Color issue after exporting in different viewing softwares

Question

I've struggled with the dreaded Mac QT gamma compensation issue in the past, but for some reason, I'm back at struggling with it. I've tried everything I can and I'm trying to narrow down the issue as well as I can.

So essentially the issue is that the colors look washed out after exporting the video out of Premiere, depending on what I view the video with. What I did was take a video, drop it in to Premiere, in to a new sequence, and export it out. No changes done to the file in Premiere.

In Quicktime, the original file looks colorful and contrasty, but the exported file looks a bit washed out. In VLC, they look exactly the same. I dropped them in to Google Drive, and they look exactly the same there too. Dropping the newly exported file in to Premiere, on to the same timeline, it looks just like the original. I decided to try and change the file names in Drive and download them back on to my computer. Once again, the original looks good but the exported looks washed out. Sent them to my iPhone, and there the exported looks washed out. Also, different monitors display the differences differently (my Mac screen makes the difference a bit more subtle than my external Dell UltraSharp).

So it seems to me that what is happening is not in the colors of the file itself. The actual colors stay the same. The issue is with how the app I'm using to view the video interprets the colors. What I think is happening is that while exporting a video out of Premiere, it applies some sort of viewer gamma or color metadata, that makes the used software interpret and show the colors in a specific way.

What I'd want to know is if there is any way to make all apps show the colors in the same way? So that I don't have to guess how it will look on the client's end, but I'd know for a fact that what I'm seeing is what they're seeing. Also, I'd love to know that what I see in Premiere is what everyone else will see after I've exported the video. Now it seems like Quicktime and my phone will show faulty colors, so there's a good chance that people watching the videos will see them as I intended and as I see them in Premiere, but there's no way for me to actually know that.

I'm working with a MacBook Pro 2024, M4 Pro chip, using Google Chrome for the Drive part.

R Neil Haugen · Accepted Answer

Sorry, but that's ... a right frickin' mess. And there's nothing thee nor me can really do about it, much as that ticks me off.

Here's some issues:

NCLC tags. We don't directly see them in Premiere so you don't know what tags that file might have on coming in. The best option is to check the file in MediaInfo to see what if any color management options are visible, but that doesn't normally show the tags. In Resolve, you can at times set what NCLC tags you want on the export, but we can't in Premiere at this time. Premiere does bog-standard ones. The incoming file may have ... odd ... ones. Just realize ... some apps/players pay attention to NCLC tags, and some don't.
Full/legal and other color issues ... can be all over the place anymore. Rec.709 media is by the standards supposed to be encoded in Legal range, never Full range. This doesn't affect the actual file data at all, only how it is encoded and tagged. Many files are currently being improperly placed in full range, which means the display will typically treat them that way. This often leads to crushing of shadows or clipping whites, and is a right pain. Premiere always exports properly encoded legal range for all YUV Rec.709 sequences. And that may be different if the original file is wrongly encoded as full.
Each device will do it's own attempts at media color management and display. Some do more, some less, and again, you have no control over that. Your device may do more or less CM efforts in different players than a clients. And there's no way to test this.
Each player will have it's own CM efforts, and they again may vary depending on the specific device and what if any changes the user has made to that player's options or the device CM options. Again, you have no control nor way of predicting this.

Getting color management and viewing consistency to and with clients has been the absolute bane of the colorist trade. Most have contracts that directly and very specifically limit 'correction requests' to either those made while viewing the content in the colorist's suite or on specifically approved devices by the colorist.

Many pro colorists have a stack of a certain type of high-level iPads that they loan out to clients and say, all correction questions must come after viewing on this device, and may even specify say that in a fairly dark though not black room.

R Neil Haugen · Answer

"So it seems to me that what is happening is not in the colors of the file itself. The actual colors stay the same. The issue is with how the app I'm using to view the video interprets the colors." Yes, but it is both how apps apply color management, and how the individual device's hardware is set to display specific codecs for color management. And every device out there will show at least a slightly different image. That's the reality of manufacturing limitations and vagaries of the choices that device makers apply. What I'd want to know is if there is any way to make all apps show the colors in the same way? Sadly, oh Hades no, there isn't. Colorists are taught right off the bat that you cannot fix Gramma's green TV. It's gonna be green no matter what you do.  A specific demonstration has been done by color scientists and calibrators and colorists ... starting with two identical Grade 1 Reference Monitors ... and yes, that is a specific class of very expensive monitors. From Flanders, Eizo, or Sony, typically $10,000 to $25,000 per. Grade 1 monitors start with the highest level of screen panels in testing right off the production line. No two panels ever actually come off the line exactly alike, and perfectly even and as expected in response for every pixel. The top scoring ones go at a much higher price for Grade 1 use, and then the higher Q electronics are added by the makers for Flanders et al.  Starting with two "identical" Grade 1 monitors, the finest, most even panels made ... they then calibrate them with the same high-end calibration gear. Run a profile to assure calibration is spot on. Then feed them the identical signal from a breakout device from either AJA or BlackMagic. While setup in a room with dim, totally 6500K lighting, neutral gray surround environment ... and have high-end video post workers looking at the two screens.  No one will see the exact same image on both identical screens, identically calibrated, fed identical signals, sitting side-by-side in a perfect viewing environment.  Every screen panel is slightly different even from the ones manufactured on the same line on the same date. Then every maker creates a different set of also imperfect electrical controls to that panel, and adds the computational devices, also imperfectly made. Along the way, everything is designed so it still functions when "close" to perfect. Now take the vagaries of OS settings. Like ... Apple. For their in-house CM, what a Rec.709 image looks like also varies depending on which Apple device you are using, and how you set it. Most Apple devices do not have Reference modes. Those ... and all Apple devices with Reference modes set to Rec.709 ... will use a display transform for Rec.709 video of approximately gamma 1.96, which notably raises the shadows a lot and mids some. Lowering apparent contrast and saturation. That is a wrong display transform, as the Rec.709 specs call for a display transform of essentially gamma 2.4.  But ...  Apple devices with Reference modes, when set to the HDTV option, use the correct display transform of gamma 2.4! So even between Apple devices, you will see dramatic differences. Some high-end iPads, when set to the correct options, also show display transform of Rec.709 of 2.4. But others use the gamma 1.96. And you have no control over any of that. Ever.  Pro colorists are taught to grade with well calibrated proper display devices connected via breakout boxes, in a properly set room environment, and export precisely under that viewing condition. Why? First, understand that no one, under any viewing distribution method from theatrical release to broadcast/streaming, web, or optical disk, will ever see the same identical image they saw while grading. As it physically cannot happen. So again, why the worry about the colorist's setup? Simple. Because if they do all setup righteously according to the standards, their output, on all screens out there, will look like other professionally produced output on that screen. It doesn't ever have anything to do with anyone ever seeing the same image. That is not possible.

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