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Scott Waters
Participating Frequently
December 7, 2023
Question

Import files look awful. Help! :)

  • December 7, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 2210 views

Greetings! I recently acquired a Sony PXW-z450 and upon import (Premeire Pro, fully updated) and viewing of the mxf files it looks terrible. The video looks dark, flat, lacks saturation / good color, etc. Again, brutally ugly, nowhere close to what I'm seeing when I shoot. I assume I am missing something I need to be doing but I cannot figure it out. My current work around is to heavily adjust it in my color settings, but that should not have to be done to the degree I'm adjusting. Any suggestions? Hoping there is a "ah yes.....you're missing this step" or process etc.

 

Note: As I mentioned I have Premiere updated and I'm shooting XAVC-L. 3840 x 2160 at 59.94 fps

 

You all rock, thank you so much for any suggestions!

Scott

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    4 replies

    M
    Adobe Employee
    Mohan Sharma
    Adobe Employee
    December 8, 2023

    Hi @Scott Waters 

    Do you widh to edit for HDR output or SDR output?

    If HDR, then GW should not matter if media and sequence color space are the same.
    If SDR, then you should preferably use 203 nits since your media is HLG based.

    S
    Scott WatersAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    December 8, 2023

    Hi Mohan.

    HDR ia the goal. My firsr issue is the raw looks awful, can't comfortably work with it looking so bad. That is what I need worked out before I edit. Should I modify all the raw clips or shoud they look fine already and sometihng else is going on?

    M
    Adobe Employee
    Mohan Sharma
    Adobe Employee
    December 8, 2023

    Are your clips still dark in the 709 timeline with GW 203? Could you kindly set that once and share the output. I tried with a XAVC-I HLG file from same camera and GW 100 definitely seems to make things flat but you can improvise using GW 203 in Project section of Settings tab in Lumetri panel.

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    December 7, 2023

    You've got a mish-mash of settings there ... so let's get that sorted.

     

    First, you are apparently wanting to work in SDR/Rec.709 ... correct? That's your sequence CM setting.

     

    Now going top down ... you've changed the Project graphics white to 100 ... this is a setting that only affects HDR sequences, and normally is professionaly set to the 203 nits level. Shouldn't be an issue here, but if you wanted to do an HLG or PQ sequence, that might not work too well.

     

    You have auto-detect log on, good! ... which will catch most HDR clips, as ... virtually all actual HDR clips are log-encoded. HLG certainly is.

     

    And if you have auto-detect log in the prefs section, and auto tonemap in the Sequence section, you normally can skip the clip section of setting a clip color space.

     

    Did you make any changes in the tonemapping method section? Or is that what came up 'natively'?

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      S
      Scott WatersAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      December 8, 2023

      Thank you Neil! Very helpful. New to learning these settings so I appreciate your patience. My intent is to edit in HDR so one of the the most confusing parts of this to me is actually preview. My raw looks dark and dull, which surprised me when I imported. Shouldn't it look as it is in the camera? Do I need to import those differently or modify to properly view them as intended? I can't imagine showing this raw footage to a coworker with it dark and lacking nice color. Its pretty distracting, even though I know I will adjust it in my project. Or am I approaching this all wrong and its a different process to go through? Again, very much apprecaite your help. I've edited a lot, not a newbie, but setting up a new camera and working through the import/edit process (settings) is fairly new to me.

      Mike Dziennik
      Community Expert
      Mike DziennikCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 7, 2023

      Right click your clip in the project panel and choose Modify>Color.

      What colorspace are you shooting in? You may have to overide the colorspace to whatever Sony one you are using.

      S
      Scott WatersAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      December 7, 2023

      I attached these to another response as well. Preview and program view, along with the settings. The only adjustment I have made is the timeline to Rec 709, which does help but it still looks pretty flat to me.  VERY much apprecaite your insight.

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Legend
      December 7, 2023

      Without knowing a lot more, "we" can only say you're missing color management steps somewhere.

       

      So ... OS/CPU/GPU and GPU driver; are you working in SDR/Rec.709 or HDR, maybe HLG?

       

      What are your current color management settings in the Color Workspace, Lumetri panel, Settings tab?

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
        S
        Scott WatersAuthor
        Participating Frequently
        December 7, 2023

        Here's two screenshots for reference that I should have included in the post. Probably goes without saying but the left is source, right is program and then I've attached a settings screenshot as well.  As you can see I changed the timeline to Rec 709 (with no manual color correciton) and its better, but still looks really flat to me. Making further color correcting adjustments helps, but something isn't right before I get to that point.....I believe. Thanks for your response.

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