime, in a browser and on the reference device. If any of them disagrees with your monitor, you’ll see it before the client writes about it.
For a TV delivery, check the levels on a waveform before anyone reviews. Rec.709 puts black at 16 and white at 235 on an 8-bit scale, and the broadcaster’s delivery spec says how far past that it lets a picture go. A grade that clips there gets bounced by the channel’s QC, however good it looks to the client.
How to ask for color notes a colorist can use
A usable color note says where, what, which direction and compared to what. “Too dark” says something bothered the client and nothing about what to change.
The comparison matters most. “Too orange” depends on the screen. “Warmer than the opening” holds up on any screen, because both shots went through the same one.
| Vague note | Usable note |
|---|---|
| Too dark | 0:42, I can’t see her eyes. Lift her face and keep the background dark. |
| Everyone looks orange | 1:10 to 1:25, skin is warmer than in the opening. Match the opening. |
| Make the colors pop | 0:20, the box should be the brand blue (reference attached). |
| Looks cold | The office scenes are cooler than the rest. Bring them closer to the café. |
Ask the client to mention the screen they watched on, since “on my phone, at night” changes how you read the note. Our guide to video feedback covers the rest, like one issue per note and a timecode on each.
Settle one reference frame first
Before going through every note, pick one frame that both sides will look at, ideally a face and the product in the same shot. Ask one question about it: does the skin look right on your screen?
If the client sees orange and your reference device shows neutral skin, you’re dealing with their screen, and it’s worth saying so politely before you regrade anything.
For brand colors, ask for the values in the brand guide or an image the client has already approved, and grade the product shot against it.
A circle drawn on the frame settles which object the note is about. There’s more on drawing notes in how to annotate a video.
Compare grade versions instead of remembering them
By the time v3 arrives, nobody remembers the skin tones in v2. Play the two grades together. Side by side shows the overall look, and a split line dragged across a face shows a skin change.
A difference view turns identical pixels black, so a full regrade lights up the whole frame while a fix to one shot should light up only that shot. If other shots light up too, the change spilled. Comparing two versions goes through each view.
When to stop iterating on color
Grade after picture lock. A trim after the grade can drop an ungraded shot into the timeline, one of the mistakes clients notice first. Put the number of color rounds in the proposal the same way you count edit rounds.
You’re going in circles when:
- A note reverses the last one (warmer, then cooler, then warmer again).
- Two people disagree because they watched on different screens.
- The notes describe the device instead of the picture.
Stop sending versions at that point. Look at the grade together on one screen, in your suite or on the reference tablet, and approve the reference frame there.
From then on, a shot that doesn’t match its neighbors is a fix, and “I’d like it cooler” on an approved look is a new round.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview the review player opens on Auto, the adaptive streaming copy, which is re-encoded and can drop resolution on a slow connection. The quality menu (Q on the keyboard, or the settings menu on a phone) also has Original, the file you uploaded, played without that re-encode.
Clients see the same menu, so for a color round ask them to switch to Original before they comment.
Upload the review export in H.264. If the browser can’t play the codec (ProRes, or HEVC in Chrome), Original falls back to the streaming copy.
Each regrade you upload to the task becomes its next numbered version. Compare plays two versions in sync, side by side, split or overlaid, and the overlay has a Difference switch that turns identical pixels black.
The compare view has no quality menu and plays the streaming copies, so use it to see which way the grade moved and make the final call on Original. Clients can compare too when the earlier version is shared with them or the link shows version history.
For the note itself, the client pauses, clicks Draw and circles the face with the pen, arrow, rectangle or circle. For a stretch of shots, I and O on the keyboard mark the start and end, and the comment covers that range.
A brand reference image can go on the comment as an attachment. Version control has the rest.
