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J
Jerry 1066
Inspiring
April 9, 2023
Question

Dear Adobe. I want what I see in Premiere Pro to match how it renders out

  • April 9, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1176 views

I hate the gamma compensation LUT. It is such a blunt instrument. Is it so hard to make the blacks match how they would appear in YouTube? Come on, we're not all working for broadcast here. What percentage of your users are producing for broadcast? Three or four percent? I bet.

 

Please give us a checkbox: Optimize Program Monitor to match YouTube Gamma

 

Is that so hard? Your Gamma Compensation LUT (an admission of a problem by its very existence) is a total sledgehammer after hours of colour grading. Wake up.

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    2 replies

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    April 10, 2023

    In case you missed it in my previous post, note ... it's the display gamma for video files, which is not the same for any stills image files. That you don't have the issue with Photoshop stills is irrelevant.

     

    And the issue is totally  due to the Mac ColorSync issue using gamma 1.96, rather than 2.4.

     

    On many Macs, VLC doesn't allow ColorSync 'control', so playing the file in VLC gives the same image as within Premiere, and QuickTime player/Chrome/Safari give the lighter ColorSync gamma image.

     

    As noted in my previous post, I work for/with/teach pro colorists. And you know they're what, 90% Mac based? Use Resolve or Baselight, right?

     

    And they are all furious with Mac about this. It's been covered thoroughly by the experts of pro video color. Non of this is any opinion of mine, it's the hard data from the experts.

     

    While I've thought that as we shift to HDR, this mess would eventually go away. But at this time, HDR is so freaking Wild Wild West that it's even worse than the old VHS/Beta "war".

     

    Neil

     

     

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      J
      Jerry 1066Author
      Inspiring
      April 10, 2023

      "and QuickTime player/Chrome/Safari give the lighter ColorSync gamma image."

       

      I can add Firefox to that list.

       

      If 97% of preferred display softwares are giving the impression of having washed out the renders wouldn't it be a good idea for Adobe to take note of that and offer a more controllable solution? The GCL is OK but goes a shade too far in the opposite direction. Even a locked adjustment layer that desaturates and overexposes the source footage within the edit environment would be better, as all subsequent gamma corrections can then be made by hand and adjusted accordingly.

       

      My gamma-adjusted renders display perfectly fine (ish) on PCs and Macs when viewed through a browser on YouTube. It is only the Program Monitor in Premiere Pro that is the oddball in all of this. That is literally the only space where my video files are not displayed as I would expect and consequently I make adjustments and corrections which look fine while I'm editing and then terrible on the render.

       

      I hear what you are saying about Apple colour management but this has been going on for three years and all we have as a "fix" (bodge) from either organisation is, in effect, a global filter applied with no idea how the end result is going to perform.

       

      So a question: Do DaVinci resolve and Final Cut Pro have the same issues? If so what have they done to fix it? If they don't have this issue then I am definitely jumping ship.

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Legend
      April 10, 2023

      Final Cut, as the "house" app, is setup differently somehow. No clue how they manage that.

       

      As noted in all my posts on this issue ... I work both in Resolve and Premiere, and work for/with/teach pro colorists, mostly based in Resolve. Though a few are in Baselight.

       

      Resolve has many options that can be used or at times mis-used to effect. But that's irrelevant.

       

      Working in a standard Rec.709 workflow on a PC, you can go forth & back between Resolve and Pr twenty times with a file without troubles. I can take every "problematic" file from a Mac user and work with it with no troubles both Pr and Resolve.

       

      And this has been tested thoroughly by people with WAY more experience than thee & me ... and that's what the top experts all say. Period.

       

      The issue is the difference in gamma between the 'standard' Mac "Rec.709" gamma using 1.96, and the entire rest of the world using 2.4.

       

      And if Premiere on your Mac is off from say on a PC .... or whatnot ... then there's a setting somewhere that isn't great on your kit somehow.

       

      So ... you do have the DCM ... display color management option ... set in the Premiere Preferences, right?

       

      Neil

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Legend
      April 9, 2023

      It isn't "YouTube gamma" that is the cause of the problem.

       

      I expect from your comments you're on a Mac. If I look at the same YouTube file on my PC, I will see it probably pretty close to what you saw within Premiere.

       

      I will not see what you see for gamma, for that same YouTube file, on an Apple device. Why?

       

      Because Apple for some reason chose to apply the camera transform function of Rec.709 as if it were the display transform function, for any application allowing their ColorSync utility to control display of video files.

       

      So depending on whether that file is displayed on a Mac in Chrome, Safari or QuickTime Player, or ... on the same Mac in VLC, or on any PC or TV, the file will have different display gammas.

       

      The Mac ColorSync controlled view will use gamma 1.96 for the display. All others will use gamma 2.4 for the display.

       

      It's a complete mess, and a right pain for all of us, even the non-Mac folks like me.

       

      But until Apple makes a change to their Rec.709 settings, ain't nothing any of us, nor Adobe nor BlackMagic, can do to "fix" it.

       

      Some Mac screens now have a setting that includes the term "HDTV". That setting will actually use gamma 2.4 for all Rec.709 video files. But many do not have that setting.

       

      A common thing among the colorists I work for/with/teach (mostly based in Resolve of course) is to add a track grade or adjustment layer after finishing the grade, on projects bound for the web.

       

      Then they go to the color wheels, and slightly drop the Gamma (middle or Mids controls) brightness slider.

       

      It will be just a bit dark, but usable on "correct" systems. And a bit light, but still usable on Macs.

       

      About the best we can do.

       

      Neil

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
        J
        Jerry 1066Author
        Inspiring
        April 10, 2023

        Why is my Mac perfectly good with colour in Photoshop but terrible in Premiere Pro? And why do video files that I have exported with the Gamma Compensation LUT applied display correctly on PCs as well as my Mac? Shouldn't they be overly dark? Don't Adobe communicate with Apple at all? Perhaps a Post It note on someone's desk? "Your colours are wack matey"

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