Issue with color when exporting from mac book pro 2018

Report · Aug 22, 2018

On the macbook pro 15" mi-2012 with nvidia graphics 560m, the grading is the same in premiere and the export.

On the new macbook pro with amd graphics, it changes. I've made the same output on both macs with the same specs, the results are different...

Report · Sep 03, 2018

You're still working under improper conditions. You need one of the following to do this job correctly.

1. An I/O device connected to a calibrated display.

2. An export played from hardware to a calibrated display.

Set up one or the other, then report back.

Report · Sep 04, 2018

Yes i am Jim, i'm still working under improper conditions and i still intend to do an export under a proper one. The next job i'll do with a calibrated display is in two weeks. Until that, i still have to find a solution for my other jobs. Because these red pixellization or color aberration, i don't know how to call that (sorry if i used the term grading, but i don't speak english often) are there on every display i looked at. With the previous version of Premiere i don't have the issue, and i'm using it in the meantime. And i still find odd changing versions affect the way pictures look, but maybe viewing condition affect Premiere upgrades, i'm not entitled to say. That's all.

I'll report back in two weeks.

Report · Oct 25, 2018

That's not a difference in the screen. I've done several tests, and i may have found an answer.

The issue is still occurring with a calibrated display. But i've noticed two things.

First one is that changing from GPU Mercury Playback Engine (Metal) to the others doesn't change anything to the way pictures appears. By experience i noticed that the files are not displayed the same way when the graphic card is or isn't activated with this setting. It seems that the GPU isn't use properly by Premiere.

The second one is that in Final Cut Pro X, the footage looks way better. In fact i manage to recover the gradings i had on my previous laptop.

I also use the same grading on both softwares with the same plug-in. In Premiere there is these weird red zones, not in FCP X.

I'm a Premiere Pro user and i don't want to switch to Final Cut Pro X, and i'd really want to have a solution for this.

Thank you for your time

Report · Oct 25, 2018

Color across apps and viewers is determined by several factors ... and if you're just relying on your computer to automagically do it the way you want it, well ... it won't happen. And FCPx ... well, Apple (being Apple) juiced things between that app & the OS/viewers so FCPx exports 'show' better than other apps within that Mac. But not after you send the media off to others, I'm told.

It's kind of long, but then ... there's a ton of moving parts here. I wrote a bit about how video color 'tags' and such work or don't work in computer work. And ... this is the short version. My colorist friends do this a lot longer ... sigh. (And this is applicable both Mac & Pc.)

Neil

..................................

Getting Color Displayed Correctly

Most computer users doing video work are still operating from some incorrect assumptions. As the user, you have to unlearn some of the ways you think this imaging system works, in order to get setup so it works properly for you.

The "system" is a mashup of parts. A basic computing system has first the computer hardware ... then the operating system (OS) and the way that is designed to work with a monitor to display images on screen ... then the video card, typically ... and a monitor.

Each is a separate entity with its own 'concerns'. The computer hardware just exists to compute & pass along the data of that computation, totally has no concern with that data. Doesn't see video data any differently than say a text or spreadsheet.

The OS has more interest in the display, but primarily these days that interest is to 'enhance the viewing experience' as the primary goal. Accuracy of display to any standard is not even a concern, the OS is designed to enhance your experience. Because the vast majority of users are known to have lousy quality screens with no management ... they want to help you get past being the dummy they expect you to be.

So there is normally little concern in the OS, as it installs, with showing any media to any sort of real pro-end standards.

Next, that video card ... most cards assume gaming if you're displaying video ... and have all sorts of 'enhancements' to that experience. So, you have a really dark scene in the game, the card automatically brightens the lighter parts so you can see better who's lurking in those shadows.

For Nvidia cards, you need to go into the Nvidia controls and turn that sort of crap off. You also need to set the card's settings so the card controls the monitor via the ICC profiles you calibrated into use for your OS. Proper video display settings for Rec709/sRGB video work.

Now ... that monitor. Like GPU cards, the monitors all assume video is gaming ... or watching some movie. Again, as shipped, monitors are normally set so that they totally disregard color flags and profiles of the media itself and instead "enhance the viewing experience" ... with juiced color settings, that gaming dark-scene thing mentioned above, all sorts of things like that.

