It isn't "the screen" that's the worst part of the issue. It's a beautiful screen. Yea, set to a little-used color primary space, but ... if things are properly mapped to appropriate color spaces within the OS and applications, that's not an insurmountable problem.

It's the color management of your system, which is different than older Mac's. Older Mac's used an sRGB color primary standard, and apparently pretty well complied with the Rec.709 standards for applying both the camera and display transform functions. So on your older rig, you were pretty close to standards.

Your new Mac abandoned sRGB color primaries, and the ColorSync utility of the OS only applies the camera transform, NOT the accompanying display transform ... so it is at odds with the rest of the editing world. And is no longer even close to editing standards.

Premiere is built assuming the "internal" monitors of Source, Reference, and Program will be displayed on a system with proper broadcast color management ... that will honor video sRGB and that the monitor is calibrated to Rec.709/gamma-2.4/100 nits, the standard.

Your new Mac ... isn't.

So the Enable Display Color Management option allows Premiere to "look" at the ICC profile used for any monitor in the OS, and attempt to remap the image to show a proper video sRGB/Rec.709/gamma-2.4/100-nits image on that screen ... so while working within Premiere, you are at least close to proper standards.

But outside Premiere, none of you apps and viewers are applying proper standards to the media. That's what things look different within Premiere and outside it.

Outside of Premiere ... how directly and properly a video image is mapped within a P3 color space back to a video sRGB image is ... questionable, and may vary a bit per application. Second, the gamma used is also going to vary, again perhaps by application, and will probably not be a properly applied Rec.709 gamma.

It is not unusual of course for Apple to create a unique environment ... then "juice" the "house" applications to work within it. Some users have found that working within FCPx they do get complete uniformity of image viewing within that app and outside on their Macs ... and that it transfers to other non-Mac devices as they expect.

I've heard of many FCPx users though that complain that outside of the Macosphere, all their images are displayed "wrong" ... which is quite informative in its own way. That indicates that they simply aren't seeing "correct" video media imagery inside their computer, period.

I do know that no professional colorist I've ever heard of uses a Retina screen for color reference work. As a beautiful UI screen, yes. But for color reference ... no. For all the reasons listed above (and a few more).

Many of us work with two or more screens. I'm currently using three ... two for UI, one for reference. I know that many Mac users get another screen to use for their color reference screen. Like anyone else.

Neil

I recently purchased my iMac and figured it was a good to go but I was wondering what was wrong with my exports...

Really, this could have been the purchase of any computer with monitor ... so  any people simply assume there is a standard applied or universal "way" that all color is controlled within the computer and monitor. Which ... isn't actually so.

It's exacerbated in the Macosphere due to their rather oddly conceived and applied "Display-P3" color space and their OS color management utility being designed to apply color controls to Rec.709 media that are clearly outside the rather well defined standard.

The user really needs to take charge and see that they have a complete system that will handle color properly. Understand, no matter what the monitor hype says ... no monitor you're going to be getting comes to you with properly applied and utilized by the OS color management. Period.

You need to be able to do basic calibration with a puck/software system like the i1 Display Pro or Spyder gear.

You need to control which ICC profile your OS uses for which monitor.

Do those, you're fine. Don't ... and there's no way you have any proof that anything you're doing is even close in color to what it would be seen as on a properly setup system. And if you don't know what it would appear like on a properly setup system, you have even less idea what it will appear like Out In The Wild, where every device is set up differently, every monitor with its own "unique" color/tonal display habits, and no way of knowing if the device is used in a dark room or sunlight.

As to your question ... using the Enable Display Color Management option gives you a good chance of "seeing" your material within Premiere Pro similar to how it would be seen on a 'normal' system that fully recognizes and respects Rec.709 standards ... which are still used for probably over 90% of broadcast/professional media these days.

But your Mac ain't a "standard" system because of the OS, the Retina monitor using Display-P3, and the Mac ColorSync utility not respecting both parts of the Rec.709 standard. So ... outside of Premiere (with EDCM active) on that Mac ... media exported from Premiere will not look the same as when inside Premiere. Hook up a calibrated Rec.709 monitor to that Mac, view the media on that monitor ... it should look good. And as you expect.

You can apply a LUT on export such that your Rec.709 project will look probably appropriate on the Mac outside of Premiere. However ... that exported file displayed on any properly setup Rec.709 system will be well "off" from looking normal. As you can't make one file that will look good both places due to the way ColorSync is designed to work on the Mac.

Neil

Thanks for reply.

I just checked the "Enable Display Color Management" box.

I recently purchased my iMac and figured it was a good to go but I was wondering what was wrong with my exports...so in order for me to get the same quality as in premiere I essentially have to convert or apply a final rec 709 LUT to all my footage?

And I always checked render at max depth , use maximum render quality because almost every tutorial on youtube about exporting HQ video in premrie said to do so but I guess not!

I know you have discussed in the threads but if you can reply on what I need to do in order to get accurate colors with highest quality export, i'd really appreicate it! Here are my specs for my iMac