Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
It's a gamma problem between Apple and the rest of the world, and against all professional applications.
The underlying issue is that the professional standards for broadcast pro use of SDR/Rec.709 video have been set for over a decade to use a screen (display) gamma of 2.4.
When Apple came out with the early Retina monitors, they for some reason chose to set as their process to use the camera transform of 1.96 as the display transform. This gives a much lighter image, especially in the shadows.
That's the problem. Outside of Premiere, you're seeing that file at that lower gamma of 1.96. A brighter view, with lightened shadows.
Premiere is built around the 2.4 gamma use. The DCM control is to tell Premiere to look at the ICC profile of the monitor, and adjust the internal controls to give as close to a proper Rec.709 display as possible. Which gives you darker shadows.
In your case, it sees the Mac profile, and the DCM "switch" gives you a corrected display signal, closer to what a broadcast spec system would show.
I work for/with/teach pro colorists, most of them Mac based of course ... and they are furious with Apple over this problem. And ... the biggest annoyance, is ... their isn't actually a "fix" ... that will display a file the same no matter whether the monitor is at 1.96 or 2.4 gamma.
So that's what is going on. And btw ... a full-on broadcast specced monitor setup would probably show pretty close to what the Premiere Program monitor shows, with the DCM switch set to 'on'.
If you make a file that looks correct to you on that Mac, with 1.96 display gamma, it will display too dark for most all PC and Android devices, and most TVs. For any broadcast use it will quite possibley fail QC.
I'll bet you didn't know that Mac was showing you all pro produced media with lightened shadows ... right? Because ... that's what you're used to seeing on that screen.
Find more inspiration, events, and resources on the new Adobe Community
Explore Now