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johnnyoakes1
Known Participant
February 15, 2026
Question

Premiere's new Wide Gamut color setup and Creative LUTs not working

  • February 15, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 67 views

I’m not having the wonderful experience with the new color management i expect. I thought it was a feature of my Intel MacBook Pro and its GPU but it seems others are having this problem. If I apply a Lumetri creative LUT and i’m in an Aces color space timeline I get a weird solarised effect. This happens if I select Aces or Rec 709 in the color space box. So i’m assuming the LUTs are not designed for Aces color space. So is there a work around for this ? There should be a way to block or grey out the Rec 709 LUTs so they cant be used if that’s the reason.Or can the LUT be applied on export to Rec709 ? Is there a plan to tackle this problem in a future release ?

Thanks Jonathan

1 reply

R Neil Haugen
R Neil Haugen
Legend
February 15, 2026

Welcome to the New World! 

 

Yup, color management is sadly ... necessarily ... far more complicated and complex. 

 

And working with LUTs, you can only use any LUT inside a working space that LUT is built for. No matter where the LUT comes from.

 

As far as I know, all the internal LUTs in Premiere for Look use have to be used on a basically “Direct Rec.709” type sequence ... as they were built for use only with Rec.709 media on a Rec.709 working space. I don’t think they can be used with a wide gamut timeline space.

I work for/with/teach pro colorists, and have been using Resolve and making my own LUTs and whatnot over a decade now ... under rather high-end instructions.  This is why Resolve has a totally bewildering list of LUTs available internally, because Resolve has had to have more complicated and complex CM workflows as a basic feature.

And also ... this is why so many choose a wrong LUT ‘over there’.  Because again, the working space, LUT, and the media all have to have the same ‘base’ or it’s going to be bizarre, as you’ve noted.

 

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
J
johnnyoakes1Author
Known Participant
February 16, 2026

Hello Neil and thanks for the reply. I wonder why Adobe don’t make this clear. It would appear the input LUTs work OK, the ones that convert Camera Log footage but I suppose they are designed to work on the Log Color Space. I also noticed that allowing Premier to automatically detect and convert the Log gives a slightly different look to applying the input LUT Manually. I’m thinking now the best way with Premier is not to use an input LUT at all but just work directly on the Flat Log footage to achieve the look you want at the same time working on an Aces cct timeline for the extra colour and tonal information available. I suppose it will take time to resolve these issues in future upgrades but its a bit of a minefield in the mean time.

Jonathan

R Neil Haugen
R Neil Haugen
Legend
February 16, 2026

Do NOT use an Input LUT if using the auto-detect sort of thing ... those are meant to be totally different workflows. As I work for/with/teach pro colorists, I think it’s less confusing for me than for others.

There are several completely different workflows one can do now, and it is pretty easy to mush up your CM if you don’t understand how it needs to work for different end needs. They do have some comments they’ve put in this or the public beta forums about this ... search for comments by Francis Crossman or Alexis Van Hurkman if you can. But I agree they could put a lot more information into the online help than they have as of yet.

Do go check their color management section in the online Help though ... it’s of some use at least. Though for a number of things they say do this for X, do that for Y, and don’t say why it matters. And people tend to miss that if you mix them up there’s problems in Realville.

 

Premiere is doing what Resolve and Baselight have done for a while ... build algorithmic transforms for most “pro” media types in concert with the devs for the various cameras. That’s how the auto-detect log and tonemapping options work ... they use a mathematical approach to converting media to other spaces.

 

LUTs are simple look-up tables ... this RGB triplicate becomes this other RGB triplicate ... no math involved in the use of the look-up table. What we’ve been able to get done with LUTs is amazing, but ... they have to be tailored for a specific media format used on a specific working color space. AND ... the media must be exposed and shot under a fairly similar contrast to what the media was the LUT was built for, or ... it will likely clip or crush image data, and you can’t get it back.

This is why many colorists tend to prefer algos for basic transforms ... the data is totally safe. It’s a slightly different image to start with than the LUT one used to use, but all LUTs have both technical and aesthetic choices to them anyway. It’s just a slightly different starting point.

So you simply start with the transform the algo does, rather than the LUT, and get on with Life. Personally, I’ve not found an Input LUT that I would really rather use over the algos, but then, I’m pretty experienced at doing color ... and love working on my Tangent Elements panel.

But there are those who must use the specified project LUT and for those, you can still use a totally manual workflow in Premiere. Use an Input LUT, do not use auto-detect and tonemapping, but ... the Input LUT determines what working sequence color  space you must use. If the LUT is built for Log to Rec.709 as many are, then ... your working space must be set to Rec.709.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...
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