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DNG files- not quite right in premiere
I’m colour-correcting a show right now in Premiere CC2015, and generally I’m very impressed with the new features.
However, I’m equally UNimpressed with how Premiere is dealing with RAW Cinema DNG files from a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.I have edited with the raw file. Here is how the clip looks with no adjustments:
Pretty ugly right? So I try to recover some of those highlights that are blown out, by moving “highlights” all the way to -100. Almost no change at all:
So I think ‘there has to be more there.’ So I open up one of the DNG files from this clip in photoshop’s camera raw:
Well would you look at that! It looks like a real image! Let’s try to get some of those highlights back:
So now I have a workable image, I’ll just have to direct link it to after effects so I can use ACR in there, and get this thing to look decent. Luckily other RAW images that don’t have as much contrast as this one I can deal with without going this route. The whole reason I’m grading in Premiere and not Resolve is to save time.Hopefully this will help someone else and hopefully Adobe fixes this soon.
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8 Replies
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Highlight a clip in your timeline and select the Master Clip tab in the Effects Control window. You’ll be given Temp, Tint, Exposure controls that are a great place to start with DNG. Or drag a clip (DNG seq) from your Project Bin to the Source Monitor and find the same controls plus the LCP controls on the same tab. R3D files get quite a few more controls and functionality using this same workflow. All of this replaces the now greyed out “Source Settings” that were functional in this regard up to CC 2015.
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for the response, but I think you’ve missed the point, that that was exactly what I was doing. For some reason however, the DNG file is interpreted incorrectly by Premiere, not allowing me highlight recovery, and casting a pink hue over the entire clip- as you can see from the screenshots I attached. I solved this problem by direct linking the clip to after effects, where the colour profile is properly interpreted by ACR.This is only really an issue with shots of high contrast, like shots into the sun, because the highlights can’t be recovered. But otherwise it is workable.
Surely others have noticed that these RAW clips look different in Premiere when you import them than they do in After Effects or Photoshops ACR, or Resolve.
I have made a bug report…
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Not the Lumetri Panel.
R3D gets more access.
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Whoa! Interesting. Those controls did not appear for me in the Effects Window on the master clip tab UNTIL I started a new project and imported that clip again. I think it may be because I was working in a project that was converted from the previous version of Premiere. So thank you for pointing that out!
Unfortunately, with the limited controls that it provides in the source, I’m still unable to get those highlights back while keeping the rest of the image in a usable range, so therefore I will still be going the AE route. Here is me trying to get those highlights back with source settings:
Still blown out and rest of image is getting very dark…And here is the image after some exposure, shadow, and highlights adjustments in ACR in after effects:
So I guess I will have to hope that Premiere updates the CinemaDNG source setting options to match that of ACR someday
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Personally, I would set the exposure in Premiere and send the troublesome shots to Speedgrade. Much more streamlined workflow. But that’s a personal workflow decision. Whatever works for you. Speedgrade goes MUCH deeper than the Lumetri Color Panel, but they work hand in hand.
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Hi Rob,
You should have the same ability to recapture highlights with Lumetri in Premiere Pro as you do with ACR in After Effects. Since you cannot without degrading the rest of the image, please file a bug report: https://adobe.ly/ReportBugIf you could also upload a sample file of the image you showed online, I can hand that off to engineering.
Thanks,
Kevin -
Done and done.
Here is one of the DNG files from the clip above for you: 8998_rvpc1201505041647c0013000556.dng.zip
Thank you!
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I’m getting the exact same issue and I reported to Adobe. I also opened a discussion https://forums.adobe.com/message/7670681# and the problem seemed to be solved by using someone else’s DNG files. At first it worked, so I thought it was an issue of my Blackmagic DNG but then it stopped working again. It must be a Premiere bug. Please let me know if you hear anything from Adobe!
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