Dark Mode needs to be COMPLETELY dark !!!!!

[Guest]

Hi All,

Note: ONLY Windows version of Premiere Pro is suffering from the following:

Adobe, It would be AWESOME if "Dark Mode" was COMPLETELY dark, the current UI looks like it is half-baked and inconsistent. I spend a lot of hours creating videos, and this inconsistency is hurting my eyes. Photoshop looks way better but still suffers from the inconsistent theming as well (still have light dropdown menu)

Parts that need to be properly themed:

1) Title bars

2) Menus bar

3) Dropdown menus (both, the one under the Title bar and the one that appears when clicking the right mouse button)

4) Maybe I missed something too ???

My suggestion is to include TWO theming option:

Light Theme

And Dark Theme that will make the UI COMPLETELY dark

[Ann Bens]

Moved to Ideas board.

FAQ: How Do I File a Bug Report or Write a Feature... - Adobe Support Community - 13362039

[morphinapg]

Yeah and in addition to darkening the title/menu bar and context menus, it would be nice if the current "dark grey" wasn't the darkest it could go either. I'd like a mode where the background color is perfectly black. It is especially helpful when color grading HDR footage with the lights out to have minimal light outside of the image that can cause a bias effect on deep shadows.

[R Neil Haugen]

I don't know if you're aware of the proper reference grading standards ... which call for a bias light for the wall behind the reference monitor, so that screen is not surrounded by black.

And this is used for both SDR and HDR work, specified as a requirement by Netflix and other streaming services ... very much standard.

My setup uses a correctly (metered) setting of the grey wall behind the reference monitor, using the MediaLight bias light strip.

[morphinapg]

I'm not a fan of that, because doing that will crush the deepest shadow levels, causing you to raise them unnecessarily. With HDR in particular, I think it's important that you're actually making use of the deepest shadow levels possible. A lot of bad HDR grades have raised shadows or even black levels, causing a very unnatural look to the image, likely because they either graded in a lit environment, or didn't have the best monitor for dark shadow levels. Just because something may be common or even a recommended standard doesn't mean it's necessarily always a great idea.

For SDR, it's less important as the format doesn't handle shadows as well and is much more often viewed in a lit environment than HDR content is. For SDR I actually like to grade with the lights on, and I calibrate my monitor so that the white level feels neutral based on the brightness of the lighting in the room. Where anything brighter than that feels like HDR territory, and anything darker than that feels like it's more grey than white. I expect my viewers will normally be viewing my SDR content in a lit environment, while I suggest a dark environment for my HDR content, so I like to grade to those expectations.

Regardless of the reasons, it's clear that many people prefer proper dark modes on apps, and Premiere's darkest setting is considerably brighter than just about every other dark mode app out there, and doesn't even have a dark title/menu bar.

[R Neil Haugen]

To me it sounds like the screens you've seen HDR on can't actually handle both bright and dark values in the same moment.

Which is rather typical, actually. And a bane fir trying to grade in HDR. As the only screens that don't do thatvare the full on reference ones from Flanders, Eizo, Konvision and Sony.

Flanders just came out with one that's only $20,000 dollars. Not on its way to my suite, sadly.

And the Rules for grading environments are rather set, and for specific reasons. Among other things, in a "bright room" you can't really distinguish shadow tonalities at all. Simple reality of how the Human Mark I Eyeball works when combined with internal vrain processing.

[morphinapg]

If you mean full peak brightness covering a large portion of the screen, no I suppose my screens can't do that, but I'd never want them to. That's not how peak highlights should be handled in HDR. The brighter the value, the more rare it should appear in the content. My screen handles well graded HDR content without issue. Again, I'm grading based on my viewers' experiences, and what I have personally found to be the best procedure to avoid the worst problems I often see in "professionally graded" material.

And once again, what you think of my setup is completely irrelevant to the existence of a proper dark mode. Most apps these days offer a proper dark mode, with very dark backgrounds and menus, and near black title bars. At the very least, it's more pleasing on the eyes on more modern displays, and in some cases, can also save energy and the lifespan of the display.

[Shebbe]

I agree with the OP. I'd love to see all elements be truly in 'dark-mode'.

@morphinapg You could make some arguments to the full black UI bg color but Premiere Pro is not anywhere close to a proper color grading suite. Even if it were, the only practical way to grade is with a full screen image on a reference monitor, not the 20% window somewhere on the UI monitor. Baselight uses black background but I believe their primairy reason is to minimize 'false' light into the room/colorist's eyes, not minimize light around the viewer on that specific monitor.

A true black UI comes with it's own issues which Premiere wouldn't be able to solve as that would require designing the UI differently. Baselight's black UI works because the elements are designed to be functional and readable on it.

[morphinapg]

It wouldn't require many changes. Small changes to UI highlight and text colors is pretty much all it would require. The UI already has the capability to scale from dimmer to brighter theme colors. They could just extend what they're already doing to even darker shades. Not everything would have to have a pure black background obviously, just the stuff that uses the primary background color as it is. 

As for Premiere not being good enough for color grading, I don't really agree with that. I actually really like what's available in Lumetri (although I think if it worked a little more like Camera RAW in photoshop it would be better) and I have generally liked the way they work better than other programs I've tried like Resolve, despite that being the more popular choice. It's definitely a lot better now than it used to be in the past.

[Shebbe]

>I actually really like what's available in Lumetri

Well, I won't sidetrack the topic too much but you may be interested in giving my idea an upvote in hopes this'll ever help.