I work for/with/teach pro colorists. I've been heavily schooled in all this CM stuff for years, and have taught the CM of both Premiere and Resolve vis a vis this ... issue. (Which by the way infuriates most of my colorist buds, nearly all Mac geeks of course ... they're ticked at Apple.)
You can say "Thank you!" to Apple for this.
The full broadcast standards for Rec.709/SDR video have been set and used for YEARS. But Apple for some reason decided to use the camera transform, roughly gamma 1.96, as the display transform for displaying the image on the monitor.
Rather than the specified gamma 2.4.
And that's the problem. Most Macs will display Rec.709 video with gamma 1.96, and in some testing I've read recently, don't properly remap the hues of Rec.709's sRGB space into the P3 color space of the Retina monitors. So you get both the lighter look, and the desaturation combined. Oh ... joy.
But ... some newer Macs have "reference" modes, and for those that do, if they use them, the HDTV setting uses the full-on B-cast specs, so those Mac users get a gamma 2.4 display transform. As do nearly all other systems whether b-cast suites, Android, or PCs.
So that's the 'thing' ... you're seeing a different "presentation" of the image from the normal standard. And there's three options you've got, depending on your choices, I'll list those below.
First though, get your basic CM in best shape.
Go to the Color Workspace, Lumetri panel, Settings tab, where all the CM settings now "live".
- Set Display Color Management on, and for Macs, Extended range also.
- Auto detect log and auto tonemapping, both ON ... and they are interactive.
- Set your sequence to the CM you want to export to.
That will get you started. Now, for your choices ... in the viewer gamma options:
1) gamma 1.96/QuickTime ... this option sets the Premiere Program monitor to similar to the Mac without reference modes.
Implications: What you see inside Premiere and outside in QuickTime player, Chrome and Safari, will be fairly close. What is shown in VLC and Firefox will be darker/more saturated. Many Mac users without reference modes will see a similar image.
But ... Macs with reference modes, and nearly all other viewers, whether PC, Android, or broadcast specced setup, will see the darker 'view' of the file.
2) gamma 2.2/web ... this will be a bit darker within Premiere than outside on a Mac without ref modes. Not quite as dark as 2.4.
Implications: This will help create a file somewhat in between 1.96 and 2.4, seen by some as sort of a compromise setting. While you may see comments that "this is what 'the web' uses for video anyway' that is actually incorrect ... 'web' use of gamma 2.2 is for sRGB still images, not video.
The image will be a bit darker on most non-Mac systems, a bit lighter on most Mac systems without ref modes.
3) gamma 2.4/broadcast ... this is what nearly all my colorist acquaintances use for all Rec.709. No professionally distributed Rec.709 media is graded for 2.2 or 1.96 by the way ... so everything professionally produced, then seen on a Mac, was graded under a 2.4 setting.
Implications: the image view will be 'normal' on all b-cast spec systems, most PCs and Android, and Macs with reference modes. It will be a bit light and low saturated on Macs without reference modes.
And will relatively match all professionally produced media on any screen. Which is why pro colorists do it this way.
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