FAQ: How to fix saturated/over-exposed HLG/HDR clips in Premiere Pro v.22

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

With Premiere Pro v 22, new features around color management for H.264 and HEVC have been introduced. This FAQ will show you how to fix clips that appear overexposed or oversaturated due to these new features. Caution: iPhone shoots HDR by default. 

• In case you don't want or need the HLG/HDR workflow and want to return to the standard workflow, please follow these steps to avoid oversaturated and overexposed previews.
  - Right-click on your media in the Project panel.
  - Select Modify > Interpret Footage > Color Management.
  - Set Color Space Override to Rec.709.
  - Sequence > Sequence settings, set Working Color Space to Rec. 709.
  

• In case you do want to edit & deliver in HLG/HDR, please follow the steps mentioned below. Also, see R. Neil Haugen's in-depth article for the full pro workflow: Premiere Pro 2022 Color Management for Log/RAW Media
• Turn off HDR shooting on your iPhone by following the directions here. This allows you to return to a standard iPhone workflow.

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So why do HLG files look saturated/over-exposed in Pr v 22?

In the previous version of Premiere Pro (v 15.x), HLG media was treated as Rec.709 & the sequence created from that media also used Rec.709 color space.

In Premiere Pro v22, H264 and HEVC are color managed, and the HLG media is treated as Rec.2100. So a timeline created from HLG media in v 22 will automatically be assigned HLG color space.

However, in v 22 opening a project created in the previous version (which had HLG media on Rec.709 timeline) results in HLG to Rec.709 conversion. This causes the clips to look saturated/over-exposed in the newer version of Premiere Pro.

Note: This only happens with projects (HLG media + Rec.709 timeline) created in the previous version. Newer project files will have the appropriate color space assigned and will show the correct preview.

How to solve this issue in v 22?
You may manage the color space of the entire timeline made from HLG clips.

• Highlight the sequence & navigate to Sequence > Sequence settings.
• Under the Video tab, set Working Color Space to Rec.2100 HLG.

You may also color manage individual media files.

• To do so, right-click on the HLG file in project panel & navigate to Modify > Interpret Footage. 
• Under Color Management, set Color Space Override to Rec.709. This will create a preview that matches the color of Premiere Pro v15.x.
  

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How to correct saturated/over-exposed previews during H.264/HEVC export?

If you have edited in an HLG timeline & would like to export in HLG, please ensure that you use the following export settings.

• Select your Format as H.264/HEVC.
•  Navigate to Video tab > Encoding Settings.
• Set Profile to High10 (for H.264) or Main10 (for HEVC).
• Set Export Color Space to Rec.2100 HLG.
  
•  

Please note that the Match Source presets use Rec. 709 color space & might result in an incorrect preview if used to export a sequence based on Rec. 2100 HLG color space.

For the full HDR broadcasters workflow, see this page in the Premiere Pro User Guide.

Hope this helps.

- Sumeet

[R Neil Haugen]

I'm trying to understand the details of what you mean.

The program monitor is simply a display function ... which you set in the color management options in Lumetri Settings tab with everything else color managment now. So I'm not sure what you mean by the Program monitor controlling ... whatever ....

Next, the system Adobe has actually does a pretty good job of the transform from the wider dynamic range of say HLG to that of Rec.709, and also the chromatic transform from a Rec.2020/2100/whatever wider color space to Rec.709's sRGB.

For most media, though certainly not all.

So if you do have specific media that is not making the transform well, when the CM settings are correct for the need top to bottom, that needs to be posted in detail on this forum. The devs need specifics and examples.

If you haven't set the CM correctly top to bottom, of course ... it cannot 'work correctly' because it's not set correctly.

That can be confusing, as what is needed for each different media or workflow is not always obvious. So asking about that is simply ... wise.

[SC_TV]

I mean that since it is the "Display", The Frame, the Monitor from which you make all edit decisions and color management decisions then why can it not simply output as displayed when exporting?   Most NLE seem to have no trouble tone mapping and we can toggle those boxes to see how an image will be "displayed".  However that "Displayed" image is not always what is going to be exported.  The fact is even when footage has been interpreted and color has been managed enought users would like to have the timeline picutre in the Program viewer be exported as displayed.    I am only asking for such functionality because I think it would eliminate so much time that has been spent "fixing" something that users can't see needs fixing in their display monitors. 

