"Use Media Color Space from File" Was this always the default?

[benwinter]

I swear I never had to deal with this before. I want ungraded clips from the camera, as they were recorded. But now Premiere seems to be insisting on using the option "Use Media Color Space from File" as the default on all my video files. So they have the completely wrong LUT applied.

So I have to go into Interpret Footage... and change this option for ALL of my video files in every folder. Are you kidding me? Was this always a thing? How do I turn off this stupid unnecessary option so it's not the default?

[R Neil Haugen]

The 2022 series has a completely rebulit color handling system stem to stern. Which was required to move into a 'modern' age with the user able to work in different color spaces by their choice. And that's what ... and why ... you're having this change.

Prior versions were absolute Rec.709/Bt1886 color in all respects, hardcoded so. They only had a cadged on ability to work in HLG or PQ forms of HDR ... by coding in what they called "an over-range value" handling into their color system. But it was simply a temporary cadge. And had to go.

Unfortunately, this wasn't communicated as precisely to the users as I think it should have been. Which was only made worse by the growing pains through this year with parts that 1) weren't working as the engineers expected and/or 2) weren't working as the users expected and/or 3) simply didn't work with certain format/codecs.

I'm also critical of where the new color management controls were placed. To the engineers, they think that ANY user would automatically assume any new color management would be in the project panel's Modify/Interpret Footage dialog. Yes, I've had that conversation at NAB in person.

That's buried, as a user. We need an actual full-on color management panel where we can set ALL color management options, defaults, and overrides, similar to the EGP and ESP. Something we could say add to one of our custom workspace panel groups. So I've proposed one:

Color Management Panel

Understand, there will be more color controls added to Premiere. Currently we have the media CM in that Interpret Footage location, Sequence CM in the Sequence settings, scopes CM in two places in the Scopes panel. We'll get more controls as time goes by, expect to end somewhat like Resolve, Baselight, or Avid where the user has a TON of conversion/mapping/color-space controls.

Premiere's "color space from file" is meant to be from the camera. So ... are you using log encoded media? Or iPhone clips in HLG? What?

It's sortable.

Neil

[benwinter]

My footage is from an FX6 recorded as S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine. But the default "use media color space" option makes the footage look wildly incorrect. I can't tell what it's trying to do. It says it's using S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine, but it looks like it's trying to correct it into the Rec709 color space but undersaturated and with wildly incorrect gamma (washed out highlights)

Overall, an entirely useless functionality that doesn't even appear to be working correctly.

[R Neil Haugen]

Check both the "use color space from file" ... and then also the Override to Rec.709.

Essentially, the first is an "input" space, telling Premiere to import the file as a log-encoded clip in the S-log3-cine 'format' ... and the second is telling it what working space to transform that clip into.

See if that improves things.

Neil

[benwinter]

Yes, I did this already, my confusion is why Premiere has this function set as default such that I have to go through all of my video clips and manually turn it off, and how I can avoid this in the future. I'm not interested in doing this every time for hundreds of clips in my bin.

[R Neil Haugen]

Don't do it that way. Select all the clips in the bin, right-click & etc.

And this is basic color management when the user is required to control CM.

When they left being a total Rec.709 program, which they HAD to do, this is what we get. Because there are now a ton of color spaces that users have to be able to choose and work with. And blend together.

Even two years ago this wasn't "necessary". Now, and forevermore, it is. Which is why my request for a separate color management panel is SO necessary. We'll be in it a lot.

I've seen people saying well, if they're doing this, I'm going to Resolve! ... and guess what, Resolve has a TON of user CM settings between prefs and project that the user has to ensure are set correctly. Far more than we currently have in Premiere. So leaving Pr to Resolve over this ... you'll just get more of this than Pr has. Ha!

Welcome to the future.

Neil

[benwinter]

I get the additional color controls. That's fine with me. Why they made "use media color space" as the default is the stupid part (and no way to change that default setting). Clearly it doesn't work as intended.

When your media is spread across many folders, "select all clips and right-click" is easier said than done. Interpret Footage is greyed out if anything other than clips are selected (like a parent folder) so what you get is a maddening process of finding all clips, select all, then manually go through and de-select all the folders caught in your selection...c'mon. This ain't professional.

[R Neil Haugen]

I'm trying to remember if Search bins allow for bulk operations, I think they do. I know a lot of folks what use search bins heavily for doing a lot of things.

"Use media color space" just is there to recognize the input color primaries of the media. NOT to set a final use for sequences. Not explained well, nor in my view perfectly executed yet either.

And ... there are some media formats from other cameras that have more troubles than your S-log. Although camera makers do not do their users any favors when they make every camera's 'form' of "X-log" slightly different than another camera's "X-log". And most makers are doing that at this time.

Which drives the devs on the video post apps nuts. In your case, S-log3-cine from one Sony camera can be fairly different in tonal distribution than another S-log3-cine file made by a different Sony camera. So what works with one camera's files ain't the precise method for another's.

But to us users, it's just "S-log3-cine" ... right?

But the devs have to code into the app the ability to suss out that this might be X-log from P camera model, as opposed to Q camera model's X-log. From the same maker. And make different 'defaults' for them all. Right.

And in the natural course of things, we users then blame the NLE devs for issues that are really best laid at the feet of the camera engineers.

Neil