You need to go into your monitor settings and turn all that crap off there also. Turn the monitor into a "dumb" piece of hardware that just shows what it's told to show.

NOW ... you can calibrate that monitor with a puck/software system, set the OS to use that resulting ICC profile for that monitor, and have a decent chance of working away. If you haven't done this, well ... there's no way you have any control of what is seen in anything anywhere. And your OS, your card, and your monitor, are all working against seeing any proper or standards met.

Now, we get to showing proper stuff on that screen.

Different types of media can have different 'tags' in them for how they ... hope? ... to be 'seen' and displayed by the system displaying them. Not all media is always 'tagged' for the appropriate color space/profile/details of how it should be seen. As in say, a png file of a video bars & tones image that doesn't have in the file header a 'tag' for correct profile/standard. Each app will see that file differently as the app is designed to see untagged things.

PrPro in this case assumes video sRGB, AfterEffects assumes graphics sRGB, and those two standards for sRGB are slightly different. Hence ... a non-tagged png or other file will appear slightly different between PrPro & Ae based on each app's default assumptions for untagged files.

Prpro and Ae both apply tags to their exports. If ... 1) the entire system the export is played back on is set as above, and 2) the app used actually pays attention to the tags, then and only then will that export be seen very close to the way it showed within the app that created it. No matter whether it was created in PrPro, Ae, Resolve, Vegas, whatever.

But even then, only in apps that pay attention to media tags.

Even if the system is set correctly, if the app pays no attention to flags, then ... that image/video will probably be off in some way from within the app that created it. As has been so often stated, QuickTime player pays no attention to tags, is one of the worst viewers possible to check for 'accuracy'. Same with Chrome and Safari in browsers.

PrPro or any other media creating program can only control color appearance within the program.

Your system has to be set to show properly tagged video media to that pro standard, and you have to use apps that actually pay serious attention to tagged media, to see nearly the exact thing outside the app in another viewer or program.

I hope that helps.

Neil

Report · Oct 25, 2018

I'm editor since 10 years. In movies, documentaries, fashion... I encoutered a lot of issues. I know how to solve most of them now. I know that every display is different. I know how grading is properly done until a real grading program on a proper display. I know all of that. I usually don't grade the movies i work on but it happens on some digital films because we have to publish content fast. And most of the times i don't use my computer. But it happens.

And the issue i'm talking about happens only on my machine, the new one.

So ok, Final Cut may show something who looks better. But i'm not talking about contrasted pictures out of the bag that just look nice and flatters the eye.

I work sometimes with Slog. It's flat, grey, lack of colors, etc. But the way Slog is displayed in Premiere Pro on my new mac looks looks strange, i know something is wrong with the footage when i look at it, like a lack of resolution. If i increase saturation, just a bit, i get weird zones of color dribbling with straight lines, like pixellized zones of color spreading almost all over the frame. I already said that i've done an export from two different macbook pro of the same sequence with the same grading. The export from Final Cut on my new mac is the same thing than what i had from Premiere Pro on the old mac. Or at least it just behave right, without these aberrations. And if compare all of these exports, just one of them has these aberrations, even i look at these three exports on the same calibrated display.

Report · Oct 25, 2018

As for these tags, i'm more concerned about what happen within the software and remains in the export, so i'm not sure it's related.

Report · Oct 26, 2018

My comments about tags are just to inform that no matter what is in the actual exported file, if other apps (viewers or browsers) do not recognize and comply with the tags, then the material viewed within that app won't be what you would see in a color-managed app.

You have probably a lot more experience than many of the users of this forum. For so many, they can't understand why their export looks different between apps/viewers/browsers and want to blame PrPro. QuickTime/Safari/Chrome don't pay attention to the tags. That's not anything PrPro can control ... it's poor design on the other apps.

For your situation ... are you working with the new release, "2019" which is the first of the new 13.x build series?

If so ... that has a new option, "enable display color management" that is pretty useful on many Apple machines with newer monitors in improving the 'match' between PrPro and the displays that come with those newer Macs.

Neil

Report · Oct 27, 2018

Yes i'm on the last version. You're talkiing about the option in sequence settings ? I didn't see anything else in the settings of the project or the ones of Premiere.

