Why ProRes RAW media may look different in Premiere v26.5 - and how to change it

If you've opened a project that includes ProRes RAW media in Premiere v26.5 or later, that media might look different than it did in previous versions. This is a result of improvements to our support for ProRes RAW.

In versions of Premiere before v26.5, ProRes RAW could be imported and played, but we treated it mostly as if it were just standard ProRes. It was possible to change the color space, but Premiere always defaulted to converting to Rec. 709, regardless of the camera or device that recorded the media.

Some customers would use Source Settings to pick the correct color space, but it was also common to leave the default Rec. 709 conversion in place.

In Premiere v26.5 and later, ProRes RAW is now fully supported. Performance is better — particularly on Windows — and raw parameters can be viewed and modified.

We also now pick the color space that was selected when the media was recorded, instead of automatically converting it to Rec. 709. In addition, converting to Rec. 709 in Source Settings is no longer available, as the best place to choose Rec. 709 is in Premiere's color experience.

This is what may cause an existing project to look different: the switch from defaulting to Rec. 709 to picking the correct color space.

If you're in this situation, there are two easy fixes.

The first is to use Premiere's color management system to convert your ProRes RAW media into Premiere's working color space. To do that:

1. Go to Lumetri Color > Settings; if you're using Premiere Beta v27, go to Window > Color Management.
2. Go to Project and turn on Color Manage Auto Detected Log and Raw Media.

If you'd prefer not to use Premiere's color space transform, use a LUT:

1. In the Project panel, select your ProRes RAW media.
2. Right-click your selection and choose Modify > Color.
3. Choose a LUT from the Input LUT menu.

With either of these changes, your media should now look as you’d expected. There might be small differences in brightness, which can be tweaked in Lumetri Color > Edit or, in Premiere Beta v27, in the Color mode.