iPhone video files washed out and low res in Premiere

[unauthorizedrob]

I've never had this problem before:

I shot some video with iPhone 12 Pro Max 1080p 30fps, looks great on the phone, and in Adobe Rush  on the phone, but when I import to Premiere on my (very old)  iMac it comes in washed out and low-res (grainy).  I have never had to alter settings-- it has always worked before now, and as far as I know nothing has changed with the settings.  Any advice?

Thanks.

Adobe Premiere 14.8.0 (Build 39)  

Working on an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011),  OS 10.13.6 (it's maxed out at High Sierra -- I know -- need a new one), 

2.5 GHz Intel Core i5

16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB

[R Neil Haugen]

There's a good chance that phone is defaulting to HLG color range/space, and Premiere is seeing it as HLG/HDR, and when you put it on an SDR/Rec.709 sequence, it's way light and all.

Check the file properties, in the bin, and if Premiere is showing it as HLG color space, then do a Modify/Interpret Footage and override to Rec.709. Then make sure the sequence settings are for Rec.709 also.

They completely rebuilt the color system in Pr2022. Here's two FAQs on it, the first on the changes, how to work within the new system, and what's currently broken. The second on how to monitor in HDR if that's what you want to do, as that has also completely changed since Pr2021.

Neil

FAQ:PremierePro 2022 Color Management for Log/RAW Media

How to Set Monitors for HDR work in Premiere Pro 2022?

[Kartika Rawat]

Hi there!

Sorry to hear that. Have you considered updating the macOS? On a mac, GPU updates along with OS. Also, you can check for suggestions mentioned in the article shared by an expert.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Kartika

[unauthorizedrob]

Yes, I would love to update the OS, but my iMac is too old -- it has maxed out at High Sierra (10.13.6), and is gradually becomming obsolete, like me.  I would love to get a new computer, but cannot afford one.  I've been over this issue with Adobe -- and have had some help using old versions (which worked fine), but soon I will not be able to work at all.  

[unauthorizedrob]

Hi

Just imported more video and having this same issue.  We DID order a new Mac Studio, but it's on a ship from China somewhere and won't be here for a few months, so I am stuck with this old system for now.  The same problem has occurred -- the video is washed out in Premiere, and the fix suggested by  Neil Haugen above unfortunately doesn't apply to this version (Adobe Premiere 14.8.0 (Build 39)  working on an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011),  OS 10.13.6 (it's maxed out at High Sierra -- I know -- need a new one).  My windows do not correspond to his, and those options are not available to me.  I do see that the color space is Rec.709, but the video is still washed out, when it looked perfect in the iPhone.  

If I right click and go to properties, I see this:

Type: MPEG Movie File Size: 38.63 MB Image Size: 1920 x 1080 Frame Rate: 29.97 Source Audio Format: 44100 Hz - Compressed - Mono Project Audio Format: 44100 Hz - 32 bit floating point - Mono Total Duration: 00:00:37:06 Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0 Alpha: None Video Codec Type: HEVC 10 bit 4:2:0 Variable Frame Rate Detected.

Sequence settings are attached;  also show working color space as Rec 709.  

I'm attaching two screenshots, one from the iPhone, which looks fine, and the other from Premiere, which is washed out.

At a loss.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, as always.

Rob

[R Neil Haugen]

Oh, that's an easy one ... you don't even have any blown out areas, just a bit lighter than you'd like. Very easy to bring the highlights down in Lumetri.

Neil

[unauthorizedrob]

Thanks. I got it corrected — but still uneasy about the mismatch. When the new Mac comes in, hopefully I will be able to update all my Adobe apps and these incompatibilities will go away.

Rob

[KayAnnGH]

All my devices are updated and I own a brand new Imac and I have the same issue. When I import footage from the Ipone new IOS it is blown out and the colours are washed out. I never had this issues with my Iphone XSmax footage. everything always looked exactly how it did in real life. What is the fix for this because i'm getting footage from my team from thier phones and its making the editing process way more difficult as a result of this footage coming into premier looking so bad and im spending so much time trying to fix the colour. HELP!

[R Neil Haugen]

First thing is to check your color space for the files! Check Properties for those ... undoubtedly, they're being shot in HLG, a form of HDR. Which actually would be more easily useful/usable if they were being shot in SDR/Rec.709 if you can get people to change their phone settings.

And if as expected they're HDR, then select one or more in the bins, right-click/Modify/Interpret Footage, set the color management settings at the bottom to Override to Rec.709.

Done.

Neil

[Robert25217353bvxa]

Hi,

I'm having the same issue. I tried to override, but under "Color Management", I only see Input LUT: None and the drop down does not have any options other than "Add LUTs"

Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Oh, and how should we adjust our settings on the iPhone to avoid this with future capture?

Many thanks,

Robert

[R Neil Haugen]

Which exact version number of Premiere are you using? As in 22.5 or whatever.

If you're on one of the last couple builds, and you get to the complete bottom of the dialog box (you see the program below it) ... and you don't have both the "Use from file...." and "Override to ..." options, then something is wrong with your installation.

Neil

[Robert25217353bvxa]

My version is 22.4.0 (Build 57). Here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing in the Modify dialog box. I'm having trouble updating to the most version (22.5). Hopefully when I do that will fix it?

[R Neil Haugen]

That shouldn't even be like that for 22.4! So something went odd in the installation.

Yea, from the CC Desktop panel, do the updating ...

Neil

[KayAnnGH]

I spoke to someone at Adobe they said that Adobe is working to resolve this
coding issue. Apparently Apple didn't provide them with something so that
this wouldn't happen and now they are trying to fix it because, of course,
a lot of people are very upset about this

[Robert25217353bvxa]

I just upgraded to 22.5.0 (build 62) and am still getting the same results. Hopefully Adobe will address this soon.