Report · Oct 27, 2018

Preferences/General, at the bottom ... 'Enable Display Color Management (requires GPU)'

That should help for some of the things you're talking about.

In pushing for more and more answers, I've seen a response elsewhere by Lars Borg, Adobe color engineer, discussing color between apps as displayed.

Rather ... erudite, perhaps. Also rather dense. But it seems to boil down to the original video standard for Bt(Rec) 709 involved only a camera profile for image gamma. Later on, BT.1886 was added ... which used a sampling of computer monitors/TVs to come up with a display gamma encoding. He includes this bit:

AFAIK, FCP uses the inverse 709 camera transfer function, approx. gamma 1.96, so the video is displayed as captured by the camera, without the TV system gamma being applied. This decoding is apparent in Apple's ICC profile HD 709-A.icc. We see a lack of contrast when compared to the same video shown on your TV.

And follows with this ...

PR and many other video products use BT.1886 or gamma 2.4, and display the video using a display-referred decoding, as it would be displayed by a reference monitor. This decoding is apparent in Adobe's ICC profile Rec.709 Gamma 2.4
Your TV and reference monitor use BT.1886 or gamma 2.4 or sometimes gamma 2.2.

Which would explain the difference that I've heard from those with Mac's and also say a BlackMagic external box to run a reference monitor calibrated via LUT for use with Resolve.

So it looks like the OS in Apple products makes one assumption, using the 709 camera transfer gamma, but perhaps doesn't use the later-added 1886 display standard. This would result in similar end points black & white, but change the shape of the tone curve between them. In Apple, the tones would be shifted a bit brighter, in Adobe/TV/Reference monitors, a bit darker.

What a joy for us users.

Neil

Report · Nov 03, 2018

The option didn't solved my issue but thanks anyway.

What's troubling me is like there is a loss in details, resulting in these pixellized areas. I don't think the issue is color related anymore, even in log without grading it's strange, like a lack of resolution, even in a 4K sequence. Something is behaving weirdly with the footage i put in Premiere, i never saw that before.

Maybe others users will have the same issue and it will be fixed...

Report · Nov 03, 2018

There's a user with some heavily calibrated external monitors in another thread who says he's getting differences in how things display on those externally calibrated monitors between Mojave and the earlier Mac OS. So he postulates that Apple has done something along with the 'night vision' thing to modify color/contrast of the outputed image. He's testing some more on that, I think.

Neil

Report · Nov 03, 2018

he's getting differences in how things display on those externally calibrated monitors between Mojave and the earlier Mac OS.

That doesn't make sense. The point of a dedicated I/O device is that it takes the OS and GPU driver out of the signal chain.

Report · Nov 03, 2018

Which is puzzling him. Image contrast seems a bit different depending totally on whether High Sierra or Mojave.

Neil

Report · Nov 04, 2018

And that's reflected in the scopes as well?

Report · Aug 22, 2018

I argue that the very first step in quality control is a proper viewing environment, which you don't have. Set up one of the following and then report back.

1. Connect a dedicated I/O device (like the Intensity or Decklink from Blackmagic, or the T-Tap or Kona from AJA) to a calibrated display.

2. Export and watch on a calibrated TV from thumb drive or BD.

Report · Jan 22, 2019

Just for the record : because my new mac was set with Time Machine, i thought maybe it was related to some old files on the computer, and maybe it was the reason why my AmD dedicated graphic card wasn't use by Premiere (i still think it's the issue, nothing happens when i switch from Metal or Open CL to Mercury Playback Engine). Or maybe as Jim said Quicktime Codecs i installed may have messed with the software. So i started from scratch and installed Premiere only...and i still have these pixellized areas, in a nonuniform way.

Report · Jan 22, 2019

I don't recall if you've posted a screen-grab of that back through this thread ... have you?

Neil

Report · Apr 18, 2019

I had. But here's a comparison :

Report · Apr 18, 2019

I switched to Final Cut X for a bit, because i don't have the issue there.

