• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
1

Color shift when exporting to ProRes

Community Beginner ,
Jun 19, 2020 Jun 19, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'm having an issues where when I export a timeline as h264 (Youtube 1080p Full HD preset) the colors look the same as when viewing in my timeline. However, when I export as ProRes 422, the colors change. Skin tones become redder and shinier.

TOPICS
Export

Views

4.5K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Adobe Employee ,
Jun 19, 2020 Jun 19, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi doitinpost,

 

Sorry about the poor experience. Have you tried previewing the exported ProRes media in Premiere Pro and checked if you are getting a correct preview? Also, please attach a screenshot of the Export Settings and of the difference that you are getting between the previews.

 

Thanks,

Sumeet

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 19, 2020 Jun 19, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

This may just be an issue with how colors are rendered on my machine during playback outside of Premiere?

 

I'm exporting using the ProRes 422 preset - not changing any settings. The export preview matches my timeline when viewed in the Premiere export window, but when I watch the file back in VLC player after export, I see the color shift.

 

However, if I bring that exported 422 file back into Premiere, the colors match my timeline again when viewed from within Premiere.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jun 19, 2020 Jun 19, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Premiere is then working correctly. It can't change the color management within your machine however, and that would be down to the differences in how your machine is treating those formats.

 

Neil

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Jun 19, 2020 Jun 19, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks, that's what I was beginning to suspect. I'm curious to look into how my machine displays it more. I'm curious as the why ProRes is interpretted so differently than other settings I've tried. I wonder if it's the codec or the mov container. MXF files match my timeline, for instance.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Jun 19, 2020 Jun 19, 2020

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

If you're on a Mac, it is due to the way ColorSync works. On PCs ... can be various things.

 

Neil

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Enthusiast ,
Oct 11, 2021 Oct 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

When I export something as pro res 422 (I dont change the export settings) and then I open the MOV file in Quicktime on the finder level, the skin tones have lost some saturation and dont match the timeline. but if I bring that export into premiere, it looks fine. Then I take that quicktime and run it through encoder, making it an h264, and the colors are still off. and im just worried thats what the client is seeing. is that true?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Oct 11, 2021 Oct 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

You're hitting a well known and incredibly frustrating issue. And there's two ways to approach it. I'll explain the issue first.

 

The Rec.709 standards that broadcast uses and have been in use for all normal or "SDR" video for over a decade call for a number of very specific things. Including gamma 2.4 (2.2 permissible in bright-room working environment) and both the scene transform and the display transform added in Bt.1886 years ago.

 

Premiere follows those standards. As do essentially all full pro colorists with their thousands of dollars of gear. That's what all broadcast/streaming is built around. Except for the small amount of HDR content actually being delivered.

 

However, when Apple redid their Retina monitors a few years back they set their color utility, ColorSync, to use gamma 1.96 and to use only the scene tranform, and not the display transform.

 

So on a Mac, "color managed" apps that allow ColorSync to control the image show something that is not what you would see on a fully compliant Rec.709 system. And there isn't any easy way around it.

 

One approach to getting around this ... if your users you think are mostly Mac and you are only doing web stuff ...  you can apply a LUT in the export dialog to change the image so that outside PrPro on your Mac it looks like you'd like in say Chrome or QuickTime.

 

Another approach I've heard of is dropping an adjustment layer over the sequence with a Lumetri instance in it from a preset you've made. Designed to 'offset' the change by lowering contrast and saturation a bit. This way you then correct your clips to look good, and then disable the adjustment layer before export.

 

If you've set your Lumetri in the AL up right, then the exported file will look 'normal' in QuickTime and Chrome on a Mac.

 

Now ... either of those approaches will get you a file that will look fine on a ColorSync mangled app, but ... for a full Rec.709 compliant system, will typicallly be way too dark and over-saturated.

 

And at this point, you also should understand ... no colorist can 'solve' this problem either. Competing tech standards just clash, period.

 

But one thing colorists are aware of ... no one ever sees any program they grade exactly as they saw it when grading on their spendy reference monitor. Not. Ever.

 

Because every screen out there is different from every other, including if you have two identical monitors, calibrated, sitting side by side. And besides the differences in monitor hardware and ICC profiles and all, you have differences in viewing environment that do drastically affect perceived image contrast, color, and saturation.

 

That client will never see exactly what you've seen anyway. So maybe make it a bit closer, kinda too dark in Premiere and still a bit light in the shadows in QuickTime. And figure it will play acceptably in either place.

 

Neilr

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Enthusiast ,
Oct 11, 2021 Oct 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

  • "and then disable the adjustment layer before export." <- if I'm oversaturating the colors on purpose, then its a guessing game to see how it will look when the export is done. this doesnt give me a lot of control.
  • Are you saying that what the export looks on frame io and quicktime and vimeo is what the client is seeing? as opposed to them seeing the colors that I'm seeing on my timeline?
  • "If you've set your Lumetri in the AL up right" <- what does AL mean? and what does up right mean in context to this situation

 

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Oct 11, 2021 Oct 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

You would need to create a preset in Lumetri to use on the AL by testing, of course. Take a guess how much change is needed, set that in Lumetri applied to the clip. Export. Check the export in QuikTime. Adjust.

 

When you've got some settings that work, then save that instance of Lumetri as a preset.

 

Now when ready to export and wanting a "Mac" look, put an AL over the sequence. Drag/drop that Lumetri preset onto the AL, then export. Remove the AL.

 

Or of course, you could save the instance of Lumetri you arrived at to a .cube LUT, and apply that in the Export dialog instead.

 

Neil

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Oct 11, 2021 Oct 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Just to chirp in but online uploads to Youtube and Vimeo etc. are known to have that redshift. To compensate in my work flow I simply take a timeline color grade and adjust the red hue overall to make all the reds a touch more yellow and it comes out great in the final upload.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Enthusiast ,
Oct 11, 2021 Oct 11, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

but i'm losing saturation. its not a red color issue

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines