Display Color Management darkens my footage

[Kasper Garam]

I'm importing footage to Premiere. Everything looks fine on my computer in Finder or QuickTime, but when I import the footage in to Premiere, the footage gets A LOT darker. If I go to preferences and deselect "Display Color Management", the issue is gone and my footage looks normal. I have a P3 display on my MacBook Pro 14", so it seems to be adviced that I turn "Display Color Management" on, but then I get the issue of the darker footage. Is there anything I can do to help with the issue, while still keeping Display Color Management on?

[Kasper Garam]

 

Here are a couple of screenshots. Left side is QuickTime, right side is Premiere.

My computer specs is running MacOS Ventura 13.2 and the Premiere version is 23.3

[R Neil Haugen]

Was just down at NAB 2023 in Vegas, and one of the devs brought this up ... and is trying to get this sorted and maybe changed. So there might be some changes eventually on this.

As he was noting, being as the Mac displays Rec.709/SDR media with the camera transform of 1.96, not the display transform of 2.4, nor the expected sRGB on the Web of 2.2 ... the "QuickTime gamma issue" is that outside of Premiere, Qt/ColorSync will display the media lighter, right? Right!

So ... you turn on the DCM in the newer Macs ... your media gets darker like your post. So naturally, you lighten in in color ... and it's even lighter when exported and seen in Qt ... not ... what you'd want.

So with a major long-time dev bringing this up, it's under discussion certainly. How long till we get more info, no clue.

Neil

[Kasper Garam]

Thanks a lot Neil! It's good to hear that people are working on this.
As for lightening it up in Pr and exporting, sure it becomes lighter. But then I use the QT Gamma Compensation LUT and everything is fine. Upload to YouTube like that and it looks as it should on any screen that I try it on. So no issues in the end, but it's just a pain to work this way

[R Neil Haugen]

I work for/with/teach pro colorists. Most of whom are total Mac geeks, right?

They're furious with Apple over this. There wouldn't BE any issue if Apple had simply stayed with all other apps/The World and set ColorSync's "Rec.709" option to display Rec.709 clips with the 'normal'/expected gamma of 2.4.

As the difference (visually) on most screens between the "typical web 2.2" and broadcast-required 2.4 is less than what you'll get by being in a brighter or darker room on the same screen. But ... 1.96? That's WAY different!

I know some colorists that simply do all in 2.4 ... as well, Mac users don't realize that the things tend to show b-cast standard stuff too light as that's what they always see. It's like the old colorist saying, "You can't fix gramma's green TV" thing, right?

And some do their work in 2.4, then simply give the gamma wheel (mids contol) a very slight drop action in say an Adjustment layer over the project at export. Which means that on a PC, it will be a bit dark. But not too bad ... nothing crushed.

And on a typcial Mac, it will be a bit light ... but not too bad. And say ... that's the best I can do at this time.

Some Macs do have a monitor option for "HDTV" as well as Rec.709. And on those, that setting does use gamma 2.4 for all Rec.709. But many Macs don't have that option, and realistically, how many users that have it will know it's there and when/why to use it?

I'm not thinking it would be that many, you know?

And it would be nice if everyone went by the same standard ... 

Neil

[Kasper Garam]

But hey, it's Apple. So you can't expect them to go by the standards. I'm an Apple fan, but man do I hate how they do specific things. Like the screen issues you are talking about. Or the much-talked Lightning vs USB-C debate. But then again, I love their products, so... But I guess for the time being we just have to work with what we got.

On another note, coloring footage is so frustrating, because sooo many people will watch that video on a bad screen that has awful colors. Spending a day or two on a short video's colors just for people to watch them on a screen that ruins the colors completely? Love it.

[R Neil Haugen]

Colorists start with reference monitors costing more than most people spend on their entire computer setup just for Rec.709 SDR work. Need HDR?

The monitors are north of $25G!

And one of the first lessons for Colorists is this: you can't fix gramma's green TV.

Meaning no one, ever, whether theatrical or streaming or broadcast or Blu-ray  ... will ever see the same image that was on that reference monitor.

Neil