I noticed something else. When i watch a movie, on Netflix for instance, with Chrome or Firefox, i have these weird pixellized areas in the shadow (it's not a network issue). But if i watch the same shot on Safari, the image is displayed correctly. So in the end i have to see with Apple, the issue comes from then, but it's insane not to be able to work properly with third party applications on a device that expansive.

Anyway, thanks for your time.

Report · Apr 18, 2019

Apple ... has always been a problem child. With glorious moments and always the fits of jealousy.

The long-held attitude that they would nurture and build for graphics artists was a wondrous thing. But sadly, a thing no more.

They're the company of Devices clear to the CEO.

Which has meant their users have to scramble to understand and puzzle through how to make gear work just like the PC crowd has always had to do.

And being Apple has added some delicious kinks. Switching their screens and their OS to the wide-gamut P3, linked into their own NLE, was ... so Apple.

I know a fair number of Apple users that are getting through all this, but they are rather experienced at general computer stuff. Such as several of the Pr engineers I talked with at NAB, who can work both of course but are Mac at heart.

And there were some interesting comments that although they can get the signal outside the OS and get it right, they're still puzzling through exactly what the Apple folk have done in the OS.

Well ... for quite a long time there were general standards, and they seem to be dissolving. So I guess we're headed into the Wild Wild Web days. It's a mess out there.

Neil

Report · Apr 18, 2019

It's a mess indeed. But your twilight, crespucular message was somehow comforting. Good luck in the wilderness.

Report · Apr 18, 2019

Hey, right? Jeez ...

I just spent a very good week at NAB, including presenting on Premiere's color management for SDR through the two (and only two!) setups that can be used for monitoring HDR from Pr, and to the export settings, even unto the four and ONLY four ways to export HDR media as HDR. (That full presentation will go up at Mixinglight.com in a few days, free and outside the paywall for that subscription site.)

My presentations were in the booth shared by the Flanders Scientific monitors company and MixingLight.com ... and HDR was a huge topic. My two presentation came in the 'theatre' there after first Rob Carroll of DolbyVision talking about how that is setup for colorists, and the second time after Alexis Van Hurkman presented a film he created and graded, discussing grading for HDR and simultaneously ... or not ... well, rather not ... grading for SDR. With of course a nice Flanders good-sized HDR monitor available to show the presentations (and it was perfectly gorgeous to see!).

It's been "easy" for the last what, decade or so? The "standard" was video sRGB/Rec.709, white point D65k, brightness of 100IRE (now "nits"). Pick a gamma between 2.2 (bright office viewing), 2.4 (subdued brightness, say living room in the evening) or 2.6 (darkened room, think theatre screening). This has been "the only show in town." And still, has been hard for many users to nail properly.

Now ... while Apple has thrown a kink in things in the way their OS works with P3 monitors/space, everything is gonna go bonkers as HDR is coming, and that right fast, really. More and more both TV and web work will need to be graded ... and viewed therefore ... on HDR screens, and there are currently several competing and different standards for defining HDR. Great.

And ... SDR will continue for sometime to be the main way a majority of screens are viewing things .... but ... some types of distribution allow for simultaneous HDR/SDR signal carrying, some want to have an embedded "code" in the media itself for the hardware (TV) to automagically change the dynamic range/tonality/saturation for showing on SDR vs. HDR screens, and some ... can only take one form.

Pick your poison, right? Sheesh. Especially ... I just got a nice UHD screen that can be calibrated and profiled for real tight SDR work. I spent a good several hours running Lightspace to get a profile of what the monitor just "does", then changing some of the monitor's settings so that when I ran the i1 Display Pro for calibration to the right standards for SDR, I finally ended up with a screen that showed up beautifully in a profile run by Lightspace ... right-on figures for D65K whites, top brightness at 100 nits, gamma curve perfect for gamma 2.4, and color showing everything well under the critical delta-E of 2.3.

All in a monitor just over 1K.

Now ... BenQ says this monitor is 'HDR Capable' but at 358 nits max BEFORE calibration, well ... realistically you need at least 1K nits after calibration to be fully HDR.

Got a guess what monitors that can do 1K nits after calibration for DolbyVision or any of the other HDR standards run for cost, especially if you want actually accurate colors? There aren't any really besides the industrial quality monitors.

Yowza. Really ... yowza!!!

Neil