[R Neil Haugen]

What I get as export is what I see in the Program monitor. Always.

Because my CM is always set.

The same as when working in Resolve, in many ways. And yes, I'm very familiar with Resolve. I work for/with/teach pro colorists btw.

The two apps have different processes for setting things, but in both, the controls are in settings panels.

So I'm still not quite understanding where the problem ... is.

[SC_TV]

I am working off of a Mac M3 Laptop with XDR display.    When I go to export via h.264 what is see in my Program window of the timeline is not what I get in the export window.   The image is blown out and not tone mapped as it was in the Premiere timeline.   All I am suggesting is that What You See (in the Program Monitor Display window) is What you Get when exporting, unless you don't want that and deliberately choose another Color Management (Exposure) Profile upon export.      

Just point me back to the solution if I have overlooked it.  My apologies if I have.

[R Neil Haugen]

Show a screen grab of your full Settings tab of CM settings, and then it might be apparent what to suggest. Because no one online here has a clue what your CM settings are, we can't offer suggestions.

Along with all the media format/codecs/spaces information on the clips in the sequence.

When what you're saying does happen, it's normally because one has missed a setting or two. Or chosen the wrong export preset. There are a couple cases where the media itself is problematic for Premiere, and those require further manual massaging of the settings.

[SC_TV]

Here are the settings

[SC_TV]

Clip setting

[R Neil Haugen]

Ok, it seems to be an HLG clip on an HLG/Rec.2100 sequence? Did you use an HLG export preset?

[SC_TV]

When selecting h.264 from the timeline sequence I was only given the three HLG options under encoding.

None of them look like  the Program Monitor which is tone mapped.   All I am trying to communicate is that with all of the easy export toggle buttons for various social media there should be an easy way to keep the image integrity as it is within the program monitor when exporting.  

[SC_TV]

Neil ,thank you for reaching out to try help solve my issue.  Having a support community like this is invaluable.  

[Fergus H]

@SC_TV @R Neil Haugen 

SC_Tv and I spoke and, as I suspected, this issue is both simple and confusing. 

The simple side is that Premiere Pro:

1. Recognizes the color space of HDR media (in this case, HLG from an FX9). 

2. Uses the color space of the media to choose the color space of a new sequence. 

So, if you've got HDR media and drag it into the timeline to create a new sequence, you'll get an HDR sequence. 

The confusing thing is that when you go to export, Premiere Pro does not use the color space of the sequence as the color space of the export. By default, an HDR sequence will get exported using SDR which will almost always result in an unusable video, with blown out highlights. 

There are two solutions for this situation:

1. Keep the sequence in HDR and use an HDR export preset ("H264 - Match Source - HLG" is usually a good choice.)

2. Change the squence to SDR, using the Lumetri Color > Settings > Sequence > Working Color Space > Rec. 709 option and make sure "Auto Tone Map Media" is turned on. 

We are very aware that this part of Premiere Pro's color working can be challenging and we're looking at ways to make it simpler. 

Regards,

Fergus

[R Neil Haugen]

As always, Fergus, thanks for participating!

And yes, from his last comment, I was suspecting that the issue was not using an export preset designed for the sequence color space. That is as you note, a very common problem.

And yes, it would be nice if Premiere at least notified us with a pop-up if  the sequence and export presets are not matching. This can be confusing ...

This might be largely because the SDR presets do not have SDR in the preset name. As the HLG and PQ presets do.

Inconsistent behavior is quite often the source of user confusion.

[FlyingFourFun]

see my revised post below.

[FlyingFourFun]

I think I figured out something....

1) Importing HLG footage, and creating a new timeline from that footage, retains HLG (As described)

2) My export Preset for H265 was using REC709, Hardware Encoding, exporting with this setting blows out the video

3) Exporting with the H265 built in present and HLG2100, it exports fine, but its software encoding only. (slow, so slow).

my work around is to import my HLG footage, force it to REC709, then start a timeline, and export with the H265 setting REC 209 color space so that hardware encoding still works.

