Post-Production

What Is a DRT in DaVinci Resolve, and Which Ones Are Worth Using?

A display rendering transform shapes your footage before you grade. Here are the five DRTs Sam Davison compares for DaVinci Resolve, plus a few more worth trying.

A display rendering transform, or DRT, turns log or scene-linear footage into a picture for your display, such as Rec.709. It sets the image’s contrast, highlight roll-off, and color before you start building a look.

In a recent video, colorist Sam Davison puts the stakes plainly: before look development, “your choice of DRT can take you 80% of the way to your intended grade.” He compares five alternatives to Resolve’s stock Color Space Transform, and four of them are free.

What a DRT Does

Log footage is flat by design, storing a wide range of light for later. A DRT maps that range onto a display, deciding how highlights roll off, how saturated colors compress, and where contrast sits.

Resolve’s default route is a Color Space Transform with tone mapping, either in a node or through Resolve Color Management. A different DRT changes the base image you grade on top of, so the same corrections land differently.

The Five DRTs Sam Davison Compares

OpenDRT. Jed Smith’s open-source display transform, released under the GPL-3.0 license. The project describes it as a picture formation approach that puts as much control as possible in the image author’s hands, and it ships as a DCTL for Resolve Studio.

JP 2499. A free DCTL from Juan Pablo Zambrano, hosted on GitHub. Sam covers it as a second free option alongside OpenDRT.

Referent. A free set of viewing LUTs from colorist Cullen Kelly. He describes it as a one-step finished image with full contrast and rich skin tones, with a LUT for each major log format plus a DaVinci Wide Gamut version.

Genesis. Cullen Kelly’s paid film emulation plugin, built with film chemist Dr. Mitch Bogdanowicz and cinematographer Steve Yedlin. It models 42 negative and 13 print stocks and is the only paid tool on Sam’s list.

SpektraFilm. A free OpenFX plugin that simulates film by reconstructing the image as light spectra, then running it through negative, print, and scan stages. It is in beta for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Other Options Worth Knowing

ACES 2.0 Output Transform. Resolve 20 added ACES 2.0, and Resolve 20.1 added parametric ACES 2.0 output transforms through DCTL. It is built in, free, and widely used as a common reference across facilities.

ARRI’s REVEAL LUTs. ARRI offers free LogC4 to Rec.709 LUTs and its ARRI Reference Tool for its REVEAL color science. They are a natural fit for ALEXA footage, and some colorists use them on other cameras after a transform to LogC4.

FilmConvert Nitrate. A paid film emulation plugin with camera-specific profiles. FilmConvert lists the DaVinci Resolve plugin at $119.

Dehancer Pro. A paid film emulation suite with over 60 film profiles, print films, grain, halation, and bloom. It offers a free trial.

Competitive Context

These tools fall into two groups. OpenDRT, JP 2499, Referent, ACES 2.0, and ARRI’s LUTs are display transforms, meant to give you a neutral, well-behaved base to grade on.

Genesis, SpektraFilm, FilmConvert, and Dehancer go further into film emulation, with stocks, grain, and halation. Some of them also handle the display transform, so they can replace the stock CST rather than sitting on top of it.

The Signal in the Noise

The DRT is the first creative decision in a grade, even though it often gets treated as a technical default. Picking one early means fewer nodes compensating for a base image you do not like.

Start with a free option and test it on your own footage, especially skin tones and bright, saturated light. If you want a full film pipeline, Genesis and the other paid plugins offer trials before you buy.

One practical note: DCTLs such as OpenDRT run in Resolve Studio, while LUT-based options like Referent work in the free version of Resolve.

Which DRT do you start your grades with?