Premier Pro 2023, Mac - Changed Video Colors

Color Management 101 ... welcome to the class!

First thing ... you can work in "SDR" ... standard dynamic range, the video format in most professional workflows up til now .... or in "HDR" ... high dynamic range, which has both wider range between white and black (dynamic range) and wider/deeper colors.

While the latter sounds better, we're in the Wild Wild West era still for HDR. Most screens/devices don't do it at all, or if they do, they do only one or two of the several potential forms ... and that not very well done.

I work for/with/teach pro colorists, most of whom have yet to deliver single paid job in HDR. And yet some I work for were among the earliest adopters, the first on the east coast with a certified DolbyVision facility. And produced Dolby Labs in-house training on HDR for pro colorists.

Ok ... there's another issue. Apple for some unknown reason chose to apply a display transform of essentially gamma 1.96 for Rec.709/SDR video playback. While the entire rest of the world uses the proper Rec.709 standard playback (display) gamma of 2.4. 

You can't see the same thing when displaying a file at two separate display gammas. Yea, that's a right mess. And no one can "fix" it, so you have choices. Pick your poison.

First let's sort out the color management for 'normal' working.

Color Workspace, Lumetri panel, the SETTINGS TAB ... the one named Settings. That's where all color management from clip through sequence now are combined in one space. I recommend using that for all CM stuff.

Display color management should be on for most users ... unless you have a professionally calibrated/profiled (colorist level calibration) Rec.709 monitor ... and there are very few of us that do. You don't. Very few editors do.

For Mac users, also set the Extended Dynamic Range option on also.

Auto detect Log and auto tonemapping should also be on for the vast majority of users. Especially if you're working with phone media that (like most iPhone video) may be in the HLG color space, a form of HDR. Having auto detect log and auto tonemap means you can use the clips on either HLG or Rec.709 color space sequences.

Set the sequence color space to your choice, normally either Rec.709 for "SDR" or HLG for HDR.

Use only export presets that match your sequence CM. Only use presets with HLG in the preset name if you are working with an HLG preset. Otherwise, for Rec.709 sequences, use presets without either HLG or PQ in the preset name.

Finally ... viewer gamma. The "pick your poison" thing. You can't please yourself on every screen, you see.

If you only care about how it looks outside of Premiere on your Mac in QuickTime player and Chrome/Safari browsers, then ... gamma 1.96/QuickTime is your choice.

Rec.709 video inside and outside of Premiere on your system should be similar.

If you primarilly care about "proper" Rec.709 views across all systems, including broadcast spec setups, TVs, and Pcs plus Android devices, and Macs with Reference mode set to HDTV, then ... use either gamma 2.2/web or gamma 2.4/broadcast as your viewer gamma.

If you are doing your video correction in a fairly dark room, the gamma 2.4 used by colorists would be the better choice, but if you do your correction/color work in a normally or "bright" room, then 2.2 would be the appropriate choice.

All professional Rec.709 media for streaming and broadcast is graded in "semi-darkened" rooms with gamma 2.4, by the way. ALL professional media is graded to gamma 2.4.

Maybe try to export it from iMovie without HDR enabled,

then import it back to Premiere Pro.

You can also try to disable Color Management, check this:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/color-management.html