Depressing. Footage in Premiere/VLC looks VERY different in Quicktime/Vimeo/Youtube

[Tero Ahlfors]

Adobe, Apple, Assimilate, Autodesk, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Digital Vision, Filmlight, SGO et al are not responsible for your color pipeline. They do not know what kind of displays, gear or delivery requirements the user has. You are (or if you have someone else on payroll that knows about this subject) responsible for your color pipeline. Even if you have a program that uses the system profiles to change between color spaces you need to verify that what you’re viewing is correct. Even if you’re only editing and you see color changes that are because of the monitor.

[Shane Ross] “Resolve’s built in display is far from accurate.”

You could make a separate calibration LUT for it to get it closer. There will still be the usual problems one might have like wrong levels in the GPU settings and OS switching your ICC profiles after updates etc. I just use a black and white viewer LUT because clients want to stare at the GUI screen where things are happening instead of the reference.

[Adam Purcell]

Hey Jim,

Before I start, GREAT thread, and a hugely important issue — thanks for bringing it up, as this has been bothering me a long time. I appreciate and share your attention to detail, as well as your pursuit to figure out the logic here. You didn’t deserve the pompous replies, and while those individuals may have had something technically useful to offer, they didn’t do a good job thoroughly explaining what’s going on, if they indeed knew at all. I read this thread a couple weeks ago, have done a lot of experimentation between then and now, and would like to add something hopefully useful to this discussion.

The point I’d like to make is that I can confirm Avid — as well as DaVinci Resolve — both share what you’re seeing as an issue in Premiere. Given all 3 of these major post-production professional softwares override your computer’s monitor Color Display Profile setting, it’s reasonable to conclude that this is happening on purpose, as all 3 softwares are forced to keep in mind that their outputs may go to broadcast television. I also frequently work with MAJOR color houses, and the same washed-out look happens… so I know it’s not their software or settings that are the problem.

Can you imagine how many careers would end if outputs going to broadcast TV looked horribly off or got totally rejected from airing if these post-production machines didn’t default to something more TV-friendly where the standards are strictly enforced and criticized?

Do this test and see what you think:

Open up the Vimeo app on an AppleTV connected to a proper TV that you’re happy with and see how that looks to you. I have a Sony Bravia whose color I’m quite happy with in its everyday performance. When I go to look at those very videos on Vimeo that I wasn’t happy looking at on my computer, I’m pretty happy with the result. I can’t confirm how close they are, but they’re close enough that I’m less nervous at seeing them there than I am when I see them on my computer screen, especially before I switch it’s profile from the default iMac setting to the same sRGB IEC61966-2.1 setting that Philip Henry mentioned in May 2018 that seems to work best.

If someone here has a TV they’re happy with that’s close to their computer monitor for comparison, that would be greatly helpful.

FCPX’s color interpretation might look right to you, but it’s also a Mac product that might recognize how to show something on your Mac computer. But it’s also possible that FCPX isn’t an adequate professional program and is actually submitting something that’s incorrect. I don’t know.

But I’d like to know!

[Chris Wright]

With the latest version of Premiere, the rabbit hole got a little bit deeper. if you enable its new color management feature, it will interpret through your monitor OS profile. But, it will take that, run it through a rec. 709 transform interpretation and then finally add a BT.1886 transform.(which means, if your monitor is calibrated to BT. 1886, premiere should match any player that can playback BT.1886 like madvr with luts.

Now, the main problem is, the web isn’t BT.1886(or rec. 709 2.4 with a straight shadow curve) its actually sRGb, so premiere grading won’t translate well to the web. Also FCPX uses rec. 709 2.2(last I checked) so it won’t look right either.

here’s two luts depending on if your going from FCPX to premiere or premiere to web/VLC/firefox. one darkens, other lightens. They are for monitoring your preview only and should be disabled just prior to playback. They are 64 cube.

bt1886 to srgb/rec709 2.2 and srgb to bt1886
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HHxxaOWifI3TEhBwEyGSl139x2jRM9dO

[Sebastian Leitner]

FIX COLOR/GAMMA SHIFTS ON APPLE (iMac) P3 RETINA DISPLAYS

TAKEN FROM MY WEBSITE, READ MORE AT https://www.sebastianleitner.com/
(check out my DCP course and hit “show more”)

it’s not really a bug, more of an Apple-feature gone wrong (sounds familiar?). Apple introduced something called ColorSync a longer while back, initially meant for images (print/scan/preview) only. A shorter while back Apple broadened its functionality to cover video as well – to ensure display accuracy across all Apple devices and systems. So, cool, macOS now makes sure your pictures and videos look the same on all (Apple) devices – but there is a catch: only Apple software (well, mostly*) supports this – namely QuickTime, Safari, Final Cut Pro X and QuickLook) – and you will run into lots of troubles with other, non-Apple, apps (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro, VLC or say Firefox and YouTube), obviously this color sync would not work on a non-Apple hardware product as well, so expect strong shifts in color and gamma in “the real world”.

The reason being ColorSync enables certain LUTs for your graphics card in the background on a system level to compensate and shift color+gamma levels accordingly, trying to make the best of your wide gamut, P3 display. It sounds highly advantageous and cool but in the end you just don’t see the “real” image, meaning its raw values but shifted ones instead. You want to see a truthful reference image which is certainly possible on those really great Apple (cinema) displays.

The quickest, free solution is easy but kind of secret and not well documented at all! You need a display profile that circumvents ColorSync, tricking your system into displaying raw values only without transforming them! And the only profile (provided by Apple in 2012 by the way) to do so is called HD 709-A. Some people don’t have it for some reason even though it’s by Apple, so you can download it below (and put it in “User/Library/Color Sync/Profiles”)! It will take care of this tedious issue once and for all. In my experience, color and gamma are consistent across all kinds of different systems and hardware setups – yes, even broadcast monitoring/referencing setups. NOT cinema obviously, since the color standard there is DCI P3 in XYZ levels – not RGB (this is how all digital displays work).

download: https://www.sebastianleitner.com/HD709-A.zip