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.

---

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.
  

---

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

[Baffy19]

In general, I don't have a very good opinion of the Lumetri panel. Right now I'm working with commercial material and in order to reset all Curves settings for me, I have to click on each color channel and reset the default color. Answer me the question: in what century do we live that we cannot add one RESET button to each control on the Lumetri panel??? Is this super difficult for Adobe engineers??? What a kindergarten, damn it.

[R Neil Haugen]

For that kind of thing, everyone works differently ... one person's obvious NEED is someone else's never ever EVER item. I've followed and participated in discussions on this type of thing from Premiere, Resolve, AfterEffects, and Audition.

I agree with you, a total reset option for the RGB curves would be useful. The other curves panels of course, simply double-clicking does a reset. I've had other people insist an overall reset for the RGB curves would allow people to do damage too quickly. To each their own, I suppose.

I know some people that were upset the Hue/Sat 'donut' tool got dropped ... !

Neil

[Baffy19]

Nail, a hundred taps per day for this kind of thing, like resetting the color to the factory. What are you talking about. Ask anyone who appreciates productivity now, he will confirm my words. One more time... I click twice on the R channel, twice on the G channel, twice on the B channel and twice on the Y channel. Who is comfortable with this??? Who paints once a year??? What nonsense

[Kateva]

OK, I started with 2022 and its already set to 2100 HLG and it exports to a way over saturated video. The original video is from an iPhone. I'm not up on the complexities of color management and what all these various settings mean. I've tried different configurations (going back to rec.709, etc.) nothing seems to make it export like the original video. How can I get it to export correctly? I've already edited 8 videos in 2022 that I'd have to redo in the older version.

Help!?

Kathy

[R Neil Haugen]

I don't have near enough information on what you're doing to do other than guess. So I'll just restate the most common fix.

For most users, you really do want to work in Rec.709 still. So the best thing is check your clips in the bin. If they're other than Rec.709, you want to "override" to Rec.709 via the Modify/Interpret Footage color management settings. Then make sure your sequence is using the Rec.709 color space in the Sequence settings.

At that point, you can export easily with the "standard" export presets and the results will play as expected everywhere.

IF you really do want to work in HDR ... then make sure the clips are HLG or PQ in the bin. Override to which of the two HDR options you want for any clip NOT of that color space. You also need to make sure that your monitor ... and the OS ... are set for viewing in HDR.

Then make sure your sequence CM is set to that color space, whether HLG or PQ. And also make sure your export preset lists the same color space in the name! You cannot use a 'normal' preset for the HDR sequence.

Neil

[Kateva]

Thanks, this did the trick. I know it's frustrating but I'm sure there are
many people like me who are not expert professional video editors and this
additional task of having to manage the color format is new and unexpected.
IMHO, the default should be that it doesn't alter the color unless the user
changes the settings like it's done for all the past versions.

Kathy Evans

[R Neil Haugen]

"... doesn't alter colors ..."

There are actually several ways to view that. A couple quick examples. Do you mean you always want Rec.709/SDR no matter the clip's color space? Or do you mean that no matter the sequence, the clip should be in it's 'native' color space whatever that is?

One could easily argue that both those fit your statement.

The complicating factor is our media is more complicated now. Some Rec.709/SDR, some where the camera shoots HLG/PQ whether you want it or not, and might prefer to work in SDR. And some who want to work in HDR.

Now, the Adobe video apps are still limited because we can't work with DolbyVision's HDR yet, nor work within an ACES color managment system. Both of which we'll get at some point I would expect.

So there are going to be more CM options than we have now. Which is why I've been pushing for a single CM Panel ... one panel to rule all default behaviors and user overrides.

Neil

Color Management Panel

[FlyingFourFun]

Neil I hope they give it an easy way to manage it.  The current way is confusing.  I still get even get the color space meta data to show in the project window!! despite there being two tags for 'color space' in the metadata list.  This color space change is awfully hard to follow and incomplete execution - I should be able to see the meta data next to the clip name, even a flag or conditional formatting for clips that don't conform to the sequence color space would be nice.

I votted for your suggestion already BTW...  