Wish there was a way on import to pick your color space (or a default setting maybe).

So this process does work as described, but I'm not prepared to loose HW encoding for it. so I will use REC709 color space....   Annoying, but not as bad as I thought first go at this.  Mixing footage is what I'm goign to try next to see if I can wrap my head around that workflow.

[ah.photo]

By force Rec 709, you mean you override the color space of the Rec. 2100 HLG footage to Rec. 709? and then place it in a Rec. 709 sequence?

You also should be able to keep the Rec. 2100 HLG footage as-is, add it to your Rec. 709 sequence, and apply the SDR Conform effect: either to the footage itself, or if your sequence is nothing but HLG footage, you can apply SDR Conform as an export effect as well.

[FlyingFourFun]

@ah.photo

Yes I meant override the color space to REC709 as you suspected, and then place it on a REC709 timeline.

Working with native HLG doesn't bother me that much after some reflection, it's the lack of ability to export mixed REC709 and HLG and still use hardware encoding.   I'm going to play with this some more to try and narrow down a straightforward process.    I would have been happy having unmanaged color space for H264/h265.  I've never been worried about color space accuracy when importing something in these formats, maybe it's necessary - just not seen a requirement for myself, I was happy with them in the unmanaged color space.

[Kevin-Monahan]

FFF,

This should help. Just make a custom ingest preset with the input LUT attached. Hope that works for ya.

Kevin

[FlyingFourFun]

Thanks @Kevin-Monahan, it's not a bad idea you're suggesting.  I'm going to play around with a few different ways.  My end goal is for an easy to import and mix rec709 and HLG, and be able to export it with HW encoder benefits with little user intervention.    The ingest preset will work, I will play around with the settings - leaving it alone for most of day is giving me some distance so I can get perspective on the issue.

[FlyingFourFun]

Ok I did some more testing; and found an interesting observation....

1) Put ALL HLG2100 footage on timeline, Sequence matches.  Exporting 1.5 min of test using built in HLG2100 H265 setting is SLOW (1.5min clip took 45 min to export), but works, all software encoding only.  No option for hardware

2) Put a Mix of HLG2100 Footage and REC709 on a HLG2100 sequence.  The footage that was a true REC709 was too dark, I had to interpret the REC709 footage to HLG2100 for it to look normal.   Exporting with the built in HLG was fine.   This is puzzling me, why would REC709 footage need to be manually flagged as HLG2100 for it look proper on a HLG timeline and export?  I was under the impression by having them tagged properly that the footage could be mixed and look proper ? *ie properly identified REC709 clip would transform color space to look proper on either HLG2100 timeline or REC709 time line.  (I'm no color export, but would like to understand this behavior).

At the end of the day,  I really need the H265 HW encoder to work.  So it leaves me no choice other than to do everything in REC709.  Flagging the HLG2100 footage as REC709 and placing it on a REC709 timeline it looks a littel different, but I can work with it.

I put up a seperate post as I wanted to be able to display the color space information in the project panel,  those appear blank for me and thus not usefull.  Having this visable would help keep them all sorted properly.

p.s.  I did get around to playing with the SDR conform,  it was helpfull, but at the end of the day I think I will stick to importing footage into a BIN and interpreting it as REC709 before building a time line.  (which is why being able to see this metadata would be nice for me if I can get that work).

[ah.photo]

@FlyingFourFun 

It's my opinion that it's not good practice to set footage or working color spaces just to "make it work", there should be intent when setting these.

For example, if your intending your edit to be SDR, your footage should be Rec 709. Full stop. You'd only want to do make a Rec. 2100 sequence if you intend to export HDR content, and this involves a lot more than just shooting HLG setting the sequence to Rec 2100 HLG. Proper HDR monitoring requires dedicated hardware, metadata, etc. So I'd avoid switching your sequence to Rec 2100 as a "hotfix".

In all fairness, I initially thought the same as you: that tagging source footage with it's proper color space as shot, and adding it to a different color space sequence, would have Premiere conform accordingly. This is not the case it seems.

