Getting Started - An Overview of ACES¶

What is ACES?¶

The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is an industry standard for managing color and digital files throughout the lifecycle of almost any media production, from motion pictures to television, video games, or immersive storytelling projects. ACES can ensure a consistent color experience to preserve the creator's vision through all phases of prodution - from image capture through editing, VFX, mastering, public presentation, archiving, and future remastering.

ACES is free and open-source and dozens of companies have built ACES components into their tools.

flowchart LR
  id1[/Camera 1/] --> id4["Input 
  Transform"] --> id7(((ACES)))
  id2[/Camera 2/] --> id5["Input 
  Transform"] --> id7
  id3[/CGI/] --> id6["ACEScg
  to
  ACES"] --> id7
  id7 --> id8{{"Output
  Transform"}} 
  id8 --> id9["Display 
  Encoding"] --> id12[/"HDR 
  Video"/]
  id8 --> id10["Display 
  Encoding"] --> id13[/"Cinema 
  Projector"/]
  id8 --> id11["Display 
  Encoding"] --> id14[/"SDR 
  Video"/]
  ;

Basic ACES Workflow¶

Why use ACES?¶

ACES can help to:

simplify camera matching in DI;
preserve original camera fidelity;
remove ambiguity in communcation of image files in multi-vendor workflows;
add reliability to the color viewing pipeline;
streamline the creation of multiple outputs;
create a "known quantity" master for the archive

Dig Deeper¶

ACES Components

Learn more about the color encodings, file formats, transforms, and recommendations that are at the core of the ACES system.

Specifications
ACES Concepts

The "how" and "why" behind the ACES specifications. Users looking to dig into the inner workings and/or rationale behind certain design decisions should look here.

Technical Details
User Guides

Designed to provide hands on guidance to use ACES in real tools. And to establish best practices to answer "how do I use ACES?"

Customization
Standards

Certain components of the ACES system have been established as international standards.

Standards