Why Do My Premiere Pro Exports Look Washed Out? [QT Gamma Compensation LUT]

Hey, color can be so freaking confusing and frustrating! Every so often I need to re-do my calibration, and I always put it off too far because i hate the entire calibration process. It's mind-numbingly boring, and it's so darn easy to miss something ... and have to redo the entire half hour process you just 'completed'.

And then running that profile pass, Colourspace using Resolve as the TPG ... to check the calibration. And the resultant chart is ... just ... not quite ... close enough. I've got to tweak something, and do the whole flipping thing again. 

Typically takes at least a half day for me. I've had colorists tell me if I did this righteously every 3-4 weeks, I'd get it down to an hour and a half, two hours. Haven't done that yet.

Banding can come from two things ... as especially with an H.264/HEVC export, the block method that is used for compression will cause both blocky artifacts and banding if the data rate drops below what is needed for any part of an export.

What I mean by "block" is the encoding process looks at say 4, 6, 8, 9, or 12 pixel "blocks", and if they're all within a point or two between R, G, and B values, they save data rate by turning the entire block to X/Y/Z rather than their original pixel values. So a smooth gradient is now a series of 'small' ... but noticeable ... jumps.

So how do you know what bitrate and encoding process (Main, High, what profile 4.1, 5, whatever ... ) is needed?

Test. Export, and if you get banding/blocking artifacting, up the bitrate or process encoding level.

The other way to get banding is normally with 8 bit media ... with only the 255 value levels black to white ... stretching any part of that clip much for color correction, or for color space changes, can cause visible 'breaks' where there isn't a couple neighboring 'levels' anymore.

That is why it is incredibly important that all 8 bit media be exposed as close to "perfect" for that job as possible, and to have been properly white-balanced in camera to also be close to final white balance. As any needed visual changes to exposure, contrast curve, and white balance can result in banding at times.

I will add that some cameras that say they produce "10 bit" ... produce extremely thin 10 bit. You do hardly any pushing of that in color, you get blocking/banding/aritfacting. Which you shouldn't with really correct, full 10 bit media.