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Color Management, Please Explain
Alright, I know there has been discussion on this issue before, and I’ve read all the posts & documentation on color management that I’ve been able to find, but there must still be something that I’m not understanding.
I work exclusively in a Standard Definition, NTSC world. I render everything with the standard Quicktime DV/DVCPRO-NTSC codec.
Everything that I render out of AE CS3 looks darker when I load it into Final Cut.
I did some digging on these forums and this link came up a few times:
https://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402801
It seemed that this was going to be the answer to all my problems… but, well, I’m still having the same issues.
It doesn’t seem to matter if I enable Color Management, Preserve RGB, Match Legacy AE Gamma Adjustments, etc… the video render still looks exactly the same in Final Cut.
If I enable color management and I assign the SDTV NTSC color profile to my AE Project, then render it using the Working Profile (SDTV NTSC) as my output profile, the color will look fine as it’s rendering out of AE, but will look dark in FCP.
If I enable Match Legacy AE Gamma Adjustments, AE will make everything darker – which means that it will give me an accurate simulation of how the render will look, but well… it’s still making everything too dark.
If my understanding of color management is correct, AE CS3 is supposed to actually modify & adjust the gamma & color of the video during renders when color management is enabled. If the “Preserve RGB” box is selected, then AE will effectively bypass the adjustments that the color managed render would have made. So, theoretically, a “Preserve RGB” render and a “color managed” render ought to look different… but all the renders look exactly the same in Final Cut. So I guess I’m not seeing color management do anything.
In summary, if I enable color management, the color & gamma look good in AE, but the image doesn’t look the same as the render when it’s opened in Final Cut. If I enable match legacy AE gamma adjustments, the color & gamma look bad in AE, but the image DOES look the same as when the render is opened in Final Cut. Am I going to have to just enable the Match Legacy option all the time and manually adjust the gamma in AE before every render? I’d really rather use a color managed workflow, because I’m sure that’s a better option… I’m just not understanding something…
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3 Replies
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Sorry to bump this; I won’t again if I don’t get a response. It’s just that this is an issue that has been plaguing me for a few months now and I’m sure it’s just because I’m reading something wrong or doing something out of order or some other stupid thing.
Any constructive reply would be appreciated, even “we can’t help you because you’re post doesn’t make any sense.”
EDIT: Hmmm… I guess you can’t bump on the Cow forums. Well, if somebody finds this, I’d still greatly appreciate some help.
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I have never had a problem with shifting colors going from FCP > AE > FCP. I’m stunned at how many people do experience issues. Are you saying that the footage in FCP looks darker than the original footage in FCP? Have you looked at your scopes and histograms for any obvious anomalies?
I always set my Project Working Space to SDTV NTSC when working for SDTV NTSC and render to the working space profile. The other half is making sure that your input profiles are set properly, but if you’re working with DV/DVCPRO footage then there’s only one option: SDTV (Y’CbCr).
Any footage items that get interpreted as sRGB in your SDTV project should be re-interpreted as Preserve RGB or SDTV (both of these have the same effect in an SDTV working space).
Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
No, if I go through FCP > AE > FCP, the original FCP footage will look the same as the rendered AE footage in FCP. HOWEVER, when the footage is loaded into AE, AE adjusts the gain so that the image looks lighter in my reference monitor.
In other words, the gain information that the two programs send to my firewire reference monitor is inconsistent between the two programs.
If I enable Match Legacy Settings (or use an older version of AE), AE eliminates this problem (adjusts the gain to the reference monitor so that it displays the same as it does from FCP) – but I lose the advantages of working in an entirely color managed workflow.
Also, in relation to your comment on input profiles. Are you saying that for footage that has an embedded profile of sRGB that it is better to change it’s input profile to SDTV? Depending on where the footage comes from (the internet, for instance), wouldn’t this result in a less accurate color conversion to the SDTV working color space?
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