Premiere Pro CC color / gamma shift on export - is a Premiere not Quicktime problem

[markusw90010395]

I know this is a topic of major frustration for many of us - washed out colors and a very visible gamma shift when exporting out of Premiere Pro. From what I have seen on this forum, people post all kinds of solutions / explanations as to what could cause this problem. Many people think it' a Quicktime problem, some say it has to do with video card drives, or with checking "render as linear color space" or not.

I just did a round of major testing on my iMac running OS 10.12.5 and the latest version of Premiere Pro CC 2017 - and I have to say - nothing I do fixes it or makes any difference. Whatever I export - and that's the key here - Quicktime movies, TIFF sequences, stills - EVERYTHING has a washed-out gamma shift and desaturated colors.

When I take a screenshot of my media within Premiere Pro - colors and gamma of the resulting PNG are exactly as I see them in Premiere. If go through the EXPORT function and export a still image - the colors are faded and the gamma is washed out. And it doesn't matter what is clicked in the export window - maximum depth, linear color space... nothing makes a difference.

Here is another interesting thing I found - when I reimport these washed-out exports (stills or quicktime movies, doesn't matter), inside the Premiere Pro world they look perfectly normal. When I import the same washed-out exports into Final Cut Pro X, the washed out colors and gamma stay. So there must be something in these exports (hidden tags?) that Premiere adds and that it then uses to display the media correctly. Unfortunately every other app in my Mac universe doesn't do the same and is off dramatically.

The problem is - I can't just stay inside Premiere Pro. I have to send tmy cuts out and share them with clients. I need them to see what I see inside Premiere Pro.

Does anyone on the Adobe side have any insight into this? This issue has been going on for years on this forum. I cannot believe that we are still nowhere close to a solution.

Thanks in advance for any hint.

Markus

[hakanahmet85]

have you considered using a P3 to Rec.709 lut to help balance out the

issue? it's not 100%, but certainly helps when you tamper with the lut to

fine tune.

[jsyboy75]

You mean apply the LUT in Compressor?

I've just put this on the other thread, might help:

This is the problem:

I have Premiere open.

I change the colour profile of the iMac display.

Logically this should change everything that I see on the screen.

Adobe IGNORES the iMac settings and switches the Program monitor window BACK to what it was before I switched the colour profile of the iMac to a new settings. You can see that every other window has changed, for example pink Title slugs are now a different shade of pink but the Program monitor remains unchanged.

Again - Everything else on the screen changes to the new iMac setting - just the Program monitor reverts back to the same colour every time.

[hakanahmet85]

No. basically the issue is that due to the incompatibility, footage is

looking more contrasty and saturated in PP the moment you import and view

it back... This then has a knock on effect where you apply much less grade,

which is why it looks washed out on export.

You apply the LUT via an adjustment layer on your timeline, which brings it

back to where it should match the original footage as shot. do your grade,

then remove the P3-rec.709 LUT on export. It will look super crushed in PP,

but look "correct" on export.

Make sense?

[jsyboy75]

Yes, I can see that is a work around and it will have to do in the absence of Adobe allowing the iMac to tell it what colour profile to use on the monitor (just do that, Adobe - or give me the option to do that - problem would be solved)

[jsyboy75]

Where can I download that LUT from? It's not a standard Premiere one

[hakanahmet85]

Think I found a link on this feed

[Ale_Compleat]

jsyboy75  wrote

Adobe IGNORES the iMac settings and switches the Program monitor window BACK to what it was before I switched the colour profile of the iMac to a new settings. You can see that every other window has changed, for example pink Title slugs are now a different shade of pink but the Program monitor remains unchanged.

chrisw44157881 addressed this point in his previous comment:

Re: Premiere Pro CC color / gamma shift on export - is a Premiere not Quicktime problem

This behaviour is to be expected, as the colour profile does not affect Premiere's monitor - i.e. what you see in the panel within Premiere when you're editing. As frustrating as it might be due to it being completely counter-intuitive, the rationale behind it actually makes sense, if you think about it.

