Inspiring

Question

Calibrate my cheap monitor (Mac)

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 3, 2023
3 replies
913 views

I'm having a heck of a time color correcting my video.

I'm using a $200 LG and not a professional, but I've spent hours in Lumetri Scopes tutorials and though I've learned a lot and made the footage a little clearer and brighter it still looks dark and over saturated--especially compared to some of the Adobe Stock clips I've used.

My Mac (a year old M1) has a big list of color profiles, but I don't know where to start. Any suggested settings to try?

I've also been looking at calibration website like this one. Would this be helpful to improve my project even a little bit?

How to

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R Neil Haugen

Legend

I would also recommend using the "generated" media bars and tone on a sequence. It's an old physical way to check your program content and monitor.

Add several seconds of bars & tone to a short test sequence. Export with reimport checked. Drop the reimported file on its own sequence.

Now compare that to the same image viewing it outside of Premiere.

In fact, one used to set the monitor from viewing the bars and tone in a professional app like Premiere.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Ann Bens

Community Expert

You need to use the scopes.

keithm1972Author

Inspiring

I have been using the scopes, but despite setting the blacks and whites things are still pretty dark.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Looking at the image, settings, and scopes, I would lower the Contrast setting first. Then perhaps lift shadows while pulling down Highlights just enough to counter the lift in Highlights from raising shadows. Lumetri controls not being highly targeted.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R Neil Haugen

Legend

To start, if you have an option for HDTV in your Mac OS settings, that will use the correct gamma 2.4 for the display. Some Macs do, most don't.

The Mac option for Rec.709 will use gamma 1.96, which is wrong, and is the cause of the massive issues between working in Premiere and seeing a Rec.709 video outside of Premiere in say QuickTime Player.

Using an outside device such as a BM Decklink card or an AJA box gets a clean signal outside of control of the OS and GPU. Some of the Decklinks are under $200.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

keithm1972Author

Inspiring

When you say Mac OS settings are you talking about the color profile options under Displays? No HDTV, but the default is "LG FULL HD". Then there are a bunch of other options such as the ones you mentioned.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

The Rec.709 is probably the best unless you have the HDTV option. I don't understand which Macs have it and which don't.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

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