Color and light altered in imported files

[lucyeden]

I imported files from my iPhone for a project and the footage is washed out and tinted green. I figured it was an issue with interpreting the iPhone footage and just went through and edited to colors as best I could.

But upon exporting, the colors altered again and reverted back to the normal appearance of the footage (but with the color edits I applied so now it's totally off). Also, I added a still png file at one point and that tinted green as well so that means its not just the iPhone footage.

And on top of that, if I remove the color settings I added in premier and export as is, it become wayyy over exposed in the exported file. Whats going on?! Please help!

I attached some images to show what is happening:

1 = how fottage should appear and how it is on my phone 

2 = how it displays in premiere

[Averdahl · Accepted solution]

Whats going on?! Please help!

By @lucyeden

This is the new color management in Premiere Pro. Carl Soule at Adobe created two videos that explain everything you need and must know. Well spent minutes to look at:

• Premiere Pro V22 - Understanding Color Spaces, HDR, and what that might mean to you - YouTube
• Understanding Color and HDR in Premiere - Update Jan 2023 - YouTube

[lucyeden · Accepted solution]

Thank you for those videos!! The second one finally got me a solution by doing this: 

1. Download this custom LUT: https://bryanadamc.gumroad.com/l/hdrconversionlut

2. Set sequence working color space by going to Sequence > Sequence Settings and choose Rec 2100 for the working color space

3. Select all used footage in the project panel and right click and click Modify > Interperet footage and at the bottom set the color space override to Rec 2020. Then under Input LUT, choose 'Add LUTs' from the dropdown and import that custom LUT I mentioned earlier

4. Under Premiere Pro > Preferences > General, be sure the three check boxed shown in the attached image are on.

That finally got it right! (And this is what specifically worked when using iPhone HDR footage) 

[Xavi Simben]

Thanks for the LUT. However, I must say the footage does NOT look exactly as the original one on the iPhone. I see all my footage too dark and with too saturation. I am unable to understand why this is happening and it's a complete nightmare, and nobody is able to provide a valid explanation and/or solution, rather than going back to the 2021 version.

[R Neil Haugen]

I work for/with/teach pro colorists. So I've been through hours of discussions on image display and color management practices. And there are several things that are in play here, and yes, it's complicated.

First thing to understand: the expectation, by so many people, that there is one 'absolutely correct' view of any video image ... is a fallacy. And actually, it is impossible for a number of reasons. For instance, pro colorists know that they can't totally match two "identical" monitors side-by-side even with Klein spectrometers and Calman or ColourSpace.

So which of the two images, identically calibrated and profiled, but visually not identical ... images ... is the "correct" one?

And further, no camera ... nor any phone ... has a perfectly calibrated screen, and even if it did ... that would only be "correct" to view in one 'set' brightness of surround lighting. Not even the $70,000 Red, Arri, or Sony rigs have a fully calibrated viewing system. The DIT will typically have a fully calibrated (and expensive) monitor on-set if they need to see a highly calibrated image.

So "the original image" ... is just what showed up on the screen of the device, and is not a perfect example of that image. And unless you're running a fully calibrated and profiled monitor that either has an internal LUT storage 'slot' or using a BlackMagic or AJA break-out device to get the image outta the computer without the OS or GPU 'touching' it ... you aren't running anything to get a highly calibrated view of your image data.

Further, Apple decided for some unknown reason to not use the standard for Rec.709 images that all other apps and all broadcast/streaming networks require. So Rec.709/SDR media on Apple screens is problematic in addition to what I've mentioned above.

So if you're working on a recent Mac, we've got other issues to handle here.

So any image displayed by any app or device is an interpretation  of the image data. There is no way to get a 'perfect' image anywhere, let alone, across different devices/software in different viewing environments.

The user always has to make choices. And that seems so weird to most people starting out, but is (unfortunately) true. First, as to what you want your image to look like (as there is no perfect or Ideal of that image) ... and second, how to get the most reliable view possible on the system you're viewing it on.

Separate, and both perhaps complicated, issues.

Plus ... no viewer will ever see exactly what you saw on your screen. On any device anywhere. Ain't that a joy? One of the things you learn as a colorist though.

Neil

[Xavi Simben]

Hi Neil,

Thank you for your comment. The thing is that most of us don't need a colorist master class or anything like that. When I talk about "original" I am refering to what I can see on nearly all my devices displays (iPhone, Mac, MBA, TV...), which is really accurate to what my human eye sees. Regardless of everything you mentioned, we need to be practic here, and with Premiere Pro 2021 the footage I imported to my projects looked nearly exactly the same as I was able to see on any device, and with Premiere Pro 2022 everything recorded with my iPhone (.MOV) appeared to be desaturated, and it seems there's no way to fix it unless I start editing the colors in Lumetri, which takes a huge amount of time, a time I don't have and I never need in the previous version of the app.

So, I am sorry to say it like this, but we don't need a pro colorist masterclass, I need a quick and easy solution here. Unfortunately, since I found no solution to this, I just decided to uninstall this version and reinstall the previous one. Hope this can get fix in future releases.

Regards.

[Kevin-Monahan]

HI Xavi,

I read your message and I can understand what you're going through. The current versions have automatic tone mapping which may help with your current footage. You can switch that on in Sequence > Sequence Settings. For future shoots, turn off the HDR feature in your iPhone and you'll have the previous experience you had with earlier versions of Premiere Pro. That's what I've done and it makes my life a lot easier. Try it and report back if that might work for you.

Thanks,
Kevin

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Basic Color Management 101. Which we all have to learn now.

You must set clips to the working color space of the sequence, or set the sequence working color space to match the clips.

For Rec.709/SDR sequence work, select one or more HLG color space clips in the Project panel.

Right-click/Modify/Interpret Footage.

Set the Override-to option to Rec.709.

Redo the color work on the sequence.

Use only export presets matched to the sequence working color space.

Neil