Issues with 4K imports from iPhone to Premiere Pro

[Phoebe Conrey]

Hi! 
I'm hoping you can help and I'm sure it's just something silly that I'm not doing. 
I want to import my 4K videos from my iPhone into premiere pro but after downloading them from iCloud they come out really washed out and grainy. 
I thought maybe it was a processing issue of the viewer in premiere as I don't have the most incredible computer but upon export it is still washed out (although not grainy).

Any help would be appreciated. 
Thanks

[penelope_9793 · Accepted solution]

It seems like the issue may be with the color profiles or the way you're uploading your video from iCloud. Try checking your color space settings in Premiere Pro and making sure you're working in the correct color profile (Rec. 709 for standard video). Also, make sure you're uploading your video in its original quality, not a compressed format, and check to see if any color management settings on your computer might be affecting your footage.

[R Neil Haugen]

Color management is something all users now need to learn, as you can shoot in multiple color spaces on so many cameras and devices, and deliver to different spaces also. You need to tell Premiere what you want it to do!

Premiere's extensive Color Management options are all in the Color Workspace, Lumetri panel, SETTINGS TAB ... the tab named Settings.

So for most users:

• Display Color Management ON (and extended dynamic range for Mac users)
• Auto Detect Log ON
• Auto tonemapping ON
• Sequence color space set to Rec.709 still for easiest delivery
• Viewing gamma to your preferences (it's ... complicated ... very)

That will get most any media doing predictable things visually. I'll not go into the hot mess of Apple's wrong display tranform for Rec.709 media now. Just use VLC or PotPlayer or Firefox. Avoid QuickTime Player, Chrome, and Safari.

[Phoebe Conrey]

Thank you this was very helpful! 
My editing skills are pretty basic so colour management was not at all on my radar. The video is still looking a bit washed out so I'm going to read up on colour management to see if I can get it right but this was a great start. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Are you on a Mac? 

As if so, you've got another problem thanks to Apple being ... well, Apple.