I have tested the video rendered on different laptops and platforms, obtaining very different colours on each screen.

I was not able to replicate the colours of the Premiere monitor on VLC, but I'm now sure this depends on the fact that I can't set the Dynamic range gamut due to my very specific setup, but setting up the correct RGB profile on my laptop already got the video much closer to what I was visualising on Premiere.

Summary: Your monitor, Premiere, and your computer's video output might all have different settings, hence making the final outcome difficult to interpret. I believe with an iMac this should be easier as the monitor's settings can't be regulated separately (as opposed to my external monitor, which has its own panel to setup RGB values, profiles, etc). I might be incorrect on this last point, as I don't know what Apple's OS allows you to do.

[jsyboy75]

Ok, I see.

But no, it doesn't make any sense to me I'm afraid and yes it is counter intuitive.

Yes it's possible to use external monitors (I used to with Media 100 15 years ago) but now we are using all in one systems - up until now I had been using an iMac and a Laptop with no issues whatsoever - what I saw on the Program monitor was what I saw on my exported file and what I sent to my clients - so why do I now have a problem on a new iMac Pro which is supposedly designed for Video users?

[jsyboy75]

@hakanahmet Yes. This is exactly my point. Regardless of what other monitoring systems there are available the iMac is being marketed as a tool that video makers “love” mainly because it’s a high powered all in one solution but if you cannot export what you are seeing on the screen It Doesn’t Work.

[jsyboy75]

Hi all,

​Thank you to all who have commented on this issue, I am disappointed to have discovered it, not least since the investment of an iMac Pro has highlighted it.

The current solution is to use my old iMac as a target monitor and use that to check colours on (which is crazy, I know) but since Adobe Premiere Pro DOES NOT allow you to change the colour space of it's own Program Monitor window the only other way is to grade footage and then throw another adjustment layer on top so it looks correct on export.

​I am told that Adobe are working on a solution to this issue (just allow us to change the colour space of the Program monitor - problem solved) but this will happen faster if YOU get involved and request the feature.

​You can do this here:

​Creative Cloud Wishform (not product specific)

​Once again, thanks for all your input.

​Alex

[jakeb14349422]

FYI, if you play your exported videos in VLC player they look the way they do in Premiere. It has to be a Quicktime issue.

[jsyboy75]

You are correct, however most people do not view on VLC and web browsers are also displaying the same issue. Either way - if you cannot change the display colours of the Program viewer on Adobe then you cannot grade correctly without an external monitor - this means expensive one stop shop solutions (ie the iMac pro) doesn’t work by itself as an editing tool - something which I would think Apple would not be that happy about.

[R Neil Haugen]

Apple doesn't ship their monitors in THE profile that's the professional video standard worldwide ... sRGB/Rec 709.

So because they ship outside of the standard, everyone else on the planet is supposed to jump?

And not a viewer on the planet gives puck about how it looks on your screen, and they'll never have a clue.

So ... for certain, most editors/colorists/fx folks would love to have more control over color management in PrPro. However ... unless you're delivering for certain festivals that use a particular space/profile, or for actual full 1,000 NITS HDR for someone (starting, but not very common) ... any pro use is going to be Rec709. ALL b-cast content is Rec 709. Period. (Except for the rare HDR b-cast content.)

PrPro is sticking to the current worldwide professional standard. You may not like it, but that's why they are. Publicly stated.

And if you 'publish' in anything else, the only guarantee you have is that on a monitor in the same space as yours with certain viewers/browsers whatever, your content will look something similar to your original view of it. Never exactly the same, that never happens.

And on everything else, to those viewers it will look ... odd. Because "odd" is defined by something that doesn't look like the professionally produced material they view on that screen. They have no freaking clue whatever how it looks on your screen. It's only compared to other professionally created content they can compare.

