P: Label colours appear to have inverted in Premiere Pro

[Molly32590422poa9]

I have opened Premiere Pro today to find all the label colours in my timeline appear to be inverted. The lighter colour is now the main body of the clip and the darker colour is now the waveform. I have tried to go through all the different label group styles. I have also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the application. Does anyone know how to get this back to the default colours. 

I have attached an image of what it should look like and what it looks like now.

[MotionByAllison]

The classic option changes the actual colors back but the contrast on audio waveforms and the clip labels are still horrendous. 

If they want to push this new AI so much at least give us an option to turn off the extreme contrast by a toggle switch or something. Editing audio literally hurts my eyes now. 

[Jimmy37736344rwv3]

Hello, 

Just chiming in as another voice in the crowd that these "inverted" colors on audio clips, wherein the waveform is dark green, the background is light green, and the text is an impossible to read bright white, look like garbage.  I also did not elect to update Premiere, and it did so automatically.  You should allow users the option to toggle back to the label colors--including this color inversion, as I understand that "Classic" in Preferences does bring back the former color scheme--as they were before the update.  

[Nick @ KTVH]

The white text is a known bug. Earlier in this thread Adobe said it will be fixed a future update.

If you wish to turn off the automatic updates, you can do so through the Creative Cloud app.

As far as going back to what it was before, this will most likely not happen. The developers have put in a whole new system that replaces the old system. Having both systems in the program will likely cause some sort error. Developers don't push out broken things (unless management forces them to). The updated "classic" style was most likely a compromise to get somewhat similar results to what was there before. As seen on this thread, most people don't like it, but there are many more who do that are silent. What I'm guessing will happen will be somewhat of a hybrid that mixes the old with the new. What would help the most would be constructive criticisim saying exactly how they can improve versus just saying go back. Feedback on what specificly to change and how to change it is much more likely to have an impact than just I don't like it.

[R Neil Haugen]

Very good comments, Nick. What we've now got is a system that is far more user-adaptable than before. So ... for those of us who aren't delighted with the colors as they are, we can now change them to suit our tastes.

Although the 'inverted' thing with waveforms, and the changed fx badges, those NEED tweaking by the devs. PLEASE post here explicit comments as to what you need there. I've done that already.

Setting the "Classic" Labels closer to actual "Classic" Look

IF you go to the timeline 3-bar menu, and deselect the thing about audio and video labels linked, then the audio goes back to green, though not the same green as before.

Set your Preferences/Label then to Classic, click the swatch for the blue hue used for video, and slide the hue selector down from the teal area into a "cleaner" blue. Then move the hue dot down a little lower to be brighter, and you can get a similar blue to the old one.

Do a similar thing with the green of the hue used in audio, and you can be back much closer to what we've been used to seeing, if that is what you want.

[Jimmy37736344rwv3]

"If you wish to turn off the automatic updates, you can do so through the Creative Cloud app."

I never turned on automatic updates.  This is the first time this has ever happened--a total surprise to open the software up today to a new version.  I always wait a considerable time to update.  The fact that this was toggled without my doing so is a problem.  

"What would help the most would be constructive criticisim saying exactly how they can improve versus just saying go back"

I didn't say go back--I expressed my opinion, shared by many, that the inverted colors look awful, and that users should generally always have the option to elect these new changes within the software, rather than having the changes imposed upon them. 

Feedback like this works, as does power in numbers. 

[Daniela33943970htbo]

Thank you! I fixed it. It was really simple. The thing was that it changed
on its own so I didn't know where to go to change it.
Thanks again.

*Dani Cervantes (she/her)*

[personal info deleted by mod]

[MJaskulski]

"What would help the most would be constructive criticisim saying exactly how they can improve versus just saying go back" the problem is it looks like they introduced a change without asking the community if they actually like the change.

A lot of people use Premiere for long time, for 10 years or even longer, so making such a drastic change to how labels contrast looks like can affect whole workflow of experienced video editors. Trust me you don't want to be for a example a taxi driver that woke up one day and realise that your car's steering while steering left turns right. It is hard to do expect professionals to work fast and effeceint as they used to with changing the basic stuff like labels color/contrast.

I had to revert to older version as the new contrast was very distracting and giving me a literall headache as my eyes were focusing on it too much. The best they can do it to bring back the old labels behaviour as a basic option - they kept old shortcuts or "save as" behaviour for Photoshop, so I think realistically there is a place to introduce the old labels contrast as an option as well as old selected clip highlight. For me it is enough to even try to look for another alternative to Premiere as my editing efficiency got worse since even after getting used to, it still hurts my eyes by a lot.

"The developers have put in a whole new system that replaces the old system."
I get it they need to refresh UI and stuff as the modern needs changed, but their change of labels was unnecessary - yes I get that WCAG is an important thing but custiomization of things like contrast, color labels etc. should be a thing because right now a lot of pros using the software for years are forced to adapt out of nowhere with a very not user friendly set of colors. Seriously in the new color pallete Brown, Yellow etc. look the same, it is not a problem on a timeline but it is a problem in file browser as there is barely any difference between Yellow and Brown lable clips so I couldn't distinguish them. And because of how they kept all the names and used darker colors many people, including myslef thinks it is a bug, because it is just very unintuitive.

[R Neil Haugen]

It was in the public beta, with announcements and discussions on the public beta forum.

It is simply sensible for most users to check out tge public beta forum as there you can comment before adoption into the "release" version.

