Calibrating for Rec709 and setting up proper 32-bit Linear Workflow with Photoshop, AE and Premiere

[MisterExt]

Hope you guys can help because Adobe customer support has been unable to give me a working solution after repeatedly contacting them. I've also scoured the web and read conflicting things about setting up my color space properly and can't find a clear, straight answer, especially with calibration setup, gamma, and color space. I'm using an iMac Pro 1,1 with a Pro Vega 64 GPU, running Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6, AE 2019, Photoshop 2020 and Premiere 2020.

I'm producing 4k content for YouTube and the web and want to properly calibrate my display for this. From what I've read to date, Rec709 seems to be the way to go for video and web. As such, I purchased an i1Display Pro Plus recently and downloaded DisplayCal for calibrating. Currently, I only have my iMac Pro built-in display which I know isn't great, but it's what I have to work with for now. However, I'm not sure of all the settings in DisplayCal to get proper calibration or how to configure Adobe software to work with it. I'd also like to have a separate profile for photography, but that's a secondary thing (I typically work in ProPhotoRGB in PS).

Photoshop seems to be fine regardless of what I use, as AE either interprets the footage properly upon import and converts the colors to whatever the project is in, or if its another format I exported from PS, I just set the correct interpretation and all is well. If working with Photos I shoot on a Canon, I typically use ProPhotoRGB in 16-bit, but maybe setting up Photoshop to work in Rec709 is preferred if it's a video asset?

In After Effects 2019, I'm working in 32-bit float, color managed, set to linearize the working space and compensate for scene referred profiles. This works, however I'm not sure what color space to use. Adobe has told me THREE different answers to date: sRGB, Adobe 1998, and Wide Gamut RGB. I used to use sRGB when doing VFX, but between Adobe and online guides, I can't get a straight answer on how to set it up now. Wide Gamut RBG seems to give more leeway when pushing and pulling shadows and highlights than when I had it set to sRGB or anything else. Wether this is correct or not, I don't know.

Now compositing strictly in AE with Wide Gamut RGB things looked great and if I exported a video as ProRes 422 or ProRes 444 from AE and converted colors to sRGB and uploaded to YouTube, the colors remained consistent. If I chose Rec709 it looked off (can't recall, but it was brighter or darker). If I imported to Premiere 2020 it looked washed out and bright (I tried with ProRes 422, 444, and OpenEXR sequences). If I exported from AE and converted the color space to Rec709 in render settings, Premiere displayed the colors correctly, but only with EXR sequences and not with ProRes. Importing an AE comp in Premiere displays correctly. When exporting out of Premiere as ProRes 422 16-bit for a final video to upload, the colors were brighter and washed out again even though they displayed correctly inside Premiere.

Since Premiere seems to natively do everything in Rec709, I'm assuming it's the color space I'm working in inside AE and how I'm exporting from AE that is the problem. If I can calibrate my monitor correctly and get the right working space so Premiere plays nice, I should be good to go. At this point, after countless weeks have passed (months at this point) and I've had to redo my work more than once, I need to find the correct way to do this stuff because I can't keep re-grading my project with Adobe giving me different answers each time I reach out to them. The reason I want to use Premiere for my final assembly and export, is because my projects are templated and final renders from Premiere are 50-75% faster than rendering from AE. Getting things rendered fast is necessary to meet my deadlines.

One last problem is that I have to work in AE 2019 still because for some reason AE 2020 won't recognize my AMD video card and so I can't use OpenCL. I spent hours with Adobe customer support remotely controlling my iMac Pro and they couldn't get it to be recognized in 2020. They were supposed to "elevate my case" and have someone who knew what they were doing call me and work this out and the color space stuff, but they never called and closed the case. As a result, AE 2019 works way faster, especially rendering, than AE 2020. Adobe told me it's Apple's fault that the card isn't recognized. Apple said it's Adobe's problem to recognize the card. Either way, I'm stuck in AE 2019.

Any help anyone can offer will be appreciated. I'm at the point where slamming my head against the wall seems rational.

Thanks

[Letty2019]

Hello, do you have a simple to read / understand outline of just the proper settings for PS in regards to creating images in PS that will work with AE and PPro, rec.709 ?

Thanks!

Letty

[MisterExt]

I don't haev an outline, but you can just change the color working space in PS so RGB images default to rec709. Any existing image you can "convert to profile" and choose rec709. I would advise you work in 16-bit per channel in PS. Sometimes 32-bit will work since you can now use layers, but 16 I find works fine for most things.

AE will automatically display/convert the colors of any PS document to match what color space your project is in. I've brought in sRGB and ProPhotoRGB PSDs into AE when working in rec709 and they looked fine and behaved normally.

[Letty2019]

Hi, I was able to convert my images to 709, import them into AE, but what do you advise for the (in the project window) the Media "profile" for the images and video clips?  (is it safe to just interpret the rgb images to rec709, or better to convert them in PS, then import, then reinterpret if needed?  (sometimes I change the photo to rec709, import to AE, and in the project window it reads sRGB?  maybe I'm doing something wrong.  I'll keep experimenting on that issue.)

My computer monitor is calibrated to 709 gamma 2.4 and the video card range is set to 16-235.  (my final project for bluray disc)

I set AE (16 bit) to use color management, and in the project settings, I selected Rec.709. Gamma 2.4 

But when I did, some of my media video clips in the project window now say:  Profile: HDTV (Rec. 709) 16-235

Questions:

1) Because my monitor is already showing the range of 16-235, is there a reason to change the media's profile to display the media as 16-235?  I'm thinking it's showing me 16-235 on top of the monitor's previous setting of 16-235 and I'm getting a double dose of it?

2) Should I just change (using interpret) the media's profiles to Rec. 709 Gamma 2.4 ?  again, because my monitor is already displaying the 16-235 range?

or

3) should I change my gpu back to 0-255 and then use HDTV Rec. 709 16-235 in the AE workspace and the media profiles?  I'm so confused.

I asked Neil and he said he thinks the media profile should be:  HDTV (Rec. 709) 16-235

but I think I'm getting a double dose of the 16-235 range.

I've got a ton of clips to do, and wanna make sure I set em up right so I don't have to re do my work. 

Thanks so much for your input.

Letty

[Letty2019]

sorry, I thought you worked here.  my bad. 

just ignore questions prior.

[angie_taylor]

I recommend that you use Adobe Bridge to set up the working color profile accross all apps if you haven't already done so. It takes a lot of the headaches out of making sure all have the same settings.

[Letty2019]

Thanks, I'll look into that.  I'm not aware of the program, didn't know it applied to the color issues.