Neil

[chrisw44157881]

that won't help you if you use mercury transmit. it is rec. 709 as well. as posted above, if you want to use a P3/Adobe RGB calibration or any non 2.2 gamma, you have to use a transform lut from them to a rec. 709 gamma 2.2. D65 white point.(I'd recommend including your self calibration inside the transform lut so you don't need two luts)

[Reg Santo Tomas]

I would actually invite people to vote at User Voice where we are actively taking feedback and taking action on feature requests and bug reports.

Please be as clear and detailed as possible.

There is an active discussion on a similar topic here

As there are multiple ideas in this thread, please submit new ideas at User Voice individually if you don't already see it. Up-vote those ideas that resonate with and have open discussion with other users.

[shamsheed]

Can someone please advise: This is a screen capture of a project. As you can see, the exported preview through AME seems to have a gamma shift and result in being more contrasted. I have tried all the preview settings in the project settings (currently set to prores 422).

I can understand if I was using a different monitor that it could have been an issue of monitor calibration. But that on the same screen (LG wide).

Even after re-importing into premiere, and comparing side by side, there seems to be a slight magenta shift in the exported video (h264). The difference can not only be seen on a split screen, but on the scopes as well. Also I have noticed that the exported result end up clipping in the highlights, where as in my project it was not.

Thanks

SS

[RafaOlivares]

Hi all.

It doesn´t matter to me. I expect to have the same colors I have in Premiere before and after exporting the video. I do social media content and I can not believe how a simple app can deliver better colors than this software.

I see that it is not an isolated problem, a lot of users are having it too. The worst part is that there is no right answer that can solve the problem.

I hate washed colors.

[R Neil Haugen]

"The worst part" is that the 'simple' apps don't color manage. Chrome & Safari browsers and QuickTime all either ignore color management or screw them up. YouTube ... when it does the full double-encode process it does at times, gets the color management right. But sometimes, it ... for whatever reason ... only does the initial re-encode on upload, and unless you manually trigger the second by going into your channel and selecting the clip, choosing the "edit" option, then save without doing anything  ... it screws up the color management.

And every screen your media will ever be watched on will be different than the one you made it on. Some with other color profiles/spaces, some in bright environments or dark environments that make the gamma look off, most just because the screen isn't profiled nor in the proper profile for video standards to begin with.

Sorry, that's not PrPro's fault, nor even the fault of the users or anyone. It's just Life as it is. If you think just because something looks exactly one way on your screen, you should be able to make it look just that way everywhere else ... you're not at all understanding how any of this actually works.

The only way folks out 'in the wild' will think your stuff is well-cooked is if it relatively looks like the professionally produced things they see on their screens. So if you don't produce close to standards, yours will look different than pro media ... moviers & tv shows. Period. On everything other than your own screen.

Neil

[hakanahmet85]

Here's a question,

Would purchasing a good quality rec.709 PC monitor and connecting that to

my Imac help? The intention being to drag the panel that i am grading on,

off the imac screen and onto the 2nd monitor?? I know it won't compare to a

£2-3k broadcast monitor, but it should eradicate the conflict between Prem

and the wide gamut imac screen no?

On 28 February 2018 at 07:52, R Neil Haugen <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea, it would probably help quite a bit. I've had some long email discussions with the head of color for PrPro (and maybe Ae also ... ?). I got both rather definitive answers as to what PrPro does ... and doesn't ... do. One thing he noted specifically, is that although PrPro is designed to be used in a totally hardware-managed color management system for broadcast use, if the user can set up a system to show what PrPro is doing properly, and can also see what it will show like on the systems their viewers will use, one can go a long way to getting the viewer's viewing conditions met.

Such that if your viewers are going to view on un-managed computer screens in bright environments like offices, making sure your viewing or at least a testing station mimics that ... un-managed computer screen in a bright office. Not at all a "broadcast" setup but ... one that will work.

PrPro naturally takes codecs that are both internally at video levels (16-235) and data or "full" (0-255) and displays them as full. Which is actually appropriate, as fully managed systems (like Resolve) will show them that way also. But it's not what non-managed players will necessarily do.

And different codecs are designed assuming different things. DNxHR/444-12 bit, for instance, is an RGB codec. Many codecs are listed in their internals as sRGB. They aren't the same ... well, and some codecs & apps don't list the 'base' of the codec or pay attention to it.

