Imported LOG footage automatically has a color change in Premiere

[nickw67895730]

I have been importing footage from a Sony A6300 that was filmed with a Cine2 picture profile.

When importing it into Premiere I noticed that the footage has been given high contrast and color.

I do not see any way to turn off this setting with imported clips in Premiere 15.

When exported the clips go back to looking flat. Does anyone have a way to get the imported clip to show up thew same way it looks when I pull it from the camera?

I have attached screenshots below. 

Before import.

After import.

[R Neil Haugen]

From looking at the Sony manual for this, the Cine2 profile is not actually a log encoding, which is a very different thing. The first image in your example is clearly not a log image ... just has a slightly lifted gamma from that in the second image.

So what you're viewing these on outside PrPro matters, as well as your settings in PrPro and your OS/monitor for color management.

What is your OS? Have you done any calibration of the monitor with a puck/software combination? What are you viewing the image on outside of PrPro?

Neil

[nickw67895730]

I am sorry LOG was the wrong word to use.

I am viewing the footage in quicktime on OS 10.15.7.

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

I was expecting this. Color management is a morass, and not so easy to do between the Apple ColorSync app that often displays Rec.709 media with a 1.96 gamma. PrPro assumes all Rec.709 is to be displayed on a system with "normal" broadcast-standard Rec.709 which assumes 2.4 gamma.

Within PrPro on a Mac, you do need to have the Preferences option 'display color managment' selected so that PrPro will attempt to present a correct Rec.709 view on the monitor. It won't 'fix' things outside PrPro, but ... there's no real way around this anyone has found. The Mac OS system is ... unique.

Neil

[nickw67895730]

Thank you!

That helped a lot with making it look remotely simliar to the original footage 🙌

[mflaks]

I´m having the same problem with a sony a7iii using a pc (windows) and a SLOG3 profile, im not an expert, what should i do? attached you can see how i see it from the timeline and how exports it

[R Neil Haugen]

On my tablet they don't seem that dissimilar. I'll look at them at the shop a bit later today.

Neil

[mflaks]

oh thanks ! I see it awful from my pc, much more white and saturated... 

😞

[R Neil Haugen]

So you're getting a difference within Premiere Pro between the timeline view in the Program Monitor and the Export dialog box?

Neil

[mflaks]

sorry for the delay, i had terrible working days!

I have a difference - notorius differece, more bright and turned in to magenta between the timeline - and not just the dialog export box, the final result its magenta and much much brighter.... 😞

[mflaks]

in the last days since i had work to deliver i had to create an adjust layer "guessing" without seing underexposuring and turned into green for getting close to the original....I know its crazy and im soing something wrong for sure but all this start happening with this new version

[R Neil Haugen]

What are the color management settings for the clip and for the sequence?

Neil

[defaultbr7ltrox3nxm]

I am getting this same issue.  I have a Slog clip and when I add it to the timeline it looks like a LUT has been automatically applied and I haven't done anything to the clip except put it on the timeline.  Did I miss some feature that it will automatically apply a LUT in the BG?

[R Neil Haugen]

No ... and are you having blown out issues or it's had a transform to Rec.709 you weren't expecting?

Neil

[tranhoangcalvin]

So I just figured out what happened for me at least -- it looks like Adobe can read the footage metadata to identify a color management to the specific clip. If you right-click the clip in your project bin, go to "Modify" > "Interpret Footage..." -- at the bottom of the window that pops up is a space for "Color Management" where it will say "Use Media Color Space from File:" and will say what conversion it is automatically making.

Adobe interpreted my footage's file for a media color space -- it was actually really helpful to find this because I had thought this was Canon C300 footage, but it turns out it was actually Sony S-Log3.

For some reason, Adobe presents the footage in the Source Window as the true LOG profile, while in the Program Window will present the footage in the working color space. I'm not a professional colorist, so I can't tell if it's already being converted to true Rec709 or something, but it is bringing it up to some kind of working color space.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yes, the timeline working space is crucial there.

So ... the way they have it set now ... if you have log media, and use the specific setting for that log format in the clip color management (CM) process in the Project panel ...

• if you place that clip on a Rec.709 sequence, they do a transform to Rec.709. Note: this is not designed to be pretty, but to be 'safe'. So the clip may well first appear on the timeline to have values exceeding the 100nits/IRE 'top' of Rec.709, but all of that can be easily brought down into proper visual range in Lumetri.
• If you put the same clip on an HDR timeline, say HLG ... then it will be appearing more as the 'log' look, and will be correctly transformed for color space to that working color space.

And Source window and Program Monitor are nearly always different images, as well, the Source is source. With only any effects applied to the image if you have applied them to either the clip in the bin OR to the Source tab of the ECP. This image never shows 'standard' timeline image effects.

Program monitor shows the image with any Source effects and with any effects applied in that timeline ... including the working color space.

Does this help?

Neil

[tranhoangcalvin]

Super helpful, thanks! 

[R Neil Haugen]

Their color space transform from log to Rec.709 is built intentionally without any rolloffs. Interesting as the 'full' DR of the image recorded is seen yet still usable by pulling down contrast/exposure values.

And doing your own set of Lumetri presets with varying levels of rolling off the shadows & highlights can give you a very quick way to drag/drop them onto a set of clips in a bin. Making them more "visually correct" as far as you see things.

Neil

[D Graham Withers]

Thanks for walking through this with clear, commonspeak Neil!  

I've been working around this issue on a number of documentary projects that have used multiple cameras and after bummbling around to an understanding of what you yourself have spelled out, I'm still not quite sure how Premiere is using the "Media Color Space from File" when I import footage.

Is it accurately interpreting my footage that was shot using Sony S-Log3/ Cine Gamma or does "S-Gamut3.Cine" imply that Premiere is apply a particular LUT to my SLOG footage?

I'd experimented with REC.709 and HLG timelines but the results from Premiere adding this CM "From the File" were erradict and I've defaulted to working in 709 until it's screening/output time. 

Thanks so much, in advance, for your thoughts on this!

[R Neil Haugen]

The "Use color space from file" option is kinda ... um ... irrelevant, to me, in most practical use.

As that is what Premiere does if you don't do anything, right?

The two useful controls are:

1l the Input LUT, for if you have either log normalization or color space HLG to Rec.709 LUTs you would prefer to use.

2) Override-to, which you should NOT think of as an "override" control, but as the way you tell Premiere which color space assumptions to use on any sequence. This, as their chief scientist told me, is actually a metadata setting control.

In Practical Use

Use the Interpret Footage Input LUT for any normalization or space conversion LUTs you prefer over their internal processes.

And pretty much always set the Override-to option to the color space you intend using the file with. Typically Rec.709.

This setting MUST match the Sequence CM settings and the export CM.

Neil