Upon export in Premiere Pro, colors lose saturation when previewing in QuickTime

Question

I working on a project that I originally began in Premiere Pro CS6 on Windows, converted to CC, and am not editing in CC on Mac. I was making some minor tweaks to the video and getting ready to export, when I noticed some major differences in the color between the source monitor and the export preview (the actual exported file resembles or matches what you see in the export preview).

The export seems to lose a lot of color, and even shade a bit purple.

I'm on a 2013 retina MacBook Pro with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. I'm also working with a 30" Dell external monitor via Thunderbolt. [Edit: Actually, I wonder if it's the external monitor that's throwing off my coloring. Here's a screenshot from the MBP screen:

And a screenshot of the rendered video in QuickTime (bottom) compared to the export preview (top). notice the QuickTime video is slightly washed out.

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Some of the Googling I've done seems to suggest this is a problem with a gamma shift in Premiere (though I don't know how to fix that on export) or even a problem with the nVidia card (though I don't know of a way to look at that on a Mac).

Are there any suggestions for how I can get the export to match what I see in the source monitor?

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UPDATE: After playing around with this some more, it seems like the problem might actually have to do with QuickTime, though I'm not sure where it fits into the various pieces in the puzzle. Here's a screenshot of the same video with QuickTime on top and VLC on the bottom:

Thankfully, the video that I uploaded to Wistia preserves the color: http://fogcreek.wistia.com/medias/p4eqf8u3vr.

At this point, it seems to just be a QuickTime problem, so maybe just using VLC as my default video player is the way to go. Anyone with a Mac know any more about what might be going on? I'd still like to understand more.

Answer 1

This is a well-known bug when exporting to H.264. Unfortunately, I'm not clever enough to understand why this happens, but it's a side effect of using the codec. I'll keep looking for an explanation I understand, however I wanted to get this answer out there.

As a workaround for now, I suggest making a quick little eyeball adjustment to the comp's colour correction to compensate. DO NOT DO THIS - SEE BELOW

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Update 1:

I did some more digging, and found this on Pro Video Coalition:

QuickTime movies re-exported from applications such has QuickTime Player Pro using the H.264 codec (a common format for web content) appear brighter than the original in some contexts - such as inside QuickTime Player on the Mac, or on a web page viewed by Safari - but not in other contexts such as QuickTime Player on Windows, or the stripped-down QT Player inside After Effects.

Many attribute this to a bug introduced by use of a hidden, optional "gamma" tag (which is different than a full-blown color profile tag) inside QuickTime movies that is supposed to aid in cross-platform compatibility. Unfortunately, this tag is not exposed for the user to edit, and may be interpreted differently by different programs. It has been the cause of much grief among After Effects users employing color management, and has spread into the realm of web video.

- Brightness Issues with H.264 QuickTime Movies, Pro Video Coalition

(Bolding is my doing)

The article also lists a couple of suggestions:

1. Installing a semi-custom H.264 codec, that allows control of the gamma tag
2. Do not compensate by darking the image. For players that ignore the gamma tag, suddenly your video is far too dark.

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Update 2:

Fuel VFX, an Australian company (whoo!), provided a tool called QT Gamma Stripper. When they were bought out by Animal Logic, that tool all but disappeared, but it's still able to be found on the web. Here's one site that reputedly is hosting a copy of this free tool.

Answer 2

I was seeing the same thing. Exported video when played in QT was washed out compared to what my preview was in Premiere. When I looked at the same rendered file in VLC it matched. so evidently the problem was in QT. I opened pref and found a dialog box that said.

"

Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility. When enabled video is not displayed using ColorSync." So that is apparently the culprit. When I enable my color now matches PPro and VLC much closer.

I use Premiere Pro CC now so not sure if that QT preference is an artifact from when I used to use FinalCut Pro and if all MAC QT users have it but I did and when I enabled fixed it. downside is my audience probably won't know to enable this so they will still see washed out. Although most view through Youtube/Vimeo which match PPro closer.

Answer 3

It looks like it is probably something graphic driver related. The Mac Book Pro Retina screen shots look almost identical to what I see on my color calibrated environment when I look at the video you have posted on your site.

Looks like the playback screen is probably recognized as a video playback by whatever color corrections are going on on the Dell monitor but the export preview isn't (or maybe the other way around.)

Answer 4

I had a similar problem, I am working in Premiere Pro CC on a Mac Pro with a Dell monitor (UP3216Q), what I saw in Premiere and VLC looked identical but in the QuickTime Player (both 7 and X) it was washed out.

Here is what fixed it for me. Go to System Preferences > Displays > Color > Uncheck "Show profiles for this display only" > select "Apple RGB"

It looks like the default display profile for my monitor (DELL UP3216Q) was the problem.

Answer 5

The actual problem is Premiere Pro's colour management. Here's why:

1 - All my colour work is done on Davinci Resolve which uses all the raw files from the beginning and the final product looks great.

2 - The files exported out of Davinci in 422HQ look great as well.

3 - I bring the same files into Premiere Pro and now they look over saturated, contrasted and not the product that I just exported!!

4 - Take same coloured file from davinci and view it through quicktime, VLC and Premiere Pro and have them all open on the same monitor. You will see that Premiere Pro will look much different!

I'm not sure why Premiere does a gamma shift or doesn't view rec709 properly but all I can say is NEVER look at the colour in Premiere as accurate.

I've had the same problems as everyone here and I've also had major issues with it looking much different on YouTube and Vimeo as well when exporting out of Premiere as h264. I'm pretty sure this is because Premiere doesn't export out with a Rec709 color. Either way here's how you can fix it.

SOLUTION:

1 - Colour on a program that is actually built as a color correction software such as Davinci Resolve. DO NOT COLOUR IN PREMIERE

2- Export your colored files out of Davinci Resolve as a 422HQ and rec709 color and load these colored files back into premiere.

3 - Now your files are in Premiere and they will look oversaturated and shit BUT DONT WORRY! Add your titles and any warp stabalization or effects you had on and ignore the color for now.

4 - Export your finished product (ignoring color) out of Premiere as Quicktime 422HQ, Render Maximum Bit Depth, 48bit, Use Maximum Render Quality and DO NOT use Previews.

5 - When this full res file is complete you can open it and see that your colours are back to normal and your video looks great again. At this point you'll have all your titles and effects baked in to a high res file and it's ready for web (or other) compression.

6 - Take this full res 422HQ file and bring it into Apple Compressor ($70 on app store). Compressor will be your actual encoding tool forever now. It's 100x better that premiere exports

7 - Choose your video settings. You will see a Rec709 color space option!! By default 422HQ is rec709 but the file will be way to big to upload to social media so that is why we're in Compressor to compress into h264 not in Premiere.

8 - Choose your video settings, export out a file with a rec709 color space, enjoy the color you want on all platforms!

Additional Notes:

• Each monitor will display color differently so ideally when you're coloring in Davinci you can work off a calibrated monitor.

• If your exporting a 1080 file look into x264 and then use that plugin for better results that h264 in Compressor. For 4K export material use h264

• DO NOT SET YOUR MONITOR TO RGB! Video is Rec.709 so if your on a mac keep it to its default colour.

• If you really care about your video color you have to get your monitor calibrated to rec.709 and that means calling a good video facility and paying a bit to calibrate your monitor. You can also use a spyder to get close if you want a cheaper option.

Good Luck!!