[charlotteh50606133]

Give us the option to change it back to how it was, this hurts my eyes and is incredibly ugly. What was anyone thinking?

[mattchristensen]

@charlotteh50606133 As part of this redesign that changed the default clip colors, we also added Label Color Presets to make it easy to save and switch between presets of clip colors. You can find them in Preferences > Labels. There is a Classic preset included which uses the previous color scheme.

[RESLV-Kyle]

The audio waveforms are still inverted and the inverted waveform is just not pleasant to look at. It hurts my eyes.

[R Neil Haugen]

If you select "Classic" from the Preferences/Label section, then click on the blue color patch for video files ... you get a picker. Sliding that down a bit in the picker gets the more closer to blue blue color we used to have. Save that.

And make sure that from the Timeline 3-bar "hamburger" menu, make user audio waveforms use label color is not selected.

You can play a bit with the green color also, but ... sadly, the way it brightens the waveform is outta our control.

[charlotteh50606133]

Yes, and even with "classic" colors enabled, it still looks just SO UGLY! *How* did y'all screw this up so badly? Give us the option to change the inverted colors and maybe work on fixing all the *actual* bugs instead of reworking things that aren't broken, omg

[DMS Video Production]

Really not a fan of the new colors. Why can't you make this an option? The "classic" colors are not even close to what we were using literally days ago. The new look is harder to navigate, and anything that slows down our editors is a bad call. 

[Daniel37741246lgea]

Not a fan of the new colors TBH. 

[Tony Zed]

I think it's kinda funny. I always customize all my colors in preferences anyway. Did before, did again this time.

[RESLV-Kyle]

I have opened Premiere today for the first time since this update and yes, these color palettes are EXTREMELY distracting and completely unuseful. This is enough reason for me to stop using Premiere frankly. I can't look at these color palettes ALL DAY. Come on folks. Change it back. 

[Vaun34646924j3hn]

Yuk.   The new colors are very distracting, so I switched to the "classic" look, but now the waveforms are dark, which is also disturbing.  I wish Adobe would stop fooling around so much with Premiere.  I am a professional video editor and editing instructor, so I don't appreciate my world changing overnight or Adobe "fixing" things that aren't broken.  Don't forget how a lot of us abandoned Final Cut Pro when Apple messed with it too much after Version 7.

[Varus32415256koeb]

Why did you change the colors of the tracks? I feel out of place because someone decided to make me look at red subtitles and acidic sound tracks. How can it all be returned to its usual form?

[R Neil Haugen]

We users now have a lot more options for timeline colors ... go to the Preferences/Labels dialogue for those. There are both several options in the lower right for "themes" ... including "Classic" which is sorta kinda like the old view, and you can select one. And save your own, or several.

Note that in the timeline 3-bar menu there's an option for showing video and audio same colors, which was apparently the new default. I turned that off because I wanted my audio to be green as before, so they're obviously audio.

Next, for any color, you can click in the color patch, and you'll get a picker dialog. Set the hue/brightness/sat to your preference, and done.

Sadly, we can't change the over-bright "inverted" waveforms yet.

[MotionByAllison]

Yes, the biggest issue for me now is the extreme contrast. I changed back to the Classic settings for the labels which is pretty close to the old view. But the contrast on the audio waveform is still extremely unflattering and I hope there's a toggle to turn on that contrast and use the original colors. 

[R Neil Haugen]

That's my biggest issue, the excessive contrast of the audio waveforms. Although I know some people find that SO much easier to see ... but then, everyone's mileage always varies.

[geofftechUK]

i've wasted 2 hours of my evening today when i should have working, trying to revert this back to how I've known it for the last 10+ years.  People are upset, because you can't change something like that, that they have know for so long.

"but just change it to classic!" people have been saying, but that didn't work for me ... until i finally stumbled on this thread (having been Googling and watching Youtube videos to try and find an answer for two hours) until finally this one saved me --->

"Note that in the timeline 3-bar menu there's an option for showing video and audio same colors, which was apparently the new default. I turned that off because I wanted my audio to be green as before, so they're obviously audio."

And THAT is just about what gets it back to what I know and love! My audio was showing up as blue as well!  but if you click on the Hamburger ( 3 bar ) menu for the timeline, UNTICK 'Audio Waveforms use Label Colour' and with the Labels set to 'Classic' in preferences ... BOOM! it's almost back to how i've known it for over a decade, and I can actually get back to working tonight.

this means that i'll finish at 2am, rather than midnight. So yes Adobe, you've got me a late night with the change that you can see from 95% of the comments here, everyone dislikes <- please take note of that.

Hope this helps someone else from screaming/pulling their hair out as I have been.  I can actually stop wasting time now and get back to work.

[martinw77576236]

Hi. Another bug for you. The timeline colours are blue. Audio and Video. They will not change. I have tried to change them in settings. If you select the top box Movie and Audio and change the colour, nothing happens, there is also no option to select NONE in the drop down to enable you to select the video and audio seperately in the menus below. So we are stuck with the timeline audio and video the same colours no matter what we try to do. Please help and fix this asap. Thanks

[geofftechUK]

Martin!  Can help you here ...

On the timeline window click on the three horizontal bars that is to the right of the name of your Sequence.  this brings up a menu, choose "Audio waveforms use label colour" - so that it is unticked. Voila!  you should have a different colour for audio again.  Why this isn't in the Spanner/Wrench menu where it should be, i have no idea.

Hope this helps!

( then make sure in Preferences, Labels you have "Classic" selected and that's as close as you can get it! )