Premiere retains values from the source footage, and directly places them on the sequence as is: no values modified.

• HLG footage on a Rec 709 sequence looks overexposed and oversaturated because luminance and gamut values exceed that of SDR/709.
• 709 footage on a Rec 2100 sequence looks dark and washed out because the 709 luminance range and gamut is much smaller compared to that of HDR/2100
• Rec 2020 (Wide color) on a Rec 709 sequence, I assume, would look correct as far as luminance goes, but oversaturated, because the 2020 gamut is wider than 709.

On top of that throw in a variable that people can have Display Color Management ENABLED or DISABLED in Premiere, and that will also impact how the footage appears on screen.

I really hope I'm accurate here: but I think overriding the color space of the footage just tonemaps existing bit values to the other gamma and gamut of the new color space.

The override is helpful if for some reason color space is tagged incorrectly, but as I said, I'm personally not a fan of changing it as a means to an end. That's why Ive been advocating for folks to use SDR conform.

To your point regarding metadata, ironically there are metadata fields for color space, but it must be a legacy field because it doesn't seem to show the new color space metadata. I agree, would be nice to have.

[johnnyk7917700]

Hello,

I removed v22... can you let me know if generated proxies will render correclty when SDR conform is applied to main clip? If yes then that's the work flow to go for.

thanks

/J

[ah.photo]

@johnnyk7917700 

I wish that was a simple answer, ha. Brace yourself.

I haven't started any new projects of substance yet on 2022, but I did just do a quick test. SDR conform does not inherently solve the proxy matter on its own, at least as I think many are experincing the issue (while related, it's technically a different issue)

To be clear, SDR conform, when applied to a clip, will apply it's effect to BOTH the source and the proxy, just like any other clip. So if you have a properly rendered proxy, SDR conform will in fact work. In retrospect, I've learned that overriding the color space would as well. Overriding color space does impact both source and proxy.

The proxy issue, as I see it though, is a little bit different, and that is in the same way that it's critical for proxies to be of the same resolution and frame rate of the source, so to must be the color space, especially now that H264/H265 media supports spaces beyond 709.

The back half of this issue is, at least with the default create proxy presets provided by Premiere, proxies seem to be generated in Rec 709 (at least from my quick tests). I think in order to create proper proxies for HLG or PQ footage, you would need to create a custom export preset for proxies that use the appropriate color space, and this would be limited to specific codecs and codec settings (at least in the Adobe apps). For example, ProRes 422 Proxy can only write Rec. 709.

Color space override doesn't come to the rescue here, because if you have a Rec709 proxy that clipped color information at the time of encoding, overriding the color space won't restore that information. It will just ensure that you're not "doubling up" the clipping, but you've stilled clipped the color space once, baked into the proxy.

I'm trying to collect a bunch of this information and eventually make a User Voice suggestion with some things that the Adobe team may want to consider, but there are definitely a lot of things at play.

[johnnyk7917700]

Yes what you said 😄

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi FlyingFourFun,

Thanks for your findings and feedback. Super helpful. 

Yes, I found that exporting Rec. 2100 H.264 files can only be achieved via Software Encoding. Can you make a feature request on User Voice for that for an upvote? 

Here are some H.264 HLG export settings, which my colleague Sumeet suggests, after performing tests with his Sony camera:

Encoding Settings

• Performance: Software Encoding
• Profile: High10
• Level: 5.1 (or whatever is required)
• Export Color Space: Rec. 2100 HLG
• HDR Graphics (White): 203
• Include HDR10 Metadata: Enabled

To experience HDR video, you'll need to view it on a capable HDR monitor, as well. Pro HDR monitors tend to be expensive. Here are a few alternatives I have heard of.

• The current Apple devices
• Some of the Atomos devices
• A decent quality OLED television

I really appreciate the ideas for HDR workflows coming out of this discussion. Let's be sure to provide lots of feedback over on User Voice. Again, if you do, report back so we can upvote.

Thank You,

Kevin

[Felix5EE8]

I tried these settings and the video cannot be opened with Windows media Player anymore, do you know why and how to bypass that issue? Export can ONLY be played with VLC