Desaturated Image

[Phil Balsdon]

Where are you looking at the export?

What monitor did use use to view the grade.

Because it’s H264 I’d assume you are looking at the export in Quicktime, what are your Quicktime settings?

These factors are all relevant to what you see, which is not always what you’ve got.

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[Ian Hassett]

Hey Phil: Thanks for responding and sorry that I didn’t include the specifics in the original post.

To update: I just exported the video as a DV/DVCPRO – NTSC, and it looks better – certainly not as squished as the H.264 – but the color is still desaturated.

Current frame rate
Automatic data ratio
Medium quality – for speed
Interlaced
16:9
Compressor native

I’ve viewed both the export and the grade on the same monitor – a 2.66gHz 21.5″ iMac

[Ian Hassett]

Hey Phil: Thanks for responding and sorry that I didn’t include the specifics in the original post.

To update: I just exported the video as a DV/DVCPRO – NTSC, and it looks better – certainly not as squished as the H.264 – but the color is still desaturated.

Current frame rate
Automatic data ratio
Medium quality – for speed
Interlaced
16:9
Compressor native

I’ve viewed both the export and the grade on the same monitor – a 2.66gHz 21.5″ iMac

[Nelson Goforth]

I’ve got much the same problem, but not just with h.264.

I edited the movie in FCP and graded in Color, using a Panasonic 1710 through a Blackmagic 3D Extreme card. My computer monitor is the basic Apple 27″. Final use of the project will be for projection, but I need to show it first on computer monitors. The colors I’m seeing in FCP on the Apple monitor are about the same as on the Panasonic, just darker overall because of the difference in gamma.

First I exported a version for Vimeo via Compressor, as an h.264 mp4 Quicktime. I noticed that the colors were more desaturated than what I was seeing on my computer monitor. I assumed this was because of the h.264 compression, so did a straight Quicktime output from FCP (File::Export::Quicktime Movie…) to compare. Both exports looked the same in terms of color and gamma, though the QT movie is 422HQ.

Here is a screen shot of the three outputs (can’t include the broadcast monitor, of course)

So I’m baffled as to the color/saturation difference, and can find nothing in the settings to help. Any ideas?

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