HDR workflow question: unable to use Modify - Interpret Footage - Color Management grayed out

[Ze223922928f9i]

Hi Everyone, 

Recently I'm trying to upgrade my workflow from Rec709 to HDR. But I encountered an annoying issue.... When I try to color management and use Modify - Interpret Footage - Color Management grayed out. currently my only way to apply a technical lut is through lumetri( but I know it is not the correct way)

I use Canon C70 and shoot Clog 2 in XAVC file,  and Macbook  M1 pro for HDR monitoring and editing. Downloaded Canon's official technical lut converting Clog2 to HDR PQ, and I have checked the Color Management in the setting, and I believe that my other settings( project setting and sequence setting) should be correct:

However, please see below.... I can't do anything about the color management area.....

Currently I have to apply this technical conversion lut through lumetri, the result doesn't look right at all...

(I heard it is because lumetri still work in SDR way..?)   Log file should look more saturated on the HDR PQ timeline, but now even after the technical lut conversion it is still very low contrast and saturation. 

 

Need to do a lot of tweaking on highlights to make sure information expands from 0-100 to 0-1000 on the scope...

Now I'm really confused what is the problem for me not able to use Modify - Interpret Footage - Color Management... Is it the Clog 2 file that Canon shot? It is the bug of Premiere? Is it the problem of apple M1 pro? ...

Please help, thank you very much!

[Ze223922928f9i]

Tried a footage from my iphone and it worked... 

I looked at the metadata(properties) of all my Canon XF-AVC format ( xxx.mxf) video clips in Premiere and there are only a few data available, not showing anything about colorspace:

What is going on???.......  I am very sure there should be metadata inside the mxf video file

[Ze223922928f9i]

For the clip shot by my iPhone， when I open the properties it shows below:

My guess is that Premiere cannot read my Canon mxf video format correctly from the day one, but in the past there is no workflow related to color management (Modify - Interpret Footage - Color Management) so it doesn't matter if it can read the colorspace info from my XF-AVC(mxf) file( Clog 2, Canon Cinema Gamut ) but now, it really matters...

[R Neil Haugen]

Which build of Premiere are you on? Current, found in Help/About, is 22.4 ...

Neil

[Ze223922928f9i]

Hi Neil，

Yes it is 22.4，and my Mac is the latest ver 12.4

 

 

[R Neil Haugen]

Maybe @mattchristensen might be able to help? It's not useful that you cannot access the CM controls ...

Neil

[mattchristensen · Accepted solution]

@Ze223922928f9i We are still in the process of building out our full color management support, and Canon Clog XAVC is not yet color managed. This is why you see that section disabled in the Interpret Footage dialog. Keep an eye on the Premiere Pro Beta forums for when the support for this format is enabled.

Also, I am going to work with the team to get some documentation up to let you know which formats are color managed and which are still in progress. Thank you.

[R Neil Haugen]

Also, I am going to work with the team to get some documentation up to let you know which formats are color managed and which are still in progress. Thank you.

Matt, thanks, that would be ever so helpful!

Neil

[Kit W]

Greetings,

I'm hoping there has been some progress on this that I haven't yet found in my search. I'm currently trying to do a Premiere>Resolve>Premiere round trip workflow for a HLG Rec.2020 project and cannot find a codec to render from Resolve that is interpreted correctly in Premiere.

I typically use the DNxHR family as my intermediate codecs for these types of workflows (usually Rec.709), but my HDR graded CTM is getting tagged incorrectly by Premiere resulting in lowered luma. The color management tools are greyed out in Interpret Footage and clip properties does not show color space info, but I assume it's reading as Rec.709 because my highlights are only hitting around 75%. Both Resolve and MediaInfo are able to correctly read the color space of my CTM, only Adobe struggles with it. I have a lot of text generated in Premiere that necessitates this round trip workflow, otherwise I'd just finish out of Resolve.

