Blender Color Management: ACES and AgX Explained

You have dialed in lights, materials and samples; the render looks perfect in Blender. Then you post it on Instagram and the color seems different: washed out, blown out or different on every screen. Blender color management decides how your light values look once they leave the viewport, and understanding it is the difference between a hobbyist render and a production one.

Blender color management: what it is and why it matters

Blender computes light in linear, physically accurate values: a midday sun emits far more energy than an indoor lamp, and the render engine respects that. The problem is that your monitor cannot display that dynamic range as is. Color management is the system that translates those light values into the limited range a screen can reproduce, consistently and without the result depending on the device.

From light values to the pixel you see

Think of the view transform as a translator: it takes the linear render data, which spans from deep blacks to highlights a hundred times brighter than the white of your screen, and compresses it into the levels an sRGB monitor can show. Without that translator, you would have to choose between a nearly black render or a completely blown-out one. With it, the eye perceives a natural image with smooth shadows and controlled highlights.

A reliable render on any screen

The official Blender documentation puts it simply: color management exists to create renders and assets that are physically accurate and look great on multiple display devices. This is not about aesthetics, it is about predictability: what you see on your studio monitor should be what your client sees on their laptop and what your audience sees on their phone, within each screen's physical limits.

How the color pipeline works in Blender

The Color Management section of the Render Properties panel holds the important decisions. They are four separate settings, and it pays to understand each one before touching them.

Working space: the linear workspace

The working space is the color space in which Blender renders and composites. By default it is Linear Rec.709, a linear space designed for light calculations. Since Blender 5.0 the working space is configurable per file, which lets you choose ACEScg when working in pipelines that rely on it. The practical rule: always compute light in linear space, and let the view transform handle the final conversion to the display space.

View transform: the main translator

The view transform is the setting that changes the image the most: it is the tone mapping that compresses the scene's high dynamic range. Available options are AgX (the default since Blender 4.0), Filmic (deprecated in favor of AgX), Standard, and since 5.0 the ACES 1.3 and 2.0 views. Changing the view transform is like changing the image's character: same render, very different visual result.

Display transform and Look

The display transform defines which kind of screen the image is adapted to: sRGB for standard workflows, or Rec.2100-PQ and Rec.2100-HLG if you export HDR video for grading. The Look applies an extra stylistic adjustment on top of the view transform. If you are not sure what you want, leave it at None or Standard: looks are an acquired taste and easy to overuse.

Exposure and Gamma

Exposure adjusts the overall brightness of the image without touching the scene lights, like raising the ISO on a camera; Gamma modifies general contrast. Both can be adjusted per render and also per image inside the image editor. They are output tools: use them with intent, not as an emergency patch.

AgX: Filmic's successor (Blender 4.0)

If you have followed tutorials from previous years, you surely saw Filmic recommended as the view transform. With Blender 4.0, AgX replaced it as the default in new files, and it was not a cosmetic change.

Why Filmic is no longer the default

Filmic handled dynamic range well but had a known problem with bright colors: it saturated them artificially. AgX handles overexposed areas better: bright colors naturally tend toward white, just like real cameras, instead of staying in an unnatural saturated tone. It is more faithful to photography and much easier to correct later.

AgX in practice

In new files AgX is the default and the general recommendation: balanced results, good contrast and smooth rolloff in highlights. Filmic is still available and makes sense if you work on an existing project configured with it and want consistency. If you come from Filmic, keep in mind that highlights behave differently: review the exposure before assuming the scene "looks weird".

ACES in Blender: what 5.0 brings

Blender 5.0 made a major leap in color management with essential support for ACES workflows, the industry standard for film and VFX.

ACES 1.3 and 2.0 as native views

The new ACES 1.3 and ACES 2.0 views (in standard and HDR versions) appear as alternatives to AgX and Filmic in the view transform selector. They are ideal when you need compatibility with ACES pipelines: what you produce in Blender behaves like the material that studios and professional tools exchange.

ACEScg working space and EXR

With 5.0 you can set the file's working space to ACEScg and save OpenEXR files in ACES2065-1 or ACEScg spaces. This covers most needs of an ACES pipeline: interchange with other applications, compositing in Nuke or Fusion, and delivery to studios without manual conversions or color surprises.

HDR: AgX HDR and Rec.2100 displays

For those working with HDR video, 5.0 adds the AgX HDR view and the Rec.2100-PQ and Rec.2100-HLG displays, designed for HDR grading and export. If your output is traditional SDR, you can safely ignore them; if you ever deliver HDR, the native tools are already there.

How to choose the right setup

The "right" configuration depends on the final destination of the render. This guide covers the most common cases.

For social media and portfolios

AgX with an sRGB display is the balanced, modern choice: good dynamic range, natural colors and consistency across devices. If you want the classic look of older tutorials, Filmic is still there. For portfolios and social media, consistency with what you saw in Blender is the main criterion.

For pipelines and collaboration

If you exchange files with other tools, work at a studio or deliver to a production pipeline, ACES is the choice: ACEScg working space, ACES 1.3 or 2.0 views and EXR in ACES spaces. It is the common language of the industry, and using the same color space as your collaborators removes an entire source of errors.

Golden rule

Adjust lighting and exposure in the scene, and treat the view transform as an output decision, not as a patch to fix a poorly lit scene. The exposure slider in the Color Management panel does not replace lighting: an underexposed render with raised exposure is still an underexposed render with noise and crushed shadows.

Common color mistakes and how to avoid them

These four failures appear over and over in renders from intermediate artists. Spotting them early saves hours of "fixing" in the compositor.

• Washed-out or dull colors: usually a poorly chosen view transform or Look, or exposure set too low. Before raising saturation in the compositor, check the color configuration; most of the time the problem is in the pipeline, not in the material.
• Blown-out highlights: if you come from Filmic and switch to AgX, highlights behave differently (they roll off toward white). Readjust the exposure instead of switching back to Filmic "so it looks like before".
• Exporting with the wrong view transform: saving PNG or JPEG applies the view transform, which is fine for the web. But if you export EXR to composite in another program, decide whether you want the transformed image or the linear data; mixing both spaces in a single composite is a classic source of "weird" results.
• Different results on every device: the display transform must match the target screen. sRGB for web and mobile; Rec.2100-PQ or HLG only if your HDR workflow is real, end to end.

Conclusion

Color management is the last mile of a render: mastering working space, view transform and display transform makes what you see in Blender what the world sees. You do not need to be a color scientist to benefit; you just need to know what each setting does and choose with intent in every project. To complete the pipeline, pair this tutorial with Cycles rendering optimization and compositing with render passes, the two steps that surround color in your workflow. And to see these ideas in action, check out the curated video tutorials on the platform: lighting, rendering and color, explained step by step by artists from the community.