[Doug Martin]

I’ve been having the same problem with Premiere.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with the exporting process – try viewing your original footage side by side in Premiere and some other media player (Windows Media Player or VLC for example) you’ll see the difference I’m sure.

It appears to me that Premiere is displaying clips darker than they actually are – I can’t figure out why though.

[Doug Martin]

Jon,

Thanks for the reply – I am familiar with how to correctly calibrate monitors, and have done so with mine. If you look at the screen grab on a decent monitor (as opposed to a 4″ low colour depth display) you will see the difference. Basically the image on the left looks like someone has ramped the gamma up.

What I’m trying to say is that the video output looks fine through VLC on a correctly balanced monitor, but the output of the same file via Premiere Pro on the same monitor is way too dark.

I’ve found a workaround for now – I’ve had to put the two side by side on two identical monitors and raise the gamma on the one running Premiere Pro until it matches the one viewed via VLC player. I’ve now finished the project and it looks fine on both VLC and when burnt to DVD and viewed on an LCD TV.

I now have to re-calibrate my monitor so it’s right again.

From online searching, I’m not the only person to experience this problem, and it’s frustrating to keep seeing the same “calibrate your monitor” response every time when it’s quite obviously a problem within Premiere Pro.

I really don’t want to keep uncalibrating my monitor every time I want to grade footage, but it looks like I will either have to keep doing this or else try and save up for either Avid or a Mac with FCP 🙁

[Doug Martin]

Again, apologies for ressurecting an old thread, but I have a similar problem with Premiere Pro. I have tried on several different computers of different brands, with different combinations of OS’s, GFX cards and monitors. The common factor is Premiere Pro CS3.

What happens is that what you see displayed via PP is considerably darker than when you view the same file via a different program or device.

I am currently working on a project which relies heavily on the use of deep shadows to create the feel we need. We edited in PP CS3 and it looked ok, but when we burnt to DVD it was a lot brighter than it appeared before and suddenly all the details that were meant to be hidden in shadows appeared. The same thing happened when viewed in VLC player.

I finally decided to run the same captured DV AVI in PP CS3 and VLC player side by side on my pc. The screen-grab speaks for itself…

On the left is the output from VLC and on the right is the output from PP CS3.

That’s not a monitor problem – it’s a problem with Premiere Pro.

Question is, how do I fix it, because at the moment I can’t correct my output without a lot of guesswork or trial and error.