My colors are inaccurate and dull on timeline and then oversaturated on export

[alsotf]

For the past week I've been experiencing this issue, where the clips in my timeline are dull and colorless. Even when I add text, and set the color to white for example, it shows the color as gray on the video preview. Then, afterwards if I go to export, the video is oversaturated and the colors don't look normal. I have been looking through forums trying to find a solution, but I don't know what's going on.
When I open a new project, and I want to pick my footage, the thumbnail of the videos looks normal, but as soon as I hover over them to see which video it is, the colors suddenly become over saturated.(Attached parts of screenshot as an example, although might not be very clear)
Has occured twice, once when I filmed footage on iphone 15 pro, and also happened with a new video I was working on which was filmed with an iphone 14

Version 25.2.1 (issue has occured on 25.2 as well)
Using Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows 11

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from using the community bugs">

[alsotf]

It sometimes doesn't just do that. I export my footage from my phone, and the footage remains oversaturated in the timeline. I tried to override the media to rec. 709 but that dulls it out so much, and it doesn't look like the video I filmed.

[R Neil Haugen]

Color management is something all users need to learn about to at least a middling level anymore.

Why?

Because we have so freaking many diffierent color spaces and dynamic ranges that cameras and other devices record to now. 

For example, your phone is by current default setting recording in HDR ... high dynamic range. Which ... is complex.

Because HDR has both a far wider luminance (brightness) range from black to white than the more standard, older SDR/Rec.709 format. AND it has several different color (chrominance) spaces that could be use, while SDR/Rec.709 has only one luminance and color pairing ... all that must fit within the sRGB color space.

So you need to figure out what you want to do, and set both your camera/phone and Premiere to do that.

I might suggest it would be easier if you set the camera to standard video SDR/Rec.709, as ... HDR is stll the wild wild west.

Either way, in Premiere go to the Color Workspace, Lumetri panel ... and the Settings tab, the tab named Settings.

All of Premiere's color management controls are there.

Set display color management, extended dynamic range, auto detect log and auto tonemapping all On.

Set the Sequence to Rec.709, and especially, find the option for the Direct Rec.709 workflow. Select that, and it will help simplify things.

And only use export presets that do not have HLG or PQ in the preset name, as those are only used for HDR format exports.

You still may have a display issue outside of Premiere on a Mac, as they tend to use Apple's ColorSync utiity to control screen display, and that utility uses an incorrect display transform for displaying Rec.709 video files on the monitor. It applies essentially a gamma of 1.96 to the file as it's displayed on the screen.

The standard set for Rec.709 requires a screen/display transform of essentially gamma 2.4..

So if you have Premiere set internally for the "proper" gamma 2.4  viewing gamma, and watch the export in QuickTime player, Chrome or Safari browsers, you get a lighter view of the shadows and there's some color mismatches also ... both a feeling of low saturation from the brighter values and apparently Apple doesn't correctly remap sRGB color hues within the monitor's naitive P3 color space.

But ... if you view the same file in VLC, or Potplayer, or in the Firefox browser, which do not allow ColorSync to control the screen, you get the "normal" Rec.709 display transform of gamma 2.4.

So you see the same file very differently, and totally because of the differnce in the display transform used.

You can set the viewing gamma in Premiere to three things, listed in Premiere as 1.96 Quicktime, 2.2 web, and 2.4 broadcast.

The 1.96 Quicktime gives the lighter-shadows view in Premiere. Work on a file in that, on a Mac, and outside of Premiere QuickTime player, Chrome and Safari is gonna look similar.

But ...  on all other systems, it will be too light and oversaturated. Including all PCs, Android, most TVs, and all broadcast-compliant systems.

I suggest most users work with viewer gamma set to gamma 2.2 web, but not because you're sending to the web.

Because by the well-thought-out specs for colorists, you work with a monitor set to gamma 2.4 if and only if!!! you are working in that very dark, not quite blackened room. Which gives a better situation for correcting color saturation than a brighter room.

If working color in a normally lit, fairly bright room, by the standards, you should use a viewer gamma of 2.2. While the screen display is always set to full Rec.709 gamma 2.4.

Might sound at counter-purposes, but it actually works quite well. 

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi alsotf,

Welcome to the community. We would need more info to diagnose the issue. Please select your clip in the timeline with the color issue & navigate to Window > Lumetri Color > Settings tab & share screenshots of all configurations that you have under the Setting tab.

Thanks,

Sumeet