[FlyingFourFun]

@katevaThe new way premier works is in fact as you described, it doesn't alter the color profile, it actually respects the color profile embedded into the video.  The prev versions flagged ALL the video as rec709 and created rec709 timelines and all exports were rec709 (basically).

The latest version imports the HLG clips with their color space information.  if you create a seq from that clip it also creates it in the matching color space.  The trick is on export to select the correct color space also (if you working  seq is HLG for example your export must be in the same color space, if you use a rec709 preset for export the whole video will be blown out.

I am no color space expert, but I have run into tons of confusion, and the only way I made sense of it was to design my project backwards.  If I needed a REC709 output file, I would import everything, modify the footage to REC709 and then create the seq and place the video.  Because all  three (clip, sequence and exported seq) matched, it was good.  As a matter of fact if you do all three with REC709 manually like this its what premier was doing before they added color management.

I was running into issue where I had HLG + rec709 footage, they don't mix well, I found that using REC709 when there was any HLG footage in the sequence wasn't easy for me.

As a side note, I have also discovered that using the NVIDIA encoder presets doesn't work on HLG footage as they are all setup for REC709.  There seems to be no hardware acceleration on the HLG footage so it takes a very long time to export.  for my needs staying in REC709 for everything works and gives me the ability to leverage the hardware acceleration of the NVENC encoders.

At the end of the day, the change is confusing, and without tinkering with the clips based on the advice you get here it takes a bit to understand whats going on.  I struggled for a few days and finally picked up on what it was doing once I understand there was three places (clip, timeline sequence and export setting) that I had to manage to get an expected result.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea ... that's a very good explanation of the new Rec.709 workflow.

And yea, it's also rather confusing until you get a bit of a handle on it. Now of course, it has been very necessary to get the controls, and I'm glad of it. That said, I would prefer they were "housed" differently. More clearly so for the users.

But from the explanations they've given, it is supposed to recognize if you put an HLG clip on a Rec.709 timeline, and apply the correct transform to Rec.709 automagically. Which, for most clips, it ... doesn't. It drops the HLG clip on the timeline with the same math as it would on an HLG timeline. Without the transform.

So yes, then you run to the bin to use the override to Rec.709 option. And it works for Rec.709.

But there's a huge problem here: you can't use the clip as both Rec.709 and HLG in the same project. So if you need to deliver both versions, well ... that's a painful thing. You have two options.

First ... try duplicating the clip in the bin, set one to Rec.709 override, the other to HLG. It might work ... but on the other hand, this sort of thing can also seem to confuse Pr at times, and you might not always get the "right" interpretation.

The second is to make a completely new project. I haven't tried yet, but will soon ... to see how well it can handle in Productions mode having the clip imported to two different projects, one being HLG, the other Rec.709.

And see how stable that works.

Neil

[FlyingFourFun]

Neil; I think if there was a way in which premier would transform the clip to the color space of the timeline, and another transform was optioned when exporting it would solve many issues.

For a professional that needs locked down color space, they should be able to do what's needed and have complete control.  For what I think is a large portion of the users, the ability to drop clips into a special "conforming" timeline (maybe call it a conformed REC709 for example) that anything from any color space would auto conform to the color space of the 'conforming' sequence.  The Export feature, I am not sure why we even have a choice for color space if it's not going to conform it to the request (for an HLG seq exported as a REC709 should be transformed properly for export - respecting the technical limitations).

My working mental model of exporting is that it takes anything and everything (that it can read/support) and exports all of that to a the desired (conformed) target.  As an example, put prores, H265 and H264 in the same timeline along with a PNG image SEQ and export as a H264 @ 50mbps  -  they all transform to the export target.  Color space should work the same way. 

I believe that anyone who needs the color space control will have control with with this approach, and you don't have to make multiple projects to get a REC709 + HLG.

I have done a couple of 'for fun' projects where I built a project with HLG footage to export as HLG, it works great.  I then tried to get the same HLG project out as REC 709 and it was blown out.  Easy answer was to 'interpret' the footage to REC709, change the seq to rec 709 and export with a Rec 709 setting.

