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Rendering unmodified footage causes dark, incorrect video gamma and hue
I can’t get AE 9.0.2 (CS4) on a Mac to render a clip straight through without damaging it. Just bringing in an HDV or ProRes clip in, placing it in a sequence and immediately rendering it out (regardless of output codec used: ProRes, Animation, etc.) results in a darker image. No matter what color management settings are used (or not used), the rendered clip NEVER matches the original footage in gamma, tone or hue.
I’ve tried different combinations of color working space and color profiles through Interpret Footage. I’ve tried it with color management off, using Preserve RGB everywhere, Match Legacy AE Gamma…. I’ve tried rendering to ProRes and uncompressed. I think I’ve tried about every possible setting and combination and I can never get a CLEAN clip back out.
I’ve read several similar threads on here and this doesn’t seem to be a known issue (e.g. i don’t have old KONA drivers). Is there a “trick” to get AE to not touch the original color balance and gamma of footage? I know Adobe put a lot of effort into the color management features to try to achieve consistency between platforms, but it would be great if there was a big ON/OFF switch that would bypass all the color conversion machinery when not needed. Setting the Working Space to None under the Project’s Color Settings doesn’t seem to be that.
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15 Replies
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What codec is being used on your incoming footage? If it’s HDV or h.264 than that could easily be your problem. Search for “Dave’s Stock Answer” for a longer explanation and there have been a lot of questions similar to this try searching for “gamma shift” or something similar.
– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
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Does this problem persist if you take QuickTime out of the picture? Very often, the problem is the QuickTime gamma tag. Do you have this problem when rendering and exporting to something other than a QuickTime container?
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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Thanks Michael. I’ve seen Dave’s “stock” answers and that’s why I also tried transcoding the captured Apple HDV QT file into ProRes, which does not have inter-frame compression. Alas, I get the same result. In fact, even starting with a PNG sequence (bypassing input codecs altogether), I still get the same problem. I created a different posting where I mention that case at: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/962191.
The only thing I haven’t tried is using something other than Quicktime as the output container. I’ll reply to Todd’s message below about that.
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Thanks for the quick reply Todd. Interesting point. I have NOT tried rendering to a container other than Quicktime. However, QT is currently part of my workflow and it would be great if I could keep it that way.
But I have to say that the problem begins even before I render anything. As soon as I bring footage into AE I see the darker, murkier image in the preview window. No matter how much I fiddle with color management, working space profiles, display profile calibration, etc. I can’t get it to look “right”. Even footage that is not in a quicktime container, like a PNG sequence as I mention above in my reply to Michael, looks very different compared to how it’s displayed by other Mac applications, except, predictively, Photoshop, which recognizes the PNGs profile as sRGB. You can easily try it yourself with those plates mentioned in the other post.
I’ll look around for ways of removing the gamma tag (if it’s in there) and see if it makes a difference in the meantime, but given the PNG scenario I described, I’m a bit skeptical.
Just to be clear, I wouldn’t mind working with a darker preview if the final rendered composite matched the original footage when I roundtrip it back to FCP, for instance, but that’s currently not the case. Manually applying color correction and gamma adjustments in AE to try to match it is just crazy.
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I just ran the QT gamma tag stripper and it didn’t find any tags on the HDV or the ProRes files.
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Are you using two different monitors? What I have recently found is that QT gets confused as to what gamma it will display when you have two different monitors hooked up. AE seems fine no matter what, it’s QT that changes the display gamma.
Recently here at the studio we have had the gamma issue crop up. We couldn’t understand why. Everything looks fine in AE, but render out a ProRes file and view in QT and it’s completely blown out. We tried everything and nothing seemed to help. Then we tried unplugging the Cinitq that was also hooked up to the system. Guess what? The AE project and the QT with ProRes look identical!! (that’s with color management turned off.)
So I was wondering why we hadn’t noticed this before….well before I had two identical monitors hooked. Right now I have two different monitors hooked up. Unplug one…everything looks fine. Plug in the Cintiq and it goes out of whack again. I also did zap the PRAM, but that wasn’t the real problem. It’s the two different monitors that seem to be causing the headache. Also, to back up this theory, there is one comp artists who hasn’t had this issue…she has two identical monitors!! She doesn’t get the QT display shift at all.
So that is what we have found. It’s not a render issue at all. It’s a QT display issue. Files that I had rendered with the blown out display problem looked fine when I had a single monitor hooked up. I hope this suggestion works for others out there. If anyone else is having the gamma shift issue with two different types of monitors hooked up, please try unplugging one and see what happens. Please post with your results.
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Steve KellenerDigital Compositor
Titmouse, Inc. -
I’m having the same problem. Thought it might be the fact that we’re “monitoring” using a AJA Io HD connected to an external monitor. So I turned off the AJA, relaunched AE 9 and re-rendered. No change. So then I tried turning off Multi-Processor. Re-launched and re-rendered. No change. So then I thought I’d do a test. I dropped some footage in to AE 9.0 and rendered it out. Then I dropped the same footage into AE 8.0 and rendered it out. Ah Ha! The rendered file from AE 8.0 looks correct, where as the AE 9.0 rendered footage looks like the gamma is way off (very dark, with blown out highlights).
I’m on hold with Adobe tech support right now.
Anyway, I thought I’d share.
(the worst part is that as usual I have a deadline. I’m thinking the fastest solution would be to rebuild the project in AE 8.0 and render it out. Or maybe add an adjustment layer to my AE 9.0 project and try and shift the gamma way up so it comes out normal when rendered. Fun stuff)
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Sony EX3, Letus Ultimate, Nikon lenses, Sachtler tripod
20 years as a videographer/editor – HD and 35mm adaptor newbie
Experienced with Apple products, Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite, MOTU Digital Performer, Flip4Mac, etc… -
I was on hold for 75 minutes and I finally gave up. I did send a text message to them using their Support Portal. An answer should take approx. 2-3 days. (I’m not getting my hopes up)
I found a temporary fix though….
I set my Project settings to HDTV (Rec. 709), then one-by-one I Interpreted my all my footage and set it to HDTV (Rec. 709). This made everything darker than what I’ve been used to. But at least now, what I’m seeing in the Composition window before rendering now matches the final ProRes QuickTime movie.
I’m wondering if this is the reason all my projects have looked a bit washed out for the last 6 months.
Anyone know a way to select multiple clips and change the Interpret Footage settings for all of them? Doing it one-by-one is a pain. I also wonder if there’s a way to have AfterEffects automatically Interpret the footage using the “interpretation rules.txt file in the Application folder? (I’m on a Mac)
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Sony EX3, Letus Ultimate, Nikon lenses, Sachtler tripod
20 years as a videographer/editor – HD and 35mm adaptor newbie
Experienced with Apple products, Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite, MOTU Digital Performer, Flip4Mac, etc… -
> Anyone know a way to select multiple clips and change the Interpret Footage settings for all of them? Doing it one-by-one is a pain. I also wonder if there’s a way to have AfterEffects automatically Interpret the footage using the “interpretation rules.txt file in the Application folder? (I’m on a Mac)
I think the last two sections of this page should help you:
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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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Crap! How did I miss that! (I read that page about an hour ago).
Thank you very much! (HUGE time saver!)
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Sony EX3, Letus Ultimate, Nikon lenses, Sachtler tripod
20 years as a videographer/editor – HD and 35mm adaptor newbie
Experienced with Apple products, Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite, MOTU Digital Performer, Flip4Mac, etc…
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