Certain layers 'go bright' when exporting from After Effects, to PPro, to disc.

[Letty2019]

Very frustrating problem.

Here is the work flow:

Dark scene, imported a couple png images made in photoshop.  (Blinds and Chairs)

I corrected the layers, made them nice and dark to match the scene. Looks great on timeline.

1) exported the comp using ProRes (also used GoPro)

2) Imported that video into PPro.  (also looks great on the PPro timeline)

3) exported using h.264 bluray.

Here is what the scene looks like on the timelines:  (blinds and chairs looks good, nice and dark)

Now, I pop the bluray into the player and I get this below:  (Not sure how it looks on your monitor, but the chairs and blinds are brighter and stick out.

On the HDTV ONLY the blinds and chairs are much brighter than shown in this photo.

The HDTV calibrations are decent.  Plays commercial discs fine,  and other exports I make from the PPro timeline look fine on the tv.  A pinch bright, but otherwise, fine.  

I have tried multipe tests for days:

1) lower opacity (w/a solid black background)

2) darken

3) change the AE project bit (currently 16bit) , tried 32 and 8bit, same results.

4) lowered the black levels

5) lowered the exposure, lowered the image gamma in 'levels'   NO CHANGE!!! ???

6) deleted, reinstall. wash, rinse, repeat....

7) ran it with and without color management!

It's always bright!  is it possessed? 

Monitor is calibrated at rec709 gamma 2.4  

Standard Video 8bit (old school)  latest AE, PPro, AME  GTX1050ti gpu   32gb Ryzen 7. Solid computer set up, working fine.

What is agravating is,  only the blinds and chairs are bright on the HDTV screen. The background and table are dark.

Here is the kicker:

When I export an MPG2, the video looks great watching it on the computer.... The chairs and blinds are both dark, just like in the timeline.

Here are some more settings:

The Working Space  "2020 Night"  is the name of the icc profile I made using calibration software. It's rec.709, 2.4 gamma. 

I exported from AE using ProRes...  also I tried GoPro using the 'straight unmatted' color and the matted setting.  both... same results.

Here is the info for each image:  

Blinds jpg:  (I also turned the png into a jpeg 8 bits to squash everything and make it dark)  Didn't work!!!  LOL this is crazy.

And the chair, I notice they read a little different from each other, but both have my icc profile in them.

And here is the export from PPro to disc... I tried different ones, all the same results...

Thanks very much for reading all this and for your advice.

It seems like a simple issue, I just can't figure this out.  Beyond agravated!!

Please help!

Letty

[R Neil Haugen]

What color space were the blinds and chairs pngs exported out of Photoshop in?

Neil

[Letty2019]

I moved the settings around so much, I'm not really sure where they were when I started this mess.

I have them like this now, and I think I ran the tests when they looked like this:  But not 100% sure...

I saw my ICC profile I made in the list, so I just assumed to use it.  "2020 Night"  (which is rec.709, gamma 2.4)

Are my settings not compatible with AE ?  maybe there is somthing wrong with the photo the way it's coming out of PS ?

Also, I think I changed my gpu to 16-235 range, AFTER I calibrated the monitor.  Did I screw up my calibration by doing that?

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

No, you do not use the ICC profile for the monitor as your color working space.

This should be set to sRGB, which is what is specified for all Rec.709 media.

Neil

[Letty2019]

oh, working space is NOT the icc profile.

OK, I changed it like this: to convert the images to the RGB work space:

But, when I import the image, I get this:

I clicked OK, and the new profile wouldn't stick.   I repeated this, and choose "Assign Profile" rgb....  and that didn't stick also.

When I import the photo back into PShop, it always asks me, even though I changed it prior.

I'm missing something.

Also back to AE, because my monitor is calibrated using i1 xrite, icc profile 709 gamma 2.4,    I can go ahead and not use Color Management, because the windows system is using my icc profile.   

I think you are on the right track about changing the profile on the image, I'm just stuck again. All the reading I do seems to confirm the settings are correct, but the profile is not sticking.  

[Letty2019]

I changed the space to rec.709... and it worked.    I don't get the popup anymore when importing the converted image.

I read that if I'm only using PShop for video editing, I can leave at 709  does that sound good with you? or should I try and get the srgb to work?

I converted the images and it really helped!!! Thank you again for that great advice!

I was able to darken them, but had slight problems with hdtv, which shows it a little brighter, by about 10 to 15%.   

I'm assuming the computer monitor is perfect, and the hdtv is not pro calibrated so the issue now is with the hdtv.

I was hoping to make a disc that will play on any hdtv, because most people don't calibrate them.  Seems only commercial discs play better and my homemade disc doesn't have the range.  Maybe caz my footage is 8bit and doesn't look as great on hdtv.

Your opinion:  It's ok to leave Color Management OFF because I'm using XRite and made the system icc profile rec.709, correct? I don't have multi projects and don't need access to changing the icc profile.   Is there a benefit to using CM ? 

Thanks so much!  I'm off the window ledge!! 

Letty

[Rick Gerard]

Unless your DVD player and the monitor used to playback the DVD have been calibrated to look the same as the computer monitor you are going to get different color values. These differences are most noticeable in the blacks. The only sure test is to look at the raw files on the same monitor. As long as your color settings are consistent and color management is properly set up you should end up with basically the same images. Color Compression in MPEG files is going to slightly change the color because the color is compressed and it is not much you can do about that. You are also going to get a slight color shift going from a 16-bit project file to an 8 bit MPEG. That is also unavoidable because you are losing a huge amount of color information by dropping the bit depth.

[Letty2019]

Hi Rick, I was able to tone down the images by (Neil's post) correcting the photoshop export.  I changed the working space to rec.709 and it was able to change the embeded profile and I was able to reduce the brightness in the images.   The images are still bright, but about 10 or 15% increase could be due to the hdtv, which is not pro calibrated.  The darks look ok, but over all, doesn't match the timeline.

I was thinking to up the nits on the computer monitor to help balance the correcting process?  

What is your thoughts on using Color Management?  My  monitor is calibrated using i1 Xrite, to rec.709 gamma 2.4    Can't I just leave the CM off because the windows system is controlling the monitor with the custom icc profile?

Doesn't CM just force the use of the icc profile, which windows is already doing?    I only have the one project and I don't need access to multi icc's.  

Thanks for your thoughts. 

Letty

[R Neil Haugen]

Sometimes, yes, sometimes, no, it varies ... and that's why this whole color management thing is so frustrating. I work with color management experts daily, and they are MORE frustrated with it than you are!

Which is why the pros that advise colorist's all teach "trust only after verification". They teach running a profile to generate a dense 3D LUT to apply to the signal either in the monitor itself (the full colorist's monitors can do this) or in an i/o output device from BlackMagic or AJA.

Then after the software creates the LUT, and they've installed it, running another set of software to create a detailed profile of the screen after the calibration LUT is applied.

If that profile is acceptable, then the screen is declared usable. But ... the software to do the profile is rather spendy. Sigh.

Neil

[Letty2019]

Yikes!  Thanks for that.  Really mess this color stuff is.