PP 25.2.3 suddenly washing out colors on export

[JeremyAndrewDavis]

I've been editing/exporting with everything going fine in what I assume was 25.2.2 

Four days ago it auto-updated to 25.2.3 and ever since, every export is very washed out.

I know about the Mac gamma issue but this doesn't seem to be it? For one, I've never had any issues with it doing this in 20+ years using Premiere Pro and it suddenly started hapening after an update.

Now whatever I export in whatever gamma setting all looks the same washed out and it displays that way no matter where the video is played. 

I've tried changing project gamma settings - 2.4, 2.2, 1.96, all with the same results. I'm operating in media color space Rec.709 SDR, outputting color space Rec.709 and having this issues with footage from a variety of sources - Canon DSLR, Fuji, Inspire 3, GoPro, etc.

All clips are washed out regardless if any color correction has been applied.
Thanks for the help!

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @JeremyAndrewDavis,

Thanks for the message. Welcome to the forums.  I can see from your image that the export doesn't match.  It's always annoying when it goes wrong right at the end.  Can you tell me if you are using a mix of SDR/HDR content?  Do you have wide gamut tone mapping options selected?  Could you send some screenshots of your export and sequence color settings?  If you have time, please give the team a few more details. See: How do I write a bug report?

It sounds like you've already taken a look, but feel free to also check out our Color Management Helpx.

I hope we can help you soon. Sorry for the frustration! 

[R Neil Haugen]

Without knowing what color management in Premiere you're using, what monitors and external viewing app, and what media is involved, "we" can't really say much.

So ... screengrabs of your entire Lumetri Settings tab ... the tab NAMED Settings please! ... would be useful.

What is your monitor, and what external app did you view the file in?

If on a Mac, and you used QuickTime, have you also tried VLC or Potplayer to view the file? If not, please do.

[JeremyAndrewDavis]

Thanks Rach,

I think I found something interesting... and at last provides me workarounds.

To answer your question - no footage is HDR.

What I found -

So GoPro player is my default player. It seems it only plays washed on on this player. Quicktime, VLC, WMP, upload to YouTube, etc all play correctly.

It appears that something in the 25.2.3 release broke GoPro's interpretation of the footage. No matter what settings I tried, it always washed it out. 

Below are the standard settings I'm using.

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @JeremyAndrewDavis, 

Great job on the detective work.  That's a solid lead, and I'm glad you have a workaround.  I will investigate the GoPro player lead further and hopefully get that sorted.  Thanks so much, and please don't hesitate to reach out again.  Happy editing.

[R Neil Haugen]

Awesome work and post there, by the way ...

[Usman_Shaukat]

I have been facing this issue since the 25.xxx update. I figured out if I use software encoding all the colors were washed out. Do check if you're forced to software encoding upon export.

On version 25.2.3 I am unable to export any video using CUDA because lumetri keeps crashing on every export and I don't have the option to switch to Software rendering so I am stuck with OpenCL only (Which is very slow).

Planning to revert to the version 25 or 25.1 so at least I can export using CUDA (for faster exports).

[R Neil Haugen]

That's a massive pain no question. In the past, there was one version that wouldn't work on my hardware until they fixed a bug, and it was about four months I was still working on the older version. So ... been there, done that. Full sympathy!

That said, this is unusual enough that it might be something on your rig we could sort out. But that takes details.

So what's the setup you're running on. OS/CPU/RAM/GPU/GPU driver, and the media you're working with? Let's try to figure this out.

One thing that puzzles people is whether you're in software only mode or not ... have you noticed, they changed how that works? If it recognizes your GPU, it grays out the option for changing things.

So many users assume it means their GPU isn't in use. No, it's in use, but you can't de-use it without closing Premiere, holding down Shift on launch, and selecting the software only option.

So did you disable that at launch?

And a screengrab of the problem would be very helpful. As would one of all the options in the full Lumetri panel Settings tab, where all CM options now live.

A lot of these issues have boiled down to users learning which of the many options in the new color manageme to use together. It can matter a TON if you don't have things set in a coordinated fashion clear through all CM options.