Premiere Pro renders wrong the color for vector graphics from creative cloud libraries
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I've always had this problem and had to find a workaround but it's becoming more of a pain. When I drag vector graphics from CC libraries into a Premiere Pro timeline, the color is never accurate and I don't know why. Sometimes it isn't always obvious but it's almost always incorrect.
In Illustrator, I have a red hexagon filled with the color #e30513.
The document color mode is RGB.
In Edit > Color Settings I have tried different RGB color spaces:
- Rec.709 Gamma 2.4
- sRGB IEC61966
- Adobe RGB
- Rec.709 PQ
I then add this to CC Libraries, go to Premiere Pro and drag it into a timeline.
In Premiere Pro, the hexagon is the right color in the Libraries panel but in the timeline it looks more pink then red. I can't get the file to be the right color on the timeline!
Something else very confusing about this is that After Effects interprets the color correctly. If I simply duplicate the graphic, right click, and "replace with After Effects composition", the color of the AE comp updates to the correct color as soon as it's saved in AE. See the comparison difference in the second screenshot below. Left side is Illustrator file, right side is Illustrator file converted to AE composition.
Please can anyone help me fix this? Really annoying, I either have to convert all graphics to AE compositions or render them to a raster file - either way it limits editing the file at a future date.
EDIT: a small update for the sake of clarity. I've detailed above that using the file from Creative Cloud causes this effect. I've imported a Illustrator file manually, not through CC libraries and it has the same effect so the problem clearly lies with the AI file and not the CC libraries.
Regards, aTomician
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Set MPE hardware to software and see if that makes a difference.
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Thanks for the reply Ann, which application do I set this in?
Regards, aTomician
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Premiere Pro.
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I've given that a go, hardware or software doesn't make any difference... I often have to switch to software rendering for complex projects anyway so I'm sure I would have noticed if it fixed the problem. I'd be interested to know what results other people get when they follow the procedure above - make a basic shape in Illy, fill it a specific color, add to CC libraries, drag it into Premiere Pro and check the color of the graphic there to see if it matches... I've always had this so presumed it was a Premiere Pro quirk...
Regards, aTomician
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What are your color management settings for that in AfterEffects?
And have you gone to the Sequence settings in Premiere, and unchecked the "linear space ... " option?
Neil
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and unchecked the "linear space ... " option?
By R Neil Haugen
You mean this:
"Composite in linear color"
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Thanks all.
I've tried the sequence with "composite in linear color" turned on and off and it makes no difference.
These are the default After Effects color settings that i've been using:
Regards, aTomician
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Some further observations:
I thought of going to the graphic in the projects panel and using "Interpret footage" to modify the color space. However the color space options are greyed out.
I also tried right clicking on the graphic and "Edit in Photoshop" - when it opens in photoshop, the color is dead on #e30513. It's like Premiere Pro is interpreting the color wrongly but not actually changing the color in any way. Does PPro try to convert it to a Rec.709 color space or something?
Regards, aTomician
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If you are going to video, you either need to have the original in sRGB/Rec.709 or convert it to that. Which is the color primaries by the standards for 'normal' video.
HDR forms use a wider color space, but all 'standard' video uses the sRGB primaries and the other items of the Rec.709 specifications.
Neil
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Thanks Neil,
Agree with what you've said, but I'm afraid that this doesn't seem to have made much difference in this case - I've documented in the OP that I've tried several different colour spaces in the Illustrator file, including sRGB and Rec.709, but these don't have any effect when importing into Premiere Pro. I believe that changing color space in Illustrator settings does not affect the Illustrator file - it seems to be a user setting not a file specific settings. There's no option in Premiere Pro to interpret the graphic in any other color space - it's greyed out for Illustrator files.
I can't see any way to change the color space of the original AI file?
Regards, aTomician
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Haven't been in Illustrator for a while. I'll see if I can get a look over there today.
Neil
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In Ilustrator's menu options, in the Edit menu on PCs, is the option for Color Settings.
That needs to be set to the Rec.709/Gamma 2.4 option for using objects in an SDR/Rec.709 workflow in PrPro.
Neil
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Hello Neil, thanks for your reply.
The color settings in Illustrator are global settings and don't affect an individual Illy file. For instance:
- Open up Illustrator, change Color space to Rec.709.
- Make a graphic and save down as .ai file.
- Close / reopen illustrator
- Change color space to sRGB, create a new file with a graphic and save it down.
- Close / reopen Illustrator and open the first graphic created with a Rec.709 color space.
- The first graphic color space has now changed to sRGB.
So I believe that this setting only changes how Illustrator interprets and renders color, and doesn't affect the output of any documents. However I can't find anything in the online user guide around this.
Regards, aTomician
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I"ve always been told by those using Ilustrator to create graphics for PrPro that you must match Illustrator's color settings for that project to the working color space ... Rec.709. sRGB, of your Premiere workspace.
Although far more Premiere users do this stuff in Photoshop than in Illustrator.
Where you also must make sure that project is in Rec.709/sRGB.
So ... that's what is always taught. Anywhere I've been or read.
Neil
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Ok fair enough.... I wanted to keep it as a vector file because I'm doing some zooms effects where I scale the graphics by 5000% as part of the transition - vector doesn't pixelate and stays a small file. Will use a raster image for now then if that's best, it's just going to be a pretty big file because of the resolution I need - better that then wrong colours though!
Regards, aTomician
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There seem to always be trade-offs in video post, Haven't found something yet without 'em, I don't think ... sigh.
Neil