Complications arose when I had a mix of the two in the same project.  Once can with great ease add HLG footage interpreted as REC709 on a REC709 Seq, exported as REC 709.   But when you try to to export as HLG with REC709 on the timeline it gets wonky (I'm still not ever sure I understand exactly what happens).

All of this to say,  if the export at the very least conformed your project to the desired color space on export that would be welcome.  It would basically save you all the manual steps to interpret footage etc etc...  A smarter way would be add a special seq setting that can be universal for all footage and self conform and maps nice to the export target color space selection (so you can make one project and Media Encoder can be told to build various color space versions).

I understand that for the purists among us in color science this workflow/feature may be a bad idea.  However, The purist/expert would still be able to film, edit and export in the color space they want, they would be wise to stay away from the 'self conforming' workflow for mixed color space clips to exact control on the whole project and use the locked down color space version of the timeline.

I also run into problems now when I use Topaz, it seems to affect the color space of HLG clips in some strange way there Premier doesn't see the colorspace at all. and I have been fussing with a work around for that now also.  At the end of the day,  I'm still stuck in a  REC709 workflow....  and premier is adding steps and room for errors in the process - which is what I believe is driving the complaints about color space management.

[R Neil Haugen]

I too will be much happier when this is more settled ... finalized. Currently, part of the problem is the whole thing is in flux. Think about it ... they went from a total SDR/Rec.709 CM with the ability to manually set "over-range" options to sort of do HDR work ... to a program that doesn't have a "base" CM anymore.

That's really a massive change underneath everything.

In Davinci Resolve, for instance ... you can set a default and/or override the media in the Media Pool. Set a CM for a timeline with a default behavior that applies a transform to all clips of a different color space. Apply a monitor CM setting to view that timeline. And on export, set what thou wist.

My colorist acquaintances are now in the habit of setting the sequence default to P3/D65, the widest practical color space currently available. And will be for some time. All media is transformed into that space, no matter what they are using for monitoring and export. This way the math used for all color controls is identical for all clips.

Then for a Rec.709 project, you set the monitor to Rec.709, and export to Rec.709. For HLG, you would set the monitor then export for HLG. Monitoring and exports are totally separate from the timeline CM.

That's ... got great advantages.

Neil

[Baffy19]

Now the question for everyone is, in this case, how to correctly interpret the clips if the project contains media with different color profiles? I mean about the final visualization of the project. What will the settings be and what will we get?

[Baffy19]

Explain what is the difference between Rec. 709 and Rec. 709 scene? In what cases should they be used?

[R Neil Haugen]

At this time, you need to set a sequence to what you will need to export. And match any non-matching clips to that seqeunce.

So ... you're working an SDR project, which means Rec.709. You set a Rec.709 sequence, and all Rec.709 clips are fine. But any HLG/PQ clips will need to have the Modify/Interpret Footage CM controls set to Override to Rec.709.

The process is similar if working an HLG project, except to match all clips to HLG.

There is a problem working with both an HDR and SDR deliverable from a project. You can't have a clip with multiple color space settings, right? I think we can duplicate a clip, add say the "HLG CM" to the name of the dupe, and put it in a different bin (for organizational purposes). And on that dupe set the color space to HLG.

That seemed to work in a quick test, but ... I know this sort of thing duping clips can at times get Pr confused.

As to Rec.709/Rec.709 Scene ... avoid Scene. It might be useful on a Mac for Mac-only media, as essentially that's part of the mismanagement of the Mac ColorSync CM utility, that it leaves off the second "display-referred" transform.

Neil

[Baffy19]

As to Rec.709/Rec.709 Scene ... avoid Scene.

Neil

 Thanks for the clarification by Neil. Now it is clear that Rec 709 (WIN) Rec.709 scene (iMac). That's how the developers had to register in the application itself. And so confusion, who does not know.

[Baffy19]

" That seemed to work in a quick test, but ... I know this sort of thing duping clips can at times get Pr confused.

Neil.

Why DaVinci has no problems with this. Here I experience when working with client projects shot with different cameras. Neil, this is a serious issue and requires special attention from developers. Let them finish this new function with color interpretation. Now she is unprofessional and has limited ability to work with different media sources.

