Overview of automatic log video detection, interpretation, and timeline tone mapping workflow

[eric escobar]

Adobe Premiere Pro v23.2 has a new auto detect, interpretation and time line tone mapping workflow for log space video clips. We support Sony S-Log, Panasonic V-Log, and Canon Log video, as well as iPhone HLG and other HLG/ PQ video.

The following video shows how to enable and work with this new workflow.

[Ryan Sauvé]

Remember when Adobe prioritized smartphones over actual production cameras (ex. Nikon N-Log)? Pepperidge Farms remembers. 

[Fergus H]

The last three updates to our video products have include major improvements to ARRI and RED camera formats, plus performance improvements for cameras shooting AVC Intra (Sony, Canon, and Panasonic). The next update will include performance improvements for RED R3D and following that will be better support for B-RAW. 

We may not always have support for a specific format (N-RAW being one) but we are absolutely focused on supporting the cameras our customers use most. 

Fergus

[Danny Luksa]

> The last three updates to our video products have include major improvements to ARRI and RED camera formats

Respectfully speaking as somebody who frequently edits copious amounts of footage from ARRI cameras, I hate the way that Premiere handles the footage and am consistenly frustrated by Adobe's lack of response to these issues. Can you point to tangible ways Adobe has improved handling of these materials over the last two years?

Adding an option in Premiere to not include the ARRI/Rec.709 input LUT will make me 10x happier than any automated Rec.709 system.

[Fergus H]

Hi Danny, 

I know exactly what you're talking about and I know how frustrating it is. The short story is that we're working on this and should have it fixed before the end of the year. 

The longer story is that what you're seeing is a partial implementation of ARRI Looks. (The wording in the dialog box - "Embedded: AMIRA LUT" - is wrong; it's not a LUT, let alone an embedded one.) My apologies if you already know this but ARRI Look files are metadata stored in ARRI files (ProRes and ARRIRAW) - so, quite different from the DP burning a LUT into the image. 

ARRI has two Look File formats:

ARRI Look File 2 (ALF2) is used in:

• ALEXA SXT
• ALEXA Mini
• AMIRA
• ALEXA Mini LF
• ALEXA LF
• ALEXA 65

ARRI Look File 4 (ALF4) is used in:

• ALEXA 35

The Look functionality we have was built several years ago and only supports the ALEXA LF, the ALEXA Mini and the AMIRA, and only support ProRes. Candidly, it doesn't work well even for those cameras as there's no good way of managing it (like, in your case, simply turning it off). 

The improvements we've made so far with ARRI have largely been focused on much better performance for ARRIRAW (where we now use the GPU for acceleration) and supporting how the ALEXA 35 creates ProRes files. 

What's coming next is HDE support for ARRIRAW plus proper support for Look files - including just turning them off globally. 

I hope this helps explains what's going on and what we're doing to fix it. Feel free to drop me a private message if you'd like to talk on the phone about this. ARRI is one of our most important camera partners, and correct and full support for our mutal customers is critical. 

Regards,

Fergus

[Danny Luksa]

Hi Fergus,

I greatly appreciate your detailed repsonse — the information you shared is very candid and honest. Our environment only uses ProRes footage from the Amira and Alexa Mini, so your explanation helps me connect a lot of dots!

Thanks for your time, our team is looking forward to more updates on this front.

Best,

Danny

[Michael Grenadier]

Fergus, thanks for your clear and concise explanation.  Although it's very easy to blame Adobe for these sorts of problems, the Camera manufacturers bear some of the responsibility...  The game is constantly changing and it isn't always easy to keep up with these sort of things...    This forum is an incredible resource for people trying to keep their heads above water...  

[Jared29001323k5a3]

Hi Fergus, 

Will N-RAW be supported on the next updatae?

[Fergus H]

@Jared29001323k5a3 N-RAW support is on pause right now. I posted a mention of this here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/support-for-nikon-nraw/idc-p/14474822#M13694. 

Regards,

Fergus

[bryanmtm40]

I'm having a ton of problems with this new update. I shoot 1.7 to 2 stops overexposed in HLG 2 in Rec 709 color space. Normally when I bring a clip onto the timeline and open up the lumetri scopes, the highlights are blown out, and I can bring them down with the exposure, highlight and white sliders in the lumetri panel. Since this update, the footage that I shoot overexposed by 2 stops comes in as if I underexposed it by a stop. I've turned off "auto detect log video color space" and it makes no difference at all. I've tested clips that I shot and color graded before the update, and when I bring them in to 22.3, they're underexosed. When I take clips that I initially imported in 22.3 and import them to 22.2, they're (correctly) overexposed. I've made the obvious short term fix of just reinstalling 22.2, but I worry that this is going to be a long-term feature without a fix for my problem. Any ideas on what could be happening or how to fix this in 22.3?

