Is there still no answer for why exports are desaturated and low contrast?

[m0nty]

It's been four years. 

Best I've heard from adobe is to use a export look they made that is too heavy on the saturation and contrast. 

Some people says its to do with quicktime, but it's the same with youtube, vimeo, and instagram. They all look like the quicktime export. 

Seems the best solution right now is to make an ajustment layer to add back in the contrast and saturation. It kinda works, but this is pretty nuts and pathetic at this point for the optics, Adobe. Having your export match your edit is a pretty important feature. I'm just amazed this hasn't been figured out yet. 

For me personally it means I don't use premiere for color. Which is a shame because I really like lumitri. 

[salvo34]

I think, for the equipment you are using, you've already solved it ( you add adjustment layer to compensate for the export using your good sense and some mental 'percentage' of the values ).

It's the best solution at this point IMO for you and most people using Adobe.

[ah_photo]

Really there's nothing to fix, as this isn't really an issue with Premiere as at is so much understanding how Premiere operates as far as color management goes.

Premiere Pro works in a Rec 709 environment. Full stop. It is hard coded around this Rec 709 broadcast workflow. So this means your source footage is assumed to be Rec 709, your timeline is Rec 709, and your exports are Rec 709 (unless you denote otherwise in a codec that allows you to pick).

The main (only) option you have in Premiere is if you wish to have Premiere manage your display or not. If Display Color Management is turned on, video within Premiere will be presented to replicate Rec709 as close as it can. If this is turned off then you're viewing your video "through the lens" of whatever Display Profile you've chosen in your OS.

So here in lies the rub: Let's say you have a Mac and are using a Display P3 color profile (the default for newer Macs) and Premiere's Display Management is OFF. Display P3 has a WIDER color gamut than Rec709/sRGB, therefore if you grade to what you're seeing in Display P3, the end result when viewed in Rec709/sRGB will look more desaturated. That's the thing: many web and computer applications manage your display, but not necessarily to Display P3. Many (such as YouTube) use sRGB, for example which explains your desaturation.

Not to sound like a defeatist, but an important realization is that there is no way to make your video look the same everywhere. Not only do different applications manage color differently, consider unique device settings and all of the phones using color & contrast boosting displays. Even if you made it look good for YouTube on a web browser, it may look completely off from what you hoped for on someone's phone.

Personally I let Premiere manage my display and reference in Rec709: it is a video standard for a reason, lest us not forget. Worst case in sRGB it looks only slightly washed out, and on high contrast displays it only looks slightly more crushed. I find it to be a nice balance. That said if you really wanted to grade for sRGB purely for those web applications, turn Display Color Management OFF in Premiere but set your display profile to sRGB as well in your OS. Now the video in Premiere should look closer to what you're seeing on YouTube.