[R Neil Haugen]

Resolve of course has immense color managment controls. And I've worked enough with it to understand why many Resolve users do unfortunate things to their pixels due to not quite understanding the full implications of their choices.

Which is why some of the Adobe devs put off adding the stuff for so long. CM controls are not at all intuitive, not even in Resolve. The long list of "well, if this, do that ... but not this, but remember then at the end you have to do that but only if you did this in the Media Pool ... " bits of advice from my colorist friends can make your brain cells overheat in 15 seconds flat.

We've got all that coming over the next months to us in Premiere. We need them ... but it's going to be more complicated to use than before. No way around that.

Neil

[Baffy19]

Cool. I am for updating the product and for its development.

[Baffy19]

I don't know about colorists. I like to customize different color profiles in one project. By the way, we need to generate this immediately in Premiere, as we are increasingly encountering media obtained from different sources and color profiles. Otherwise, it will be painful to work with color. I would also really like to see a completely updated color toolbar. There are not enough settings for color correction right now. I miss the return of overexposed frames to normal and the gradient tool for local adjustment. We also need masks that work more adequately and track movement. Now the masks do not work so smoothly, tracking takes a very long time, and even fly off. So far, it looks weak.

[R Neil Haugen]

Totally agreed. It's why I've been pushing for that 'one panel to rule them all!' option ...

Color Management Panel

One panel where the user could set the default 'input' behaviors, default timeline behaviors, default monitoring behaviors, and default export behaviors. Plus see and set overrides for specific clips or purposes.

Many of the colorists I work with had been using an input transform in Resolve to set all media to the same wide-gamut color space/gamut, like the Arri-wide option.

But they've gone instead to setting ALL media on input to P3D65, as that is the widest/deepest color gamut in practical use, and will be for some time. Transforms (not LUTs!) from P3D65 are 'easy' and safe from any color space/gamut to any color space/gamut.

Plus ... when all the media is in one color space/gamut, all the controls you apply for luma/chroma changes apply the same to all clips. Because the math is identical. And it makes no difference if you want to work this project at this point in Rec.709 and later in PQ or DolbyVision.

Change the monitoring setup, rework your color, and set appropriate exports. Or have "trim" settings in the app for different dynamic ranges.

I've pushed the engineers to adopt this as the basis for the underlying 'math' of the working space for Premiere. It's simpler for everyone, easier actually for the devs, and ... in practical terms, the safest and most reliable for the pixels we work with.

Neil

[Baffy19]

Thank you so much, Neil.

I would still prefer the developers to be based on the principle of DaVinci. Everything is already thought out there and professionally, without mistakes. Everything is correct. It is better, of course, to use two possibilities to define the color space. First, for all clips shot in the same color space. Secondly, to be able to set a color profile at the input for batch selection of clips, specifically to several. And already before rendering, you set the profile that you need for your task.

But I like your idea.

[Bene12]

Hello, I can't change "color management" in interprete footage. These are sony raw image files, with Quicktime pro plugin on Windows. It's greyed out.

When I'm opening or an o Mac (even when I exported them from a Mac), the footage looks pale and dull. I'm expecting in the project settings to get a proper color management, but I can't see anything like this. So sad...

[R Neil Haugen]

They don't have CM settings for all media yet, which is a royal pain, right?

In your case, "Looks pale and dull" means it's log-encoded. And you need to 'normalize' it for Rec.709. Which is actually very easy to do, and that includes creating either presets of Lumetri to drop onto clips in a bin, or saving a Lumetri instance as a LUT, to apply for 'normalizing' that particular shooting situation from that particular camera again.

Fastest way to normalize in Lumetri is in the Basic tab, raise contrast and use the Exposure control to move the whole signal up or down while watching the RGB Parade or Waveform (YC no chroma is my normal waveform type) to move the clip into the best contrast/whites/blacks without clipping or crushing.

After getting that set, raise the saturation to taste. Takes a few seconds per clip.

Neil

[musabinho]

Thanks Sumeet, very helpful answer.