Category: Color Grading / DaVinci Resolve

You are finishing up your first HDR project. The footage looks incredible—bright highlights, deep blacks, popping colors. Then you add a title. You set the color to "Pure White." But on your monitor, it looks… Grey.

It looks like a dull, 50% grey patch floating on top of your vibrant video. No matter how much you crank the "Gain" slider, it refuses to get brighter.

This isn't a bug; it's a feature of Color Management. Here is why Resolve is dimming your text and the three ways to force it to be bright again.

The Problem: 100 Nits vs. 1000 Nits

In the old world (SDR), "White" was defined as 100 Nits of brightness. In the new world (HDR), "White" can be 1,000 Nits or more.

When you work in a Color Managed Workflow (RCM) or ACES, Resolve tries to be "technically correct." It assumes that your text graphic was created in SDR. So, it maps your "White Text" to 100 Nits. Against a background of HDR footage (where the sun might be 4,000 nits), 100 nits looks like dark grey.

Fix 1: The Global Setting (The Easy Way)

If you are using DaVinci YRGB Color Managed, there is a global setting that controls this.

1. Go to Project Settings (Gear Icon) > Color Management.

2. Look for a setting called "Graphics White Level" (usually defaulting to 100 or 203 nits).

3. Change this to 1000 nits (or whatever your peak brightness is).

   • Note: This works great for standard Text titles, but sometimes fails for Text+ (Fusion) clips because Fusion ignores project settings.

Fix 2: The CST Method (The "Pro" Way)

If the global setting doesn't work (common with Fusion/Text+ titles), you need to manually tell Resolve: "Hey, treat this text as HDR."

1. Go to the Color Page.

2. Select your Text clip.

3. Add a Node and drop a Color Space Transform (CST) effect on it.

4. Input Color Space: Rec.709

5. Input Gamma: Gamma 2.4 (or Linear if it’s from Fusion).

6. Output Color Space: Rec.2100

7. Output Gamma: Rec.2100 ST2084 (PQ) or HLG (match your timeline).

8. Crucial Step: Go to "Tone Mapping" and set it to None.

This forces the text signal to bypass the "safety" mapping and output raw, bright white.

Fix 3: The "Render in Place" Workaround

If you are in a rush and just want it to work:

1. Right-click the text clip in your timeline.

2. Select Render in Place.

3. Choose a high-quality codec like DNxHR 444 or ProRes 4444 (to keep the transparency).

4. Once it is rendered into a video file, Resolve treats it like media, and it often snaps to the correct brightness level instantly.

Summary

Don't trust your eyes; trust the math. Your text looks grey because Resolve is protecting you from "illegal" brightness levels. Use a Color Space Transform (CST) to manually map your text from SDR to HDR, and your titles will pop again.