Best practice to get accurate colors from Program Monitor to rendered file?

[Viktor sloth]

I'm really struggling with getting accurate colors from timeline into my finished rendered file.

It's been a problem going on for years, but for some reason it's only getting worse.

I have wonderful skintones in my Program Monitor, but after rendering these tones become yellow and the contrast even changes slightly.

I'm working with different calibrated professional wide-spectrum monitors, but for some reason they just can't get it right within Premiere.

As Premiere is not color managed, what do you guys do to get the most accurate colors from timeline to file?

Thanks!

[R Neil Haugen]

It's not getting the color from program monitor into the file, it's getting correct displays of the file across monitors. The file has the correct color.

And PrPro is color managed internally, you just don't have settings to adjust. It is hard-wired for Rec709, which is sRGB and at gamma 2.4.

As one contributor here has noted, each different sized Mac P3 monitor actually has a slightly different profile, so say viewing something across 2 monitors can get very different results in the same player.

So viewing "accurately" requires using a monitor fed with a proper way BlackMagic, AJA, or Kona transform box to remove the system *and* the monitor from the equation.

Otherwise you're comparing over ripe peaches to green apples. Yeah, gets frustrating.

Neil

[excited_Genie16B8]

"Variants of this question have been covered to death on this and every other color grading forum. The answer is always the same.  The only way to get a [proper] image you can trust is to run SDI [or HDMI] out to an accurately calibrated reference monitor.  Grading by viewing the image in the GUI just doesn't work."  - Jamie LeJeune

The above was posted in the Blackmagic forums about DaVinci Resolve, but it applies to all NLE's.

You must have one of two viewing environments set up.

1. A dedicated I/O card (AJA Kona, Blackmagic Intensity, etc.) to a calibrated monitor.

2. An export from Premiere Pro played from hardware to a calibrated monitor.

How it looks on the calibrated monitor is all that matters.

[Viktor sloth]

JIm and R Neil, thanks for the replies.

It does however blow my mind, how Photoshop and After Effects does not require to run an SDI out to an accurately calibrated reference monitor ($$$$$) to get an image to trust on your web devices, and I have been incapable of that being the only truth there is.

[excited_Genie16B8]

After Effects does need the calibrated monitor.  Any video manipulation software will.

I'm not a photographer.  I'll leave it to such for comments on that topic.

[R Neil Haugen]

In Photoshop and Ae, you do have some settings for color space/profile. Most photogs have P-shop set to a wider gamut space than called for in Rec709, which is completely sRGB. Typically using ProPhoto or ARGB.

For those sadly on newer Macs, the monitor and OS are some ever changing variety of P3. One user here in testing found every different size of Mac screen uses a different setup for "P3". He was trying to make a transformation LUT to work with Mac exports and one wasn't useful.

I don't know why it is so hard for people to accept the obvious and long established facts that 1) no two screens can EVER be calibrated to show the same signal exactly the same (a bane for colorists); 2) native screen color space/gammut/gamma over-riding requires the use of external and highly calibrated LUT boxes to give much confidence at all, and 3) if your monitor, OS, and apps aren't doing the same thing you have no predictable results possible.

Buying gear, one needs to know what is needed for the work one is doing, and get gear that fills those requirements. It's a royal pain at times, true. Just buying a "powerful computer!" whether PC or Mac without paying attention to the detailed specs is so often a waste of time and money.

PrPro is b-cast standard Rec709/sRGB gamma 2.4. Internally treats everything as full or legal range, but as is shown by Resolve on importing PrPro exports (when R is set to "auto") it displays PrPro exports in the same manner it does any other video-range 16-235 media. So PrPro's exports are natively seen by Resolve as "proper" b-cast Rec709 sRGB 16-235 pro b-cast material.

I've seen several different colorists walk through demoing that. Solid work. I can replicate it.

So ... QuickTime player is notoriously color Stuupid. Useless for checking pro media. Chrome and Safari are also color stupid. For players, VLC and Potplayer when det correctly work pretty good. Firefox is the only browser that is color aware.

All that said, wider gamut screens are becoming more common even though still very much in the minority. And HDR in practical use is coming fast.

PrPro needs to have similar user settings for color handling of internal space plus OS plus monitors as does Resolve. There are several "ideas" on the UserVoice system asking for this.

PLEASE go over there and add on. We do need those settings.

Neil