Known Participant

Premiere 2026 Color Management is a lie

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
May 31, 2026
3 replies
107 views

Premiere 2026 Color Management is a lie S-Log3 is hard-clipping and acting like trash 8-bit footage I am shooting 10-bit S-Log3 on Sony cameras for maximum dynamic range, but Premiere Pro 2026 is completely destroying the data before I can even touch it. Adobe claims "native log support," but the current color management pipeline is an absolute joke. When I pull down the Exposure slider in Lumetri to recover highlights, nothing rolls back in. The highlights are permanently baked-in and clipped, exactly like I'm editing compressed 8-bit smartphone footage. Even if I try to adjust exposure at the Source level, use "Interpret Footage" overrides, or stack Lumetri instances, Premiere’s backend automatic tone mapping forces a destructive Rec.709 conversion FIRST in the rendering order, clamping the highlights and holding my 10-bit sensor data hostage. If your "automatic color management" clips the data before the exposure sliders can access the raw log curves, it isn't color management—it's data destruction. Stop treating professional log footage like standard Rec.709 clips. Fix the pipeline order so Lumetri sliders actually adjust the raw log data before the sequence clamps it. Right now, your S-Log3 support is a flat-out lie.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Rather a disappointing thread … as clearly, you are not knowledgeable at working within the color management system, but rather than simply asking for help, you make some rather strong statements.

Ok … Cm in Premiere is not perfect nor totally complete ...no question.

But it easily works with Sony’s 10bbit S-logE media for thousands of other users. Including myself. But that, as the same as in Resolve, only happens if the user has the correct set of CM settings. Plus a monitor correctly calibrated of course.

So posting a screen grab of the entire color management options you are using would be nearly guaranteed to find what is currently set wrong in your CM settings. Which would get it corrected and you working aways.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

adamkatz2003Author

Known Participant

You know what, guys? You really don't know what you are doing. After switching to the Wide Gamut Tone Mapped color space, I do get more range, but the highlights look like total shit! They look completely flat, washed out, and like a low-dynamic-range video. Then, when I switch back to standard Rec. 709 SDR, the image looks good again, but I lose all control over the exposure and I'm right back to the original clipping problem!

I think this is exactly why your stock is crashing. Your developer team doesn't even know how color spaces work or how to handle them properly. I’m shooting on a very standard, industry-normal camera (Sony A7IV), and the fact that your pipeline can't handle basic 10-bit S-Log3 exposure adjustments seamlessly in 2026 is pathetic.

mattchristensen1

Community Manager

@adamkatz2003 could you share some screenshots from the Settings tab of the Lumetri panel? Have one of your slog3 clips selected in the timeline, and then I’d like to see the following sections of the Lumetri Settings tab:

Project
Source Clip
Sequence
Sequence Clip

Hopefully seeing those we can figure out why you’re seeing what you are, because you’re right that shouldn’t be happening. Thanks.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.