Prevent color shift on export from premiere on MACOS

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

A common issue I've seen here. When exporting a sequence from premiere the color shifts dramatically in the majority of playback programs. Quicktime, Vimeo, Youtube etc. VLC works fine but not everybody is using VLC. Makes for lots of wasted time on color grades.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've had the same problem. Regardless of whether any effects have been added to the video, the color in the exported video shows up desaturated, with lower contrast, and a white balance shift. Reimporting the video into Premiere reveals that Premiere interprets the video with the original color, but in all external mediums I have tested (Safari, Chrome, Opera, QuickTime, YouTube, Vimeo), it shows up distorted. Can you please advise on how to fix this? My business has expensive productions underway, and we would much prefer to not have to switch to using a different editing software platform. The problem seems clearly to be a Premiere issue.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have the same issue no matter what I try nothing seems to solve this. I'm using a 27inch iMac

[徐孟生]

How to fix color shift problem
Any suggestion

[Wedelski]

We encounter this daily as well. Seems to be an OSX / Premiere problem. For example, when viewing the exported clip in Quicktime or on Vimeo in Chrome, Safari, and Opera, the colors are way off. When viewing the clip on VLC or the Vimeo app on a phone, the colors are fine. Don't know if this is Premiere talking to OSX or what exactly. Watching clips rendered from Resolve doesn't seem to have this issue.

We've dealt with the problem by adding an adjustment layer with a Lumetri fx and adding +7 to contrast and +12 to saturation. Then it's close-ish to what it looks like in Premiere, but watching in VLC or Vimeo app makes the over-saturation fix very apparent.

Basically adding tons of guesswork to the last stage of post 😕

[JesseSchluntz]

I've always noticed my H264's being slightly desaturated over the years, but lately it's been absolutely awful. I've recently updated to 13.0.1, and 13.0.2 just came out, so I'm hoping when I do the next update it will fix this.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It was bugging me so much. I finally figured out how to get my colors not to desature on export. My export preview still doesn't match my program monitor but the actual file when exported is correct. I made a tutorial on how to set it up. H.264 High10 Rec 2020 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjncAjK0coc&t=0s?sub_confirmation=1 Hope it Helps!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Please Fix this Adobe! I have never noticed it since my last exports in the past 3-6 months! I thought I was tripping at first, but it's clearly a bug with Adobe.

[Scuba_Scott]

Is there truly no fix for this yet?! ADOBE???!!!

[JesseSchluntz]

Premiere Pro on the imac Pro has been having issues for the past year with exports coming out desaturated and losing contrast. Basically I’ve been having to add some additional saturation & contrast to all my final exports for the past year, which look bad on the program monitor, but it helps on the exports maintain their color (somewhat). I just got off the phone with Adobe Tech support because I’m planning to create a film master in the next month. Here is what I was told:

call to adobe tech support on August 17, 2019:

This is a known issue

The iMac pro exports get desaturated and lose contrast.

There will be an update to premiere pro released in October (possible names are 13.1.5 or 13.2).

Engineering team says this new version will 100% have the issue fixed.

The engineer told me that I should marry the final color & sound of the film I plan to export using my macbook pro to avoid any color issues with the final export.

[malbutnotbad]

This is happening to me while trying to turn in for a deadline. Super annoying color shifts and blown-out highlights only after exporting.

[supersimplesmitty]

After updated to 13.1.5 this is definitely not fixed for a 100% not fixed!

[JesseSchluntz]

Allow me to save your lives. I can't believe this took as much searching as it did to find an OFFICIAL FIX FROM ADOBE for this issue (until they can figure out how to unbreak it again). Adobe's own version of this video should have been sent out by Adobe to all users of Premiere Pro the second they discovered this issue. Why it wasn't is beyond me. Well, not really because Adobe is both so amazing at enabling us to do what we do, but so utterly abysmal at fixing things that won't work. Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t61b6Nk-YPw&list=PLA05pELl8mMiABtsCSEB4XdivVupnYcyc&index=5&t=229s

I do want to add one important fact: Today I married the final sound and color on a project. The color was delivered to me via prores HQ from my colorist, who graded in Resolve. There was NO NEED to apply this LUT to my final export. I double checked my export against what my colorist gave me, and there was no shift in color at all noticeable in either premiere pro or using quicktime player.

So the BIZARRE thing about this color shift issue is that it only seems to happen when you use Premiere to grade our projects. Which is super weird since Adobe can't seem to export the color we create with the very tools they provide unless we use this LUT as a fix.

[Wedelski]

Colour shift on export in 13.1.5 is indeed 100% unfixed on an iMac Pro running Mojave. Try again adoob. And enjoy my money in the meantime, isn’t it great?

[arkalmed]

You guys and gals (and the Premiere developers too!!) should watch this video explaining the problem to the dot.
Made by the guys from Filmlight (I assume they know what they're talking about):

https://vimeo.com/349868875

So what Premiere Pro is missing is the correct NCLC tagging of QT files during render/export.

[supersimplesmitty]

Well just updated to premiere 2020
guess what still not fixed..

Already using the Lut for some exports.. mainly doing commercial billboards, and using that is usually fine. But this still is a big problem adobe. thanks

[autokroma]

What codecs did you use ? What software to play the file ?

You could try to export with AfterCodecs Exporter for Adobe CC https://www.autokroma.com/AfterCodecs

there is a free 500 frames trial, or H264 is free when resolution is < 720p

[pandeyg2106]

Does anyone even answer here?