Can anyone reccomend a high bit-depth codec that I can use as an intermediate to go from Resolve to Premiere that will maintain the color profile correctly? 

[R Neil Haugen]

In Premiere, for HLG, you should be using the Rec.2100/HLG settings, I would not recommend Rec.2020.

What settings are you using for the input, timeline, display, and export color space/transform items in Resolve?

Neil

[Kit W]

Hi Neil,

Thank you for your reply. You are correct, in Premiere my sequence is set up for Rec.2100 HLG. Within Premiere I can't seem to find any support outside of that, Rec.2100 PQ, or Rec.709. In Resolve I can designate the color space and gamma separately and am using Rec.2020 gamut, and HLG gamma for timeline and output, and bypassing input due to the variety of sources. These specs are the delivery requirements of the show. 

I did a bit more testing tonight, and based on my research and experience Premiere only seems to support a narrow range of source acquisition codecs (camera file codecs) whereas everything else gets tagged as Rec.709 (gamma 2.4). As an aside, it does a disservice to those learning color science to bundle gamut and gamma like Adobe does here, but as they're just getting started on implementation hopefully that'll improve going forward.

I rendered from Resolve a test file in XAVC CBR Infra 300 (off the top of my head by memory, I don't have the file to check right now). Upon import to Premiere, not only was the Interpret Footage/Color Management unlocked, but it was unnecessary because Premiere read it correctly out of the gate! That's great news, except for the massive quality drop that accompanied it. So I'm still looking for a lossless codec to use as an intermediate, but at least I've proven the concept. 

In lieu of a list of supported codecs as mentioned up thread, and unable to spend another day on guess & check, I'll probably have to export titles on alpha from Premiere and master out of Resolve / transcode in Clipster. That's going to make revisions to a subtitle an nightmare when the time comes, but unless I learn of an acceptable codec in the meantime I can't see how this show can deliver from Premiere. It's a crying shame though, hopefully by 2024 they get this feature fully implemented, because HDR is here to stay and I can't stop my clients from cutting in Premiere.  

Thanks again for the reply. If anyone else has a high quality codec they use for intermediate files that is supported by Premiere color management, please post it here. I know I'm not the only one who's hit this limitation, but so far haven't found anyone posting the solution. I really appreciate the input.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yes, this is still early stages for Premiere's color management systems. I did get a notice recently that a UserVoice request of mine has been moved into the 'in progress' category. That is for a unified color management panel, similar to the ESP for sound and EGP for graphics. One panel to rule all color ... clip/working space/display/defaults/overrides.

That said, you should be able to work with ProRes, DNxHR, and Cineform up through 4444 ...

Many of the colorists I work with when in Resolve use either something like P3/D65 for 'working' space or Arri-wide, or DV wide. Rec.2020 is so wide that nothing actually works directly with it. All practical uses work with a smaller volume.

I don't understand your comment about Premiere not supporting camera codecs ... I've worked with RED, Arri, a lot of BRAW, all in Rec.709 and HDR. A bunch of various Sony clips, some Panny, but only a couple Canon files. Though admittedly my HDR work is testing ... but I push the heck out of things, then check things over in Resolve.

I know that alpha and text is a huge pain in the tush in HDR workflows ... whether in PrPro or Resolve. Getting Fusion and the color page doing the same thing is ... well, a difficult thing for many.

So writing out any details you've been through would be very helpful.

Neil

[Kit W]

I've run across your user many times today in my research, including your request for a dockable panel for color management, and for what it's worth, I second that.

When I said codec support, I was only referring to color management override in the Interpret Footage dialogue. I arrived at this thread because it mentioned a list of supported formats in the works back in May, so like a noob I resurrected the thread.

My previous HDR deliveries have all been from Resolve and I conform the graphics on that timeline. This time around I've got a lot of Premiere title effects rather than external sources so I thought I'd round trip using DNxHR444 (I usually use HQX for SDR work), but that CTM gets misread by Premiere. So far I have not found a suitable codec to render from Resolve that will either be correctly tagged as HLG by Premiere or enable modification in Interpret. Time is money, so rather than go further down the rabbit hole, I'll just reconform in Resolve.

