I would echo both Sunburn and Kesonmis; take your time. Don’t panic. I and a bunch of other peeps are more than happy to help you. It takes a culture.
If you look at the incredible works folks have been achieving, it is worth the investment. You will elevate your work and gain a real sense of control. I promise.
If one starts by trying Filmic and twiddling knobs and mucking around, that is excellent. If you read the origins of it, you will see that the goal was and always has been to expose folks to some important concepts they might have been unaware of. Again, they are hugely important and have a tremendous impact on your work.
Also, bear in mind that display referred applications such as Photoshop are part of the problem; many mental models have been built atop of them. It takes a while to tear down the accumulated cruft.
The most ideal way to get a handle on a scene referred workflow is to think of it as three distinct phases:
- Input.
- Reference.
- Output.
Input is your input asset. Anything from a log encoded image to a scene referred EXR.
Reference is the mixing bowl. This is where we do all of the math and manipulations. This must be using linear energy ratios or else we end up with dark fringing, bad math, and broken mixes. In Blender, this is a scene referred linear reference in the compositor and the output from Cycles. It remains scene referred linear until either A) output or B) someone manually deviates from the scene referred linear by adding a node that bends things.
Output. This could be a display or an encoded file. These are frequently nonlinear energy ratios, although in the case of EXRs they could also be scene referred linear. The nonlinear encoding can be used to cram data into a particular file format or into a display range. In Blender, the transform to the nonlinear world happens either via the file saving code (sometimes with the help of OCIO) or via the View / Look transform via OCIO. This is a one way transform, and the values in the reference remain strictly scene referred linear.
Don’t give up. As you can already see there are more and more folks able to explain things. Soon you will be one of them.
Colour management literally is the management of your colour. Colour is pixels, and the pixels are your work.
Don’t let the foolish convince you otherwise, and most importantly, keep asking questions.