Participant

Color Balance stops working deeper into timeline

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
October 7, 2025
2 replies
118 views

Just to say, this is happening very often on various versions of Premiere. Currently running: v25.5.0 (Build 13)

I'm trying to use a simple Color Balance effect to green, with a single mask to make it a little green outline around the edges. It's a short 1 second effect, keyframed for opacity to go from 0% to 100% and then back down to 0%. It generally works fine at first and so I just copy>paste it when needed on an adjustment layer.

At some point in the timeline, this effect stops working. Regardless if it's on an adjustment layer or on one of the videos directly, it doesn't apply the effect.

Currently I'm 7min35sec in. I've used this adjusment layer with color balance effect applied - 6 times. If I go back to the previous ones, they work. When I copy paste the adjusment layer the 7th time now, it doesn't work anymore. There are no more effects applied and blend mode is on normal. There is only two clips running simultaneously. There is still the red line below the timecode showing up, if I render it out, the effect is not applied.

If I try to add a new adjustment layer with the effect. It works again at displaying colour and masked, but if I start keyframing opacity, it does't animate it. Just stays green for the duration of the adjustment layer. All previous ones still work as expected, just none of the future ones.

I've tried to play around this time, to get some examples for this post. If I set the "not working" adjustment layer to "divide" blend mode, when certain background colour is present, it works. It's the only blend mode to have any effect, but it obviously doesn't do what I want (Pic3).

As in my example (Pic2), I've changed the bacground color to purple to reflect the problem on the effect not working. When I've kept the grey one from Pic1, it worked. But if I disable the layer the effect doesn't work on the actual video again. I want to stress that previously the effect worked on the same background. It's a single long take video, it has the same background throughout. The effect works at the beginning, but not later on.

This has happened countless times. Global FX is not muted. If I reload the project, the problem persists.

I cannot consistently reproduce the problem, but as I edit, out of 10 projects, atleast 5 of them will encounter this problem.

I

Ignas30860431kjvfAuthor

Participant

I'm working on Windows 11 Pro v.24H2. System with AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, RTX 5090, 64GB RAM.

I'm generally working with H264/MP4 files. If I export the project, it mimics the timeline and "program window", if it didn't show up in the software it's not in the final render. Also if I alt+drag - the problem persists.

I've seen this issue happening in many projects where I needed to use color balance extensively. I've opened up an earlier project to check this and just randomly pasted the same effect across the timeline, my results:

Older project - Total length (timeline): 00:57:23:13. It cuts off at exactly (timeline):00:04:59:52 right at where I made a cut. (original clip at 01:00:42:36).

My current project - Total length (timeline): 00:15:20:38. It cuts off at exactly (timeline:) 00:07:24:14, again right at the cut of a video (original clip at 01:02:09:26).

Enabling/disbaling videos has no impact. The effect just STOPS at those exactly points in the timeline/video even if the adjustment layer with the effect is overlapping both halves.

I've tried the same color balance effect with (timeline) 00:11:11:10 long video, made out of more shorter original clips - the problem doesn't show up all the way through, it works as it should.

I did some more digging

Considering the problem seemed to have happened at around 1 hour mark of a single video. I've opened up yet another, fourth project which had a 01:29h in length raw footage, and tried pasting the same adjustment layer with color balance over it as well as throughout the timeline.

So in terms of the timeline, it worked fine as long as the original clip was seemingly under 1h long. But when using it over the long video, it stopped working again at around 01:00:00:20.

What happened was:

Step 1. I've pasted adjustment layer with color balance, starting (video) 00;59;59;23. Whilst the color balance was set to opacity at 0% the video already had the effect applied, a sharp cut to the color balanced video as if it was set to 100% opacity, and then it started fading out until around 01:00:00:36 (as my color balance's keyframe goes 0>100%>0%). It wasn't exactly following the keyframes set, sligthly offset/starts sooner, but once it gently fades out, pasting or duplicating any moreof the adjusment layers don't work.

Step 2. If I delete the last keyframe (fade to 0%), the video stays green for the duration of the adjustment layer, I can drag it to extend, and it works.

Step 3. If I cut the long adjustment layer in the middle after 1h mark, it stays solid green, as it should, at 100% opacity.

Step 4. In the second half now (which is after 1h mark), if I add a 100% opacity marker and then 0% a few second later, it gradually fades out. It starts fading out about 20 frames sooner than the market tells it to start from and it ends fading about 20 frames earlier too. If I add another keyframe after that to 100% it works still, but they're all now offset about 20 frames (in a 60 frame timeline/no difference in 30,29.97 etc).

Step 5. If I now duplicate the adjustment layer, regardless of those keyframes created, it's just solid green, either on or off state, depending if the adjustmet layer is present or not.

Step 6. If I try to copy>paste/duplicate the original adjustment layer (Step 1-2) - it doesn't work after 1h mark. But if I copy>paste the extended longer adjustment layer (Step 5) after the shorter one (Step 1-2), it only works in on/off state, doesn't follow keyframes.

Step 7. If I duplicated the same extended adjustment layer with keyframes to the front of them all at (video) 00:59:54:31, it still plays out properly as it should, following all keyframes with no off-set.

Conclusion

I'm not sure if this problem will replicate itself on another system or not. But it seems to be 1h mark on the single, long clip to start causing issues. It's not exactly timeline related at all. If I cut the video short and drag it all to the front, as long as the original video clip is past 1h mark, color balance will stop working/not work as it should.

D

Dani_V.

Community Manager

Hi @Ignas30860431kjvf,

Welcome to the Premiere Pro forums and thank you for reporting a problem. Can you share system and hardware information as well?

A few questions: What types of media files are you working with and what happens if you try to export a section with the effect applied, does it show up in the export?

Are the other projects affected using the same type of media and are the sequences the same length?(Does it start happening after a certain point in your timeline consistently?)

Does it make any difference if the video layers underneath are disabled or if instead of copy pasting, you duplicate a working adjustment layer with alt/option + drag?

Sorry for the frustration,
Dani

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