Video colours look different in Premier

[cinegiak]

Hi there,

Colours look different in Premiere than they do in Cinema (Rec. 709), Quicktime, YouTube and Vimeo. In VLC they look similar to how they look in Premiere, but that is a pure misrepresentation. I tested my films in Rec. 709 cinema screens, through the course of many years, and they always match Quicktime, but never Premiere.

I googled a lot to find a definitive answer for this, and unfortunately I am forced to post my question here as Adobe doesn't allow me to chat or talk with a technician.

My question (if anybody is able to answer it) is: is there any way to set a different colour profile the video preview in Premiere? I simply can't find a way to do this, and I can't use an external calibrated display all the time, as I mostly work while travelling, if I don't have one of my collaborators to handle the grading for me.

Please let me know.

Thanks a lot.

All the best

G  

[R Neil Haugen]

Premiere Pro ALWAYS uses stock Bt.(Rec) 709 for the Program monitor ... period.

It ALWAYS exports in Bt.(Rec) 709 ... period. Unless you've selected Rec 2020, as I think the only other option.

QuickTime is NOT a color-managed app, it does NOT pay attention to Rec 709 or any other standard, and further, it does it's own special sauce to 'enhance the viewing experience'.

If you export from Premiere Pro on a system with an sRGB profile on a calibrated monitor, it will show perfectly fine on any other properly broadcast capable system.

If you export from a computer without a calibrated monitor to QuickTime or browsers, well ... who knows what you'll get. As every browser will show it differently, most players will show it differently than other players.

Among readily available players, the only two that are worth using as they ARE aware of and respect color management in system/OS and video files ... are VLC and Potplayer.

Work a file within PrPro on say a monitor that's set to A-RGB, a wider space than sRGB ... and PrPro will try to show Rec709 in the program monitor, at least as best it can. Look at the export on that monitor in say the monitor's A-RGB space, and it will of course look different. It's not being shown in sRGB/Rec 709.

YouTube typically does two encoding passes on uploaded files ... the first pass is not properly set to respect the Rec 709 nature of  PrPro's output. The second corrects that. But for some reason, in many locales, YouTube only runs the first encode. To get your file to encode properly, after uploading to your private channel, select the "Retouch" option, then just save the file without doing anything.

YouTube will now re-encoded the file, and it will then show proper dynamic range & gamma.

So ... the problem is not Premiere Pro, and you're what ... the fifth person this month to post that there's something wrong with the one app you use that is actually correctly color managed. I wish we had more options to set things for color managing in PrPro, but ... it is dead-on professional broadcast standard Rec 709.

Neil

[cinegiak]

Hey Neil,

Thanks for the reply, but still what I see on Premiere is way different than what I see on BFI screen (private screening rooms), while the same file played from Quicktime, on the same laptop, is way closer to the video projected on the screen. The same video played on VLC is way contrasted and darker than the file played in Quicktime. And again, the file uploaded on YouTube closely match the colour of Quicktime, and the private screening room.

[Meg The Dog]

Using a Mac or PC?

MtD

[cinegiak]

The latest MacBook Pro.

[R Neil Haugen]

First, I doubt your latest MacBook is set for sRGB as the standard screen profile. Most users posting here say it is set for another profile. That's one issue.

Next ... when shown even in BFI or other private screening rooms, you can't know unless you ask what profile is being used, or even how well that has been profiled for the viewing conditions.

The colorists I know always need to know the viewing use, and make appropriate deliverables.

Even if staying in Rec709, for expected computer monitors "out in the wild", they'll use gamma 2.2; for typical tv viewing, gamma 2.4; for movie-room viewing in a darkened environment, gamma 2.6.

Many of the "festival" uses will need a P3 or other space, and they ask to know what that festival uses. Sadly, PrPro doesn't give us the opportunity to set those options. Many of us do routinely submit feature requests for user controls over color management.

Currently if you need a specific non-Rec709 deliverable, set up your computer and viewing system for Rec709 and work in PrPro tgrough export.

Take that export into Resolve and use that app's color controls to create the specific formats for your deliverables.

[cinegiak]

I use X-Rite to calibrate my Macbook Pro. The problem is clearly that: no matter what, a video will look different on different monitors.

The screening room at BFI use the Rec709 profile. The way I see a video on that screen is really close to how I see it on my macbook pro, through quicktime, and it's way different than how it looks on Premiere. That's the simplest issue for me.

My way to solve this problem up today has been to:

1. create a standard Lumetri set up to match what I see in Premiere, with the same exact clip exported from Premiere and played through quicktime (don't use a still exported from Premiere as it's gonna look different);
2. use a second Lumetri effect to colour correct the clip the way I want it;
3. deselect the first Lumetri effect used to match the "actual" colour;
4. export the clip.

This gives me an exported clip which is as close as possible as I see it in quicktime, which is equally close to how it looks on the big screen.

But this is a tedious workflow, that's why I tried to find help here.

Adobe, please improve this asap!