I'm on Avid, Premiere, Resolve daily and each has their shortcomings, so no disrespect intended. But for this type of work I'm just more comfortable with the transparency of Resolve Color Management. Thanks again.

[R Neil Haugen]

No problem. I've been after getting user-settable CM into Premiere for sometime. The old process from 2021 back was actually very tightly color managed ... under the hood, hardwired to Rec.709. Which worked mostly as long as that was the only game in town,  I suppose.

When they started the new CM stuff in the 2022 public beta, the default under-the-hood Rec.709 behaviours hadn't changed. The new options were seemingly an add-on.

Then, when it went to the shipping version a year ago ... the Rec.709 underlying system had been stripped out and replaced with what I referred to after pushing it around as "color agnostic system" ... which it now is. All default behaviors changed ... it was a mess.

And partly a mess because they buried parts of the CM for media in that context menu in the Project panel, timeline/working CM with very vew options in the Sequence settings, scopes in another context menu ... and I gave them a lot of grief over that. Both here and in-person at NAB. (Yea, I've known most of the super and heads for years now.)

The engineers were stunned because to them, the OBVIOUS place any user would think to look for CM was the Modify/Interpret Footage dialog. We kinda stared at each other in shock a bit, know what I mean?  😉

As I've posted elsewhere, they are finally moving on that concept of a unified CM panel, but it's not even in the public beta yet. Ah well.

The CM options are kinda ... not intuitive. The project panel clip ones can sorta be used like OETF/working CM in Resolve, as Francis Crossman asked me to mention. Using either the Input LUT or the "Use color space from file or ________" option to tell Pr essentially sorta how to look at the file (like an OETF or input transform) and the Color Space Override to set the working color space.

So ... use the Input LUT (first option) or say a log-space (second option), then use the Override-to to set what you'll be working that clip as.

THEN you need to make sure the seuquence CM and the scopes CM are set accordingly, and ... use only exports with the proper CM in the preset name. Notice a few places this easily goes off the rails? Right.

And past that, they were advised to make some changes to the DNx processing and file recording ... but the changes they made work for some things with Avid and Resolve, but especially the 444 version is not really ... working well ... at this time. Which is probably something you're running into also.

So THAT is being re-thought apparently. You can work DNx in two different formats, both OP1a and mov actually. I think one of them tends to work better.

I've also seen a user that needs DNx with alpha that found if they stuck with the DNxHR (but I forget whether OPqa/mov) and then manually set the framesize to 1080 for their deliverable, their alphas work. Something like that.

And yes, I and others talked with the engineers back in April at NAB about this. Why it's taking so long to sort, no clue. It's a pain for workflows like yours for certain.

Neil

[chrisw44157881]

hopefully they implement something similar to color space transforms instead of luts.

[R Neil Haugen]

Depending on which process is involved, some are transforms. As-is.

Neil

[Kit W]

I've got the text stacked up in Resolve now and I'm off to the races. All's well that ends well. Back to my original question, though: is there currently a list of supported formats that enable source Color Management in Premiere? Up above, @mattchristensen said:

"Also, I am going to work with the team to get some documentation up to let you know which formats are color managed and which are still in progress. Thank you"

I've gotta believe that list exists at Adobe, but I can't find any documentation to account for it. If that were available somewhere online I could've figured this out with a quick Google search and not bothered y'all in the first place. Even though I've got my workflow figured out, I still think that list is a necessary resource for even beginning to work with Premiere in HDR. With that said, I'll now slink back into obscurity. Thanks again to Neil for the well thought out responses. 

[R Neil Haugen]

The more I've thought about it ... I'm wondering if a PQ export from Premiere might do better in Resolve. Huh. Might need to test that.

Neil