Premiere render is adding a lot of contrast final video. Works fine from AE.

[anderama86]

Hardware : 2021 Apple M1 Max
Software: Sonoma 14.6.1, Premiere 24.6.1 (Build 2)

I am working on a project that was cut and colored by another studio. I have not changed the colors at all. However when I render there is a very clear color shift. I am using the same preset they did (they sent it to me) but they were working on PCs and I'm on Mac. I thought that might be the issue but it's rendering perfectly from both Resolve and After Effects so I know it has to be a setting inside of premiere.

The clips are .mov files rendered from resolve. They are rec 709 as is my timeline. I have display color management turned on. I have tried setting Viewer Gamma to both 1.96 and 2.2. The images above are from the 2.2 render. I have tried rendering from media encoder and directly out of premiere. I have tried rendering with software only and hardware accelerated. There are no LUTs turned on either on the timeline or in the effects window on render.

I am at a loss as to what I can try next. Any help is appreciated.

[Mike Dziennik]

Comparing VLC to the Program monitor is problematic. Firstly, re-import your exported files and compare then against your sequence inside Premiere.

Are the source files DnxHR 444?

[anderama86]

I have also compared them side by side in frame.io so they were on the same player on the same monitor and they are as you see them above. 

[R Neil Haugen]

This is actually an ongoing issue.  Because there's a discrepancy between how Premiere handles the 4444 files and how they are used in Avid and can be in Resolve.

In Premiere, 4444 RGB files are always treated as full range ... period. 

Avid, which created the DNx ecosystem, has stated it is ok to do either full or legal range.

And there's no way to tell Premiere to change full to legal or vice versa. 

THE FIX IS HERE:

You can go to the Lumetri Presets in the Effects bin. There are full to legal and legal to full Lumetri presets. Drop the legal to full onto the file and it will work as you expect.

[Mike Dziennik]

I thought that 4444 RGB DNX files were meant to be full-range (of course acknowledging that 3rd party apps could and would erroneously encode video-levels). But maybe I got that idea by taking Premiere's lead. 😉

[R Neil Haugen]

According to Avid, those in DNx world can be either according to user choice.

I had several long discussions with the previous chief color scientist on this, who simply stated "the rules" for 4444 files state that they are to be full range.

"But the owner of the format allows for user choice in their own app, Avid. And Resolve also allows user choice." says I.

Response?

"They're wrong. We handle it right."

Well technically he may have been right. But for his users, that is a wrong answer.

If both Avid and Resolve allow for both full/legal for DNx files, Premiere should also.

And now, some idiotic camera makers allow users to set full range on standard sRGB/YUV files. Which is stupid, doesn't get anything other than a mess in post, but ... I guess marketing loves it.

[anderama86]

I will try this thanks!

[R Neil Haugen]

Select the clips in the bin, then drag/drop the Lumetri full to legal preset on them.

Then in a timeline, remove previous Lumetri and do over.

[R Neil Haugen]

For your consideration ... @Alexis Van Hurkman @eric escobar @Shebbe 

This would be nice to get changed in with all the new CM stuff. Being able to switch things full/legal whatever is needed.

[Shebbe]

Not sure why I'm in the tag :)...

But I agree and already voiced my opinion about it some time ago. Premiere should offer overrides for data/full vs video/legal levels for cases there is a mismatch. It should also allow for full control over what to write them as, including the option to clip after scaling so no 'superwhites' / 'superblacks' are stored.

What I know about VLC on Windows is that it always reads DNx 444 files as legal levels resulting in white and black clipping and increased contrast. This isn't Premiere's issue, VLC fails to read the data correctly. I guess it may be the same case on a Mac.

You'd need to figure out which of the two is actually correct. Easy to measure if that text is intended to be full white. Otherwise you'd have to ask them to send a version with some frames of SMPTE bars run through the same export format.

[R Neil Haugen]

Your reply perfectly illustrated why I pinged you!

I wanted your experience on this.