Colour issues on import

[chrisnr2]

Testing Premier Pro colour interpretations:

I started with a jpg image which is a windows 10 screenshot of a blue colour.

From this I have:
1) imported into P'shop, cropped and *saved (as jpg, default colour space srgb)
2) *exported as jpg (same colour space etc)
3) saved as a psd file.
4) imported into lightroom, cropped and exported (srgb)

All these files (including the original screenshot) have an identical colour when viewed in Windows photo viewer, Lightroom and photoshop.
However, when imported into Premier Pro, the exports ( 2) and 4) are interpreted as a paler blue.

Can anyone shed light?

[R Neil Haugen]

Simple. Video is Rec.709, which has a number of things that are not included in the very basic sRGB standard.

Such as a specific display gamma for video, which is not the case for stills.

Stills and video are not now and never have been the same. They actually can't be for quite a number of reasons.

And ... I'm a long-time stills pro. I started our portrait studio in 1978. In the Professional Photographers of America system, my name is always followed by 'M.Photog.,Cr; CPP" ... Master Photographer (mainly gained by print competition points); Craftsman (mainly gained by points for teaching at professional conferences) and Certified Professional Photographer. Gained by testing and submitted prints.

For over 20 years, we had our own in-house wetlab, with up to ten employees. I taught them to do things for production work that the custom printers at the big pro houses said wasn't possible in custom work.

I first added digital imagery during about Photoshop Cs4.5, using a flat-bed scanner to do copy & restoration work. Back in the 90s, I think. It was vastly easier and better than the Kodak 4x5 copy film in the 4x5 camera I'd been doing.

We were one of the first high-end studios to go full digital images for our portrait work, up through 30x40 images (occasionally bigger). Started with Lightroom pubic beta 0.8.

Yea, I've done ... and know ... stills work.

I started adding video in 2013, and thought at least the capture and color would be the same.

That was stupid of ME. Darned stupid!

Capture ... well, if you do not have a plan for capturing really, really high quality sound, don't even bother getting the camera on the tripod. THAT was a painful lesson. The o' School of Bloody Hard Knocks is a brutal, if efficient, training facility.

And color ... oh my ... thankfully, I had some of the best pro colorists who were also amazing teachers of video color take me aside and school me.

There's no way the two ... stills and video color ... can be the same. Neither for the way the effects/tools are built, or computed, or seen.

Learn video color, but understand, it's a different skillset.

[MyerPj]

Awe, I'm going to say that post would have worked well even without that big, bold sentence in the middle! 🙂

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello @chrisnr2,

Thanks for the message. Welcome to the forums. Please give the team details, if you have time. See, How do I write a bug report?

I hope we can help you shortly. Sorry for the pain points.

Thanks,
Kevin

[chrisnr2]

Trying to post the info but each time I click post, it doesn't appear here ??

[chrisnr2]

Perhaps it's too many words.

Try this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lVTaI9K7JDsJzP_0ebanVyup6acDbudmHOKNG08sVCo/edit?usp=sharing

[chrisnr2]

Should this have had a further response by now @Kevin-Monahan 

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello @chrisnr2,

Thanks for the response and information. You wrote:

A variety of image file types are created (using different processes in P’shop and Lightroom Classic) from one Windows 10 screenshot. All these types display identically when viewed in Windows Photo Viewer, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop. However, files *exported from both Photoshop and Lightroom Classic display differently in Premier Pro.

Adobe Premier Pro version 24.6.3 (build 4)

Lightroom Classic 14.0.1 202410161356-30922cfc

Photoshop 2025 26.0.0 workspace sRGB IEC61966-2.1 North America General Purpose 2

Microsoft Windows 10 Home

Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045

X64-based PC

AMD Ryzen 5 56000X 6-core Processor, 3701 Mhz

NVIDiA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

16gb RAM

SSD 

Steps to reproduce:

1. Base image created from the screenshot, pasted into Windows Paint, cropped, and saved as a jpg file
2. Import file into P’shop, add text and save as tiff, save as PSD, save as jpg, export as jpg (option to convert to sRGB remains selected)
3. Import the file into Lightroom Classic and export it as jpg (same sRGB settings)
4. Import all files into Premier Pro and stack in layers, change position so all are visible together

A paler shade of blue in both the *exported files (Lightroom Classic and Photoshop) is visible within Premier Pro. They remain identical to the other images when viewed in Photoshop or other photo viewing / manipulation software.

Screenshot of Premier Pro stack: (showing color variation) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_cW-BXLH04ZM3OdF4LM72DXCl7eYd1P-/view?usp=drive_link

Screenshot of Photoshop stack (no colour variation)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bGFj-gJiGPmRPTemq7da0eiYvXV1zwhi/view?usp=drive_link

Thanks, very much for this info. It sounds like a color management issue. I'll try to get an engineer to respond here. In the meantime, perhaps one of our experts can handle this one.

Cheers,
Kevin

[R Neil Haugen]

There's an option in Photoshop as I recall for Rec.709 which uses the sRGB color space with a display gamma of 2.4. Which is a required part of SDR video.

I wonder if that is the issue? It wasn't created with a gamma 2.4 display?

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @chrisnr2 ,
I notice you're in the 24 version of Premiere and the 25 version of Photoshop.  Have you tried updating Premiere to the 25 version?  New color management was introduced in this version and that might account for the discrepency.  Let me know if you're able to test that out.
Best,
Rach

[chrisnr2]

Yes, I have just tested in 25 and the behaviour remains the same.

[chrisnr2]

Yes, @Rach McIntire I have just tested in 25 and the behaviour is identical.

[chrisnr2]

Any further progress on this @Kevin-Monahan ?

[R Neil Haugen]

In the Media Properties dialog, what does Premiere show for those files as the color space?

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello @chrisnr2,

I have just returned from extended leave. You may want to ask @Rach McIntire for any updates on this issue while I get caught up.

Cheers,
Kevin

[IanB_360]

Hi @chrisnr2 

Can you send the color management settings that you are using in each program? And are you making graphics with Alpha channels where you see the color shift on fonts? Are these quick time video files  that have a variation in color shifts once you bring them into Premiere Pro or only upon export? Do you have a camera file that you are color grading and notice the shift when you have chosen a specific color management setting in Premiere pro? If you have any of the files in which you are seeing the shift can you send those our way? Neil has posted some good insight if you are dealing with screengrabs, stills and jpegs .

What is your color work flow details? Sometimes you do need to tweak the color in Premiere especially with stills to get them to look exactly how you want. Your work flow details would be helpful for us to know.  I can talk to some of the team in color management once we have some more details.

Thank you

Ian