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Sequence Color Settings: Depth Bits per Channel
In after effects, if you go to the project settings, you can change the color settings bit depth. When getting a clip ready for color grading you need at least 16 bits per channel usually. You can set it to 8/16/ or 32(float).
In adobe premiere I do not see this specific option. Instead in sequence settings there is “maximum bit depth” and “maximum render quality” not sure if this will do what I need it to. I need to know if these settings in premiere have the same or similar effect as stetting depth to 16 or 32 bits per channel in AE. The reason for this is I am following a tutorial to create digital negative for my footage so it holds up better during color grading.
Thanks
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1 Reply
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[Samantha Morey] “I am following a tutorial to create digital negative”
Wut? The fact that this tutorial calls it a “digital negative” makes me question the validity of the information and technique.
[Samantha Morey] “When getting a clip ready for color grading you need at least 16 bits per channel usually.”
You’ve been misinformed, but that’s fine. Besides the bit depth at the capture stage being the limiting factor (IIRC the majority of cameras that spit out any type of RAW file are 10-12bits of color fidelity), the most popular finishing image format, DPX, is commonly limited to 10bits. Online quality intermediate codecs like ProRes4444 or DNxHD 175x are also 10bit limited.
Premiere’s “maximum bit depth” breaks down as follows:
24bit: RGB x 8bits
32bits: RGBA x 8 bits
48bits: RGB x 16bits
64bits: RGBA x 16bitsWhile you can process at 16bits, and some of Premiere’s effects and transitions are processed in 32bit floating point, know that it’ll be truncated to 10bits in the majority of cases. The only >10bit format Premiere will export is a TIFF sequence.
“Maximum Render Quality” is a better scaling algorithm. If you don’t scale any of your clips, you won’t notice a difference.
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