[bryanmtm40]

I've not had to post in the support community before and I'm not sure if you can edit comments or not, so one obvious clarification:

The new version I'm talking about is 23.2, and version I've reverted to is 23.1. 

Apologies. 

[eric escobar]

Have you tried unchecking "Auto Tone Map Media" in the Sequence Settings?

[bryanmtm40]

I'll definitely give that a shot!

[R Neil Haugen]

"I shoot 1.7 to 2 stops overexposed in HLG 2 in Rec 709 color space"

This is completely puzzling. I don't know of any HLG in in Rec.709 color space.

So I'm guessing you're shooting HLG then using that in Rec.709 in Premiere?

Are you doing the proper CM for that media to use on a Rec.709 timeline, which is in the Project panel ...

Right-click one or more clips, then Modify/Interpret Footage, setting the Override-to option to Rec.709?

Neil

[bryanmtm40]

It's picture profile 3 by default on the Sony a7rIII. HLG 2 gamma and you can set the color space to BT.2020 or rec709. 

[R Neil Haugen]

Camera settings for HLG in Rec.709? That's ... intriguing! Separating the DR from color space, wow. And thanks for posting that bit!

I'd love to get a clip of that in my shop to test out, if there's any way you could drop-box me something!

Neil

[bryanmtm40]

What kind of clip would you like? A clip of the ungraded HLG footage? I can send it via google link or wetransfer

[R Neil Haugen]

Yes please!

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

So I just loaded that up, and it showed the color space tagging as 1-18-1, which is sure enough Rec.709 primaries, 2020/HLG color space, and Rec.709 conversion matrix. An intriguing set of options I must say ...

Dropped it on a timeline, and with AutoTonemapping on, Pr created a Rec.709 working space sequence for it, and the image & scopes looked pretty decent. This includes a lot of snow, white jerseys, shadows, a pretty tough image in all. But looked pretty decent.

I mainly felt it needed more saturation.

Neil

 

[cdavid1760]

Thank you Eric! Well dine👍:hundred_points::trophy:

[Buruch]

We were hoping that this latest upgrade fixed our color issues but it did not. This was posted in the FB group a couple of weeks ago, not sure where to go from here. Most of our projects began in PP 2021 (15.4.1) then some went to 2022, and many were finished for broadcast in 23.1 Now when we go back and open these projects in any suite, it seems like the Lumetri color grade is corrupt. Colors are off, blacks are crushed, etc. We tried interpreting footage to rec 709, tried a new project copy and pasted timeline, nothing works except going backward and opening them in 2021 and 2022, and this doesn't seem to work on all projects. This does not seem to be an issue between Silicone M1 and our Intel Macs as it's an issue in all three suites. Footage is mostly from Sony A73's but seems to affect other footage too. Greatly appreciate help on this, or please direct us, maybe even to adobe support, do they have phone support? thanks in advance!

Our Specs in our suites:

Edit 1-Mac Studio 2022 Silicone M1 Max

• Mac OS Monterey 12.6.2

• 23.2 Premiere

Edit 2- iMac Retina 5k 27in 2020 Intel 3.6ghz 10 core i9 and AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16gb GPU

• Mac OS Monterey 12.6.2

• 23.2 Premiere

Edit 3-iMac Retina 5k 27in 2019 Intel 3.6ghz 8 core i9 and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 8 GB

• Mac OS Monterey 12.6.2

• 23.2 Premiere

[eric escobar]

Hello Buruch, have you made sure "Auto Detect Log Video Color Space" is disabled in the Preferences?

[johnnyk7917700]

I also shoot hlg3/rec709, seems to do good enough  tonemapping on those.

However it doesn't detect Slog2/Sgamut.cine  maybe add that too?

[Fergus H]

We are going to continue to add support for additional color spaces. I'm curious: when / where do you choose to use S-Log2 over S-Log3

[Trevor_Asq]

I put this in the beta forum but may be relevant here, as folks get to grip with the recent colour transform developments...

Media Encoder, like PP, has a global 'auto detect log color space' toggle in General settings.   This is NOT LINKED to the PP 'auto detect log color space' setting and also appears to be locked in at the moment the sequence is 'sent to media encoder' - either by direct keyboard command or via the export tab. (i.e. if you change the AME AutoLog toggle after it is in the AME queue the interpretation in the sequence export will NOT be changed)   Thus it is VERY LIKELY that exports that are sent via media encoder will NOT MATCH the levels/colour in PP unless PP and AME have the same AutoLog settings. 

I think these settings are per machine - so in shared environments would need to be set across all machines and also would need to be re-enabled if/when preferences are reset. I can see this getting very messy on bigger shared projects with multiple editors with multiple source colour spaces. 

Maybe the AutoLog setting should be with the ToneMap choice and be per sequence, maybe with an individual clip override.

Also an edit index (like Resolve) where you could view/sift/select/change these settings compared against metadata would be very useful.