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A
Anonymous
December 25, 2018
Question

COLOR SPACE at export in Prores

  • December 25, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 12644 views

Merry Christmas everybody !

We edited a feature film in Premiere Pro and preparing for final steps of postproduction now.

Source material is from a Canon C300 Mark 2 (98%) and in smaller amounts also Sony Alpha 7s Mark II (2%).

As there was plenty of reframing and panning done, the postproduction facility who will do the color grading agreed to work on a Prores 4444 file (rebuilding all the reframing would be way to time consuming / expensive). The Prores file for grading we want to export from our Premiere Pro timeline.

Only requirement by the postproduction facility is, that the Prores files have to have the same color space like our source material.

My question now - how do I make sure this works properly ? I understand Premiere Pro does not have any opportunity to edit / change color spaces. But what happens upon reframing shots ? Is this considered an effect and some background RGB conversion applies ?

Our idea for an exporting workflow is to separate Canon and Sony materials to their own timeline and export each one out of Premiere Pro as a Prores 4444 - with the following key settings in the Premiere Pro export window:

Format: Quicktime

Preset: Match Source (rewrap)

Video Codes: Prores 4444

Check Box: "Render at Maximum Depth"

Check Box: "Use Maximum Render Quality"

Uncheck Box: "Use Previews"

As the whole process of color space management is happening in the background, I hope this will present us with a decent outcome and not compromise our footage...

Is there anything of importance to consider ? Any trap - or anything else we might have missed ?

Any comment or advice on this would be highly appreciated !

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Mo Moolla
    Mo Moolla
    Legend
    December 27, 2018

    This is an interesting one but. no complex to solve at all.

    I will have ti reply tomorrow though. Its 1am and I need to get into a meeting very early tomorrow.

    So you are shooting 10bit and can't see the bit depth in AE.

    AE shows 8 and 16bpc and of course 32 bit (floating)

    Are u shooting HDR content?

    Also please state the RAW Footage codecs for both cameras incl fps, res and bit rate.

    Just need these answers if you don't mind?

    Will revert soonest if someone else doesn't do it first

    Mo

    A
    Anonymous
    December 28, 2018

    Sorry - now I was unavailable for a while. Here are the requested facts - hope you can abstract the German descriptions

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    December 25, 2018

    Pr works internally in 32-bit float on most things. If you are using a GPU render max depth is unnecessary as that just tells the app to do GPU- depth render if no GPU is present.

    Pr exports as it works  ... Rec.709/gamma 2.4. For screen use you may wish another space, and take your final print from Pr into Resolve is one way to export to other spaces for specific needs.

    For features, they have a "Hollywood" section for those working in feature films. Headed by David Helmly and Karl Soule. You can find them by searching the web, and they would have the best advice and resources to help with features needs.

    Also, in general, the most in-depth complete look at using Pr in various workflows is Jarle Leirpoll's ebook "The Cool Stuff in Premiere Pro" found on his site.

    premierepro.net

    Neil

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
    chrisw44157881
    chrisw44157881
    Inspiring
    December 25, 2018

    I was hoping you'd delve into the large color gamuts that the Canon C300 can use.

    afaik premiere will clip those color gamuts into rec. 709 with luts. it has some rec. 2020 support that I haven't fully tested. where's the documentation on all this stuff? It's like, every question needs a new manual. the latest I've read is Rec2020 EXR files are not currently supported as part of a Rec2020 workflow in Premiere Pro and scopes won't reflect rec 2020 color. I'm not sure about Prores yet or if it can even export rec. 2020.

    Premiere Pro still not color matching After Effects (using EXR files)

    Although, if premiere will dumb interpret all files into rec 709, then all of this is a mute point, especially if you don't need large color values for grading P3 primaries into theatres etc.

    A
    Anonymous
    December 27, 2018

    Thanks Neil - this sounds interesting. Material is 10bit. I have no effects applied - only panning and reframing.

    Will try this out later tonight - if I manage to sneak out after our family dinner ;-)


    Hmm - well... now I'm running into more obscure things:

    My source footage says in the metadata that it was shot with "Canon Log3" and "cinema gamut" color space.

    When I export to Prores 4444 and then import this Prores file into AE (to see what is says in regards of color space) it has no color space assigned.

    Even more strange is, that when I import the original source footage into AE - it shows a Rec709 color space ?!?

    Could it be that AE interprets the cinema gamut color space of an MXF file as Rec709 - but rather says "nothing" to a Prores file with the same color space ? Or did Premiere Pro on export erase the original color space ?

    Weird, no ?

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