For YouTube uploads, DNxHD/R in mxf will upload, it's a bigger file ... but YouTube typically respects color of that and does its double encode properly. My YouTube uploads in mp4 have been fine ... but many get the washed out junk. Either switching to the DNx/mxf or doing the edit/save routine in YouTube can get around most troubles.

Last ... when you do 'test' yours on a screen, remember the only absolute there is: everything is relative!

Don't just look at your own ... look at something from a movie or tv show that you know is the originally professionally done (not a re-grab thing) media ... and yours. How do they compare in that browser or player? That's the only comparison that applies, as outside color managed apps on color-managed systems, the only key is relativity. How it looks 'out there' compared to on your screen is out of your control.

Neil

[hakanahmet85]

Neil, with all due respect.. I'm going to say what ALLOT of people keep

repeating... we are not complaining about what our videos look like "out

there"... we're complaining about how things look in and out of Premiere ON

OUR VERY OWN SCREENS. I'm having to use a LUT to gestimate and balance out

what Prem is showing compared to the raw footage's actual

colour/contrast...grade, export, view on a

player...criticize...re-grade/tweak...re-export...repeat repeat repeat...

it's a massive pain!

On 28 February 2018 at 17:45, R Neil Haugen <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[R Neil Haugen]

That's been covered in great detail above. And in other threads.

You're comparing the results of different apps with and without color management on systems with at times not the perfect color setups to begin with.

And blame PrPro for all "errors" in the differences you see between all the other apps.

I don't see any logic there.

On my Win10 rig, an export in mp4 looks one way in PrPro, VLC, and Potplayer. Pretty close but a little less contrasty in WinMedia player. Lower gamma (brighter mids) and less (apparent) saturation in QuickTime player. Uploaded to YouTube, it looks pretty close but not exactly the same in Firefox. In Chrome & Safari, looks more like the QuickTime version on my screen.

So ... that's all PrPro's fault? How?

But when I look at professionally produced media from other sources through the same players/situation, they look similar to mine for similar scenes.

Well, if PrPro is screwing things up, why doesn't the other media look 'better' than what I've put out in PrPro?

Neil

[jakeb14349422]

I agree with you, hakanahmet85@googlemail.c​. It never used to be a problem, and even using a relatively high-end calibrated grading monitor, on the same screen it goes from saturated in Premiere to desaturated in Quicktime playback. VLC looks exactly like Premiere and replicated the colours exactly.  I'm probably going to do my next project in DaVinci Resolve to see if I can negate this issue, because it's a major one.

All the technical excuses in the world don't satisfy when you can get accurate playback in some places but not in others, and it shouldn't be this much of an issue, unless this is the result of another Apple/Adobe spat.

[R Neil Haugen]

Jake ... QuickTime has never played properly with color management on a PC, and for most Mac users either from the comments.

It's very easy to demonstrate that PrPro handles things appropriately ... when I export from PrPro in any codec, take that into Resolve, it shows almost exactly the same thing. Export out of Resolve ... QuickTime shows it wrong.

This has been demonstrated by so many colorists and other high-experience users.

I'm still puzzled why someone takes QuickTime seriously. None of the colorists I know do ... and they're all either from the Mac world (and recently moved to PC/Linux to get more horsepower & config options) or still on Mac.

And why ... if this is just an Adobe/Apple spat over QuickTime playback, does Firefox play the files pretty close, but Chrome & Safari don't?

Neil

[jakeb14349422]

Sadly, it's gotten worse, and just as sadly, I have to take it seriously because it's the default media player for Apple products. Walk into any coffee shop and that's what a big chunk of the population (in my area anyway) are consuming media on. It's washed out in Vimeo as well, and though in the past there may have been minor differences, it seemed like last summer's CC update made the difference even more noticeable. It's not just a little more desaturated, it is seriously washed out.

Whatever the reason, it is super frustrating and I'm going to keep looking for a solution.