Premeire 22 - Color not Exporting properly

[North Pine Productions]

Hello all! 

Please help, I am having so many issues with color in premiere 22. and I already solved the issue where it was automatically adding a LUT onto all media imported. But, now when I export the color does not match what it looks like in my timeline. The color is completely blown out in the highlights and contrast. 

All of the color options i can find in the export window are grayed out. I have also tried several codecs. Ideally I want to export as a H264 MP4 file.

Any suggestions?

[R Neil Haugen]

NO, Premiere does not automatically put a LUT on anything ... I've no clue where people get that idea from.

Premiere Pro 2022 has a completely new underlying color system. It was totally Rec.709 based, " ... with the ability to work with HDR values as over-range values ... ".  It ain't no more.

But besides working very differently than it used to in the 2021 version, with some major different default behaviors, there are some things not working as the engineers expected.

That media you've got there is either recorded as HLG, hybrid log-gamma, a form of HDR; or it is a log-encoded Rec.709 clip that Premiere is mis-interpreting as HLG/HDR because of it being log-encoded.

So the first question ... is that perchance recorded on a phone, as so many phones now are defaulting to HLG? If so, you might want to remove the default to HLG in the phone settings. And in Premiere, you would need to go to the clip/s in the Project panel, right-click, Modify/Interpret Footage, and then set the Override option to Rec.709.

If it's log-encoded but you are expecting Rec.709/SDR, and you're getting an HDR 'view', again, go to the Project panel and see if you can override to Rec.709.

Then the normal sequence processes and export options will work as you expect.

You see ... all HDR media is by nature log-encoded. SDR/Rec.709 media is 'integer encoded' essentially, but some Rec.709 media is also encoded in log formats. PrPro is supposed to be able to tell if the clip is truly HDR/HLG, or simply a log-encoded Rec.709 clip. But some Rec.709 log media it is 'seeing' as HLG, and displays it as HDR media.

And a few of the log-encoded clips are from cameras that Premiere doesn't expect log from, and ... doesn't allow a Rec.709 override option. Which is ... not good. And is an acknowledged issue, as is the totally broken proxy creation process from clips seen as HLG.

The following two FAQs cover what's changed, how to work in the new system, and what's acknowledged broken at this time; the second is how to use monitors for HDR work in Pr2022, as that has also totally changed.

Neil

FAQ:PremierePro 2022 Color Management for Log/RAW Media

How to Set Monitors for HDR work in Premiere Pro 2022?