Color Issues when exporting from Premiere Pro

[In The Corn Productions]

Hello all,

I have been having color issues with Premiere Pro for some time now. I have always had to over-saturate or increase the vibrance to higher than desired levels in order to get an exported image that is somewhat close to what I am looking for, but the end result is always significantly less saturated and vibrant than what I see inside Premiere. Obviously this is a huge problem as it requires a large amount of trial and error, and if I want an image that is incredibly colorful and saturated it is difficult to achieve.

Here is a screengrab of the same image before and after exporting from Premiere Pro:

Left: Color Grade before export. Right: Color Grade after exporting using H.264 and viewing in QT

I have tried a variety of different codecs and LUTs within the program, but they all provide similar results.

Any help or assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[chrisw44157881]

yes, but what are you watching it on? quicktime player? youtube? 

is color management enabled in premiere?

what is your os? mac/win? and monitor default profile?

if you import back into premiere, does it look the same?

did you export the colorspace metadata profile as embedded?

[In The Corn Productions]

Quicktime is what's displayed above, but I have gotten similar results viewing it elsewhere, including on youtube. Obviously colorspaces vary, but it seem that Premiere's is vastly different to the others. 

Color Management was not enabled.

I am working on an iMac with default iMac color profile selected.

The export looks the same as the timeline when brought back into Premiere.

I believe I did export the profile as embedded (I didn't change it by any means), but this has happened with a plethora of projects, so I don't think it's anything that I may have messed up for this particular export.

[R Neil Haugen]

The reason for Chris' questions is simply that the great minds at Apple decided to be unique, as always ... in application of color management standards.

Rec.709 calls for sRGB primaries, D65 white point, both the scene-referred transform function AND the display-referred transform function, gamma 2.4 (2.2 in bright-room viewing is ok), and 100 nits brightness for the monitor.

Apple's ColorSync utility only applies the scene-referred transform but not the also required display transform (yea, that's a biggie) ... plus they use what they call "sRGB gamma" which is unspecified but various knowledgeable types have reverse-engineered it to be between 1.95 and 1.96. Also a biggie.

Premiere Pro is built using on bog-standard pro broadcast Rec.709 systems. With one, you don't need to worry about color management, it's built in. Hard-wired.

But on the Macs, you NEED to set the "display color management" option in the Preferences to on. This tells PrPro to look at the ICC profile of the monitor, and remap the image shown to as close as possible to Rec.709 standards.

After exporting, the file will look 'washed out' and/or desaturated because of the way ColorSync will display it within QuickTime on a Mac. I've been told by some that VLC actually can ignore ColorSync, and at times with it's own 'control' of the image might show a fairly correct image, but I've got no Mac gear to test that on.

So if you want to check the file, do so by re-importing into Premiere, or get it to someone with a fully calibrated/profiled system and see what they see in your file. Sadly, that's about the best options you have.

Adobe provides a "gamma compensation LUT" that is to be used on export ... and will darken the file and raise saturation so on many Macs it looks "like it should". Of course, on any non-Mac computer, that file will look too dark, contrasty, and over-saturated. But on some new Macs with the newest OS, it's not apparently workking all that well.

I work with and teach pro colorists, most of whom work on Macs, and they can't find a way "around" this. And are pretty hacked about the Macosphere having a separate color management setup. And yelling that some adult should simply get a few people together and agree on a standard used EVERWHERE.

Keep dreaming ...

Neil

[In The Corn Productions]

Thank you for all the info. I had a feeling this was an issue that went beyond just me, but I've never been able to find a solution (as it seems is the case for everyone else) so I figured I'd check in again to see.

It sounds like the best option is making sure that "display color management" is enabled? Does that option change the color settings of the exported video, or just how I am viewing it in Premiere? Will the image look overly saturated on other computers?

I do also have a PC that I could color on, but I have a sad excuse for a monitor on that device so I have been avoiding that option.

[In The Corn Productions]

On the PC note - should "Display Color Management" also be checked when coloring on a PC?

[R Neil Haugen]

Wait for it ... "... that ... depends ... ".

You were expecting that, I hope! CM is a morass at the best of times. The most accurate answer I can give is ... maybe. you'd need to test.

What is the monitor, and have you used say i1 Display Pro to calibrate it? If you've not done a full calibration, I would definitely say have the DCM option on.

On a fully calibrated and profiled Rec.709 system, no, it's better to have it off.

Well, that's clear as mud. Really thick oozy mud.

Jarle Leirpoll has a ton of useful stuff on his site, including the most fantabulous lengthy detailed book on workflows in PrPro available. I've got it in both ebook and printed copy.

He also has a pretty solid breakdown of when and when not to use DCM ... so go check there would be my advice.

https://premierepro.net/color-management-premiere-pro/

Neil

[chrisw44157881]

hmm, if color management is off, then premiere won't see your monitor calibration. as for that site, he says leave off if going to youtube. but I wouldn't disable my monitor calibration just for that reason. you can always use a gamma lut for web. as chrome is 1.96 for example.

see the lengthy post

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/quot-why-does-my-footage-look-darker-in-premiere-quot-co...