PREMIERE EXPORT BLASTING OUT COLORS. :( OPACITY LAYERS NOT REGISTERING

[mariahadd]

Hi everyone,

I spent a long time creating a video that have many opacity and screen layers that when blended together 

look really beautiful. Unfortunately when I export, the colors are blasted super high contrast and get

very hot. The opacity layers lose their subtelty. It looks terrible. I don't know what to do, I've fiddled around with a bunch of different export options. I saw a post about exports becoming dull, but thats not my issue. 

I imported the 4k videos straight from my iphone. I don't know much about all the different kinds of video types. 

I'd appreciate support!!! 

Maria

[Peru Bob]

Have a look here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/making-your-iphone-12-and-13-footage-look-no...

[R Neil Haugen]

Peru Bob is on the right issue ... you don't have proper color management setup in Premiere. All the controls for that are now in the color workspace, Lumetri panel's Settings tab.

Read through what he links. The main things are ...

• auto detect log and auto tonemapping are interactive and for most purposes both should be 'on'.
• set the sequence color space to what you want to have for export.
• use only export presets with color space matching your sequence. HLG and PQ presets are only used with respectively HLG or PQ sequences!
• display color management and on Macs, extended dynamic range should be on.

Users also can set the viewer display gamma now for the Program monitor. Pick your poison!

• Most colorists will always set the display for Rec.709/SDR video to broadcast/gamma 2.4 as that is what all professional media is produced to.
• Some Mac users get weirded out because of the strange Apple use of the camera display tranform of 1.96 as the display transform ... which for Rec.709 is actually specified as gamma 2.4. So when QuickTime Player shows that lighter image, they cringe. For that, you can set the viewer gamma to QuickTime/1.96 so it "works" on similar Macs.
• Some user try to split the difference and set viewer gamma to "web/2.2" ... whatever.

[mariahadd]

Thank you both so much for this support. What worked was converting all my videos to rec.709 mixed with Neil's suggestion on what to click in the lumetri color settings panel.

Now the issue is my video looks MUCH better, but it is definitely not a match to my timeline. It's dull, and in my timeline

it seems to play a lot more smoothly. I'm not sure what export settings to choose. I exported as a HEVC file through media encoder with maximum render settings. I have to wait several hours for it to render before I can figure out if the colors matched because the preview does not, making this process take a very long time. 

Any suggestions on the export settings now that the settings within premiere seem to be working?

Thank you!!!

Maria

[R Neil Haugen]

You've got me puzzled there. 

You say the video and the timeline don't match. Is that the exported video, or the 'original' clip? If exported, how are you viewing it? On a Mac, perhaps? And what are your viewer gamma settings in Premiere?

Which export preset are you using? Does the color space of the preset match the sequence?

[mariahadd]

Hi Neil,

Sorry for the confusion, as I'm learning all this video terminology for the first time.

My exported video is duller and less vibrant that what my timeline shows. I am using an apple computer 

and I'm watching it with Quicktime Player.

I didn't use any gamma effects, if that is what you're referring to. I used to the basic correction and curves inside lumetri to edit. 

This time, I exported using Media Encoder and these were my settings in premiere, and in media encoder. I'm not sure what preset to use.  Attaching the properties on my video! I did the right click change to rec 709 trick from above on them. I think I clicked render at maximum quality inside the media encoder settings. 

Let me know if I can clarify further!

 

 

  

 

[R Neil Haugen]

EDIT: This is complex and something we are all learning to deal with. So understand, I don't expect anyone to know this stuff to begin with, nor to realize the implications of anything off the bat. It takes some time. And familiarity.

I don't think you read ... and really understood ... my second section above, users setting the viewer display gamma. It's a complex problem with no solution. Just ... choices.

But that section entirely answers your trouble on seeing the image outside of Premiere on your Mac, which apparently doesn't have the Apple "Reference Modese" ... or if it does, you don't know to set that to HDTV.

Because the issue you raise in this post about the 'dullness' outside of Premiere is due to Apple's odd (and totally unique) decision to apply the specified Rec.709 camera transform (essentially gamma 1.96) ... as the Rec.709 display transform ... which is long specified to be using a display transform of essentially gamma 2.4.

So your computer, when using QuickTime Player, Chrome or Safari browsers, uses that non-standard, lighter display transform on Rec.709 video playback. VLC player and Firefox browser typically use the full Rec.709 standard including gamma 2.4.

So you'll see a different image on your computer depending on what you use to play that file.

As stated, Macs with Reference modes, set to HDTV, will properly show full broadcast spec Rec.709 including the display transform, so those Macs will display the image darker. As will all broadcast spec Rec.709 compliant systems, most Android devices, most PCs and TVs.

Re-read the lower section of my above post, which covers the viewer gamma options you have available. As you cannot create an image that will look the same with two widely different display transforms, you have to pick where you want the image "most correct".

But then, as we never ever have control of any image once we distribute it, pro colorists are told to grade to the standards. Then let it go. Because out In the Wild, every screen will show it differently, and no one on any screen will ever see exactly what you saw when grading it.

[mariahadd]

Thank you for the support. I'm going to take some time to go through the information and your suggestions again!

[R Neil Haugen]

This is more complex than one thinks starting out. And welcome to the group!