All footage is suddenly washed out in new Adobe Premiere Pro (22.6.2)

[jedlev]

Hi, so I've been editing on Adobe Premiere 2020 for a couple years now and a week ago, my computer updated mine to the new 2022 version. I started editing, and belatedly realized it was washing out all my footage (not on export, IN the actual program). Meaning all the previews in the project tab are washed out and overexposed, so is any footage I add to the sequence or preview.  This isn't affecting one video file, but rather any and all video files I add to the project, regardless of age or file type.

When I open the exact same footage in the 2020 version of Premiere, it all appears normal as before, so this is a new problem with the current 2022 version (22.6.2) and either my computer or the settings.

All of my footage is from an iPhone 13 Max or iPhone 12, which I've used for some time now without any issue (other than small gitches that are fixed by encoding the footage using Adobe's Media Encoder). I also tried converting this recent footage to mp4 using the Adobe Media Encoder and the footage is just as washed out as before.

The only thing that halfway works is that I was able to re-set my project settings for HDR Graphics White (nits) to 300, which is the maximum value it will allow. This solves about half the problem and makes the video slightly less overexposed, but it's still really washed out as compared to the original footage or even how the same footage appears in Premiere 2020. Changing the color settings in the Sequence Settings does nothing (and again, this is a bigger probelm than just the sequence as the footage appears washed out even in the previews in the project tab).

I've attached three screenshots of the preview window within Adobe Premiere:

>>One from Premiere 2020 with HDR Graphics White set at 200 (the default), where it looks normal;

>>One from Premiere 2022 with HDR Graphics White set at 200 (the default), where it looks incredibly washed out;

>>One from Premiere 2022 with HDR Graphics White set at 300 (the maximum I can change it to), where it looks slightly better, but still washed out. 

I'm currently running on a Macbook Pro, macOS Monterey (version 12.6) with a 2.4 GHz 8-core Intel Core i9 processor and 64 GB of memory. My graphics cards are AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB and Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB.

If anyone has any tips for things I can do to fix this, it would be greatly appreciated!

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

Premiere Pro V22 - Understanding Color Spaces, HDR, and what that might mean to you - YouTube

FAQ: How to fix saturated/over-exposed HLG/HDR clips

Making your iPhone 12 and 13 footage look normal

[jedlev]

Thank you! This video absolutely solved my problem! Once I went in and manually to Interpret Footage and set the color override, it worked. I ended up going with Rec.2020 as the most color-accurate setting (Rec.709 looked a little off still), and my footage looks just about normal!

Thanks for the link!

[R Neil Haugen]

Ann's  right ... because they completely rebuilt the underlying color system. Including all math, processes, processing, and defaults for the 2022 series.

Why? Simple.

All previous versions were built on hard-coded Rec.709 color. As you note, you are working with HDR media, not Rec.709. And their cadged ability to use HLG and PQ data values as 'over-range Rec.709' was a temporary hack of their own app while they worked on a new underlying color system.

In 2021/earlier, as it was totally based on Rec.709, the presumption of the program was that all media and sequences were intended to be used as Rec.709. With 2022 and forward, that is NO LONGER assumed.

We now have sequence color space settings ... and media color space settings ... and export color space settings. An underlying system I've called "color space agnostic" ... and completely different behavior.

It is not probably wise to simply bring 2021 projects into 2022 for that reason, and of course you don't need to. Keep all previous versions installed when you install new ones, do new projects in the new version, and test old project in new project files created for them in the new version.

If those migrated project in NEW version project files work fine, great! If not, just keep working them in the older version. It's what many of us do and recommend.

Neil

[SWBoatman25]

I am trying to do exactly this to solve the overexposed imported videos but when I click "Interpret Footage" the "Color Management" section at the bottom of the pop up window is grayed out. Is there a solution?

[R Neil Haugen]

What is your exact Premiere version, what is your media?

Neil