Thanks

G

[Meg The Dog]

The screening room at BFI use the Rec709 profile. The way I see a video on that screen is really close to how I see it on my macbook pro, through quicktime, and it's way different than how it looks on Premiere. That's the simplest issue for me.

If you don't mind, a couple of questions - does the video look the same in Premiere in both the source and program monitors?

What is the source of the footage? How is it ingested?

MtD

[bugbuster]

Hi Neil,

You sound clued up, maybe you can help explain this.

When I import a clip to adobe it look a lot different to the original clip without adding any effects. For lack of other words it looks to have more contrast and saturation inside Adobe CC.

I’m using Quicktime to open the original clip to compare.

Interesting.. when I use VLC to open the original clip it looks very similar to what I see in Adobe CC.

Heres the probelm.

When I grade my footage inside Adobe CC and export it only makes the problem worse. The exported video looks less saturated and lower contrast to what is was in Adobe.

When I open the export with VLC it looks like what I see in Adobe CC.

When I upload to Vimeo or watch on TV via USB it looks like the exported video that was opened with QuickTime.

Any idea what’s going on here ?

Thanks

Paul

[Jim_Simon]

Any idea what’s going on here ?

You're doing it wrong.

You have to use a calibrated display.  You have to eliminate variables that alter the image - such as the OS, GPU driver, media players. etc.

[bugbuster]

Yes. Thanks for your reply. I have a calibrated display and now depend on it when using Adobe CC but I’m baffled why there is consistency when using Final Cut X on my 5K retenina iMac, but not when using Adobe.

FCX obviously uses something similar to QuickTime In the preview window. So the original file looks the same wether it’s opened using QT, inside FCX and when exported.

Thanks

Paul

[cvid01]

I'm far from an expert, but just a guess - others with more knowledge than I can interject:

Adobe CC uses a colour dynamic range of 0-255;

QuickTime (and maybe FCX) uses a dynamic range of 16-235.

Not a complete description, but just a thought for consideration.

[R Neil Haugen]

First, understand the numbers for the video 'chroma' and 'luma' information as set by the camera are ... numbers. There's no actual image there to begin with. Most video cameras assume Rec.709 levels and color space, which is video sRGB/Rec.709/gamma 2.4. So to show that media as the camera expects requires a system using the video sRGB color space, calibrated to Rec.709 with a gamma of 2.4.

This is not what is being shown 'natively' by the newer Macs.

QuickTime is notoriously color-blind: it has no way to pay attention to media color space tags/flags or anything. It just displays the number "X" wherever the OS and monitor say "X" is at the moment. Ergo, nothing will display "correctly" with any confidence in that app ... totally ignore it. As you've noted, VLC does pay attention ... use that as needed. Encourage any clients to adapt to using VLC or PotPlayer to check media also ... that's a favor to them, actually.

Apple changed their video system preferences/wiring in the OS when they went to the wide-gamut P3 displays ... essentially "breaking" the standard video system for video. Which is why older Macs are ok, newer ones ... a pain. They have hardwired FCPx to display things properly on their system, but that's an in-house Apple thing. They tend to be stingy with their toys. Although I do give them credit for finally making ProRes encoding available to Pr in PCs.

Another user (Osaka Geoff) posted today about an option in the Mac OS preferences ... here's his post here, and it may help you

First off, I am no expert at Premiere Pro and just stumbled upon my solution. However, I learned a few things on the way.

1. When working in Premiere you need to make sure your display is calibrated for the correct color space. I believe it should be Rec.709 Gamma 2.4. You can adjust this if you go (Mac) System Preferences -> Display -> Color -> Display Profile -> Rec.709 Gamma 2.4.

2. When comparing Premiere vs Original Source video, Quicktime is not reliable because there is a Gamma shift making the blacks appear lighter than they really are. I would suggest using another player such as VLC.

3. With the Color Sync Solution, I found I needed to run the Color Sync through the terminal because when I fixed the bugs the normal way, I would reverify and find the bugs again.  This is the code to do that:  sudo /Applications/Utilities/ColorSync\ Utility.app/Contents/MacOS/ColorSync\ Utility

Note especially the first step, going into the OS settings to set the monitor color space assumed by the OS.

And the reality of video media is simple: no one ever ... ever ... ever! ... has control of what your material looks like on another screen on your own computer let alone other devices of all sort in viewing situations from noon in the sun through darkened rooms. Colorists ... with more money spent on high-end monitors, external LUT boxes to control the monitors, and the spendy calibration gear to create the controlling LUTs for each monitor in each space ... can't do it. You can't either.

Learn how to set up a solid viewing situation to be sure you get your material as close as possible to pro b-cast standards ... and let it go after it leaves your machine. And get back to work.

Neil

[Jim_Simon]

I can't use an external calibrated display all the time

The only other option is to export the project and take that export to a calibrated display for review.

But one way or another, you need to get the operating system, GPU driver and software players out of the signal chain to ensure accurate viewing.