Why does my video look overexposed in Adobe premiere 2022?

Question

I'm editing a video in Adobe Premiere Pro 2022. When I import video, it looks fine on the preview screen, but when I layer it over another video in the timeline, the timeline preview of the video looks distorted. Anyone know why this is happening, and how I can fix it? The colors look very saturated and the video looks overexposed. I haven't added any effects to the video that I know of(I just imported it and put it in the timeline).

Here's a picture of what it looks like:

As you can see, the image looks super distorted in the timeline preview, but the import preview on the left looks normal.

Answer 1

Check there are no effects on the clip (click the clip in the sequence, and then click on the Effects Controls tab in the left window), and no source effects on the source clip (from the Effect Controls tab, see if there's a Source tab beneath that).

Try making a completely new sequence, by dragging the clip from the Project tab onto the New Item icon:

at the bottom of that panel. This should make you a new sequence with exactly the same settings as your source clp.

If this doesn't look weird, then the sequence settings in your original sequence might be different to this source clip.

If the clip was shot in Log or Raw, and your sequence is set to Rec.709, you may need to adjust the footage to make it look right using Lumetri.

Answer 2

Same issue, I had to modify my footage, interpret footage, and override color space to rec 709 for EACH CLIP. I don't know how adobe screwed this up. It should automatically make a sequence according to my clip when I do "Make New Sequence from Clip" option. This is very frustrating and takes too much time and mental space when trying to edit content for clients.

Answer 3

In the sequence settings change the Working Color Space from Rec.709 to Rec.2100 HLG. I had the same issue and this fixed it instantly.

Answer 4

Go to the top toolbar and choose Sequence -> Sequence Settings. The under Video, change the Working Color Space from Rec. 709 to Rec. 2100 HLG.

When you export the file, if you choose a preset that does not "Match Source", make sure you choose the correct color space File -> Export | Video -> Encoding Settings -> Export Color Space. If Color Space is greyed out, try changing the Profile under Encoding Settings to something else (Main 10 and High10 works for me for HEVC and x264 respectively).

To see what color space your original clips are filmed in, you can right-click on each file and find it under Properties -> Color Space. If you have clips with different color spaces, you can right-click Modify -> Interpret Footage -> Color Space Override.

Read more about setting color spaces in Premiere here.

A color space is the range of colors you're using. The reason for different color spaces is related to the imperfect correspondence between what the human eye can perceive, what our digital screens can display, and how we want to "quantize" colors (or how many bits do we want to use to encode a single color; colors are continuous, but we express a 24-bit color as 3 RGB numbers between 0 and 255). As screens, cameras, and post-production processes improve, new color space standards have been introduced. My impression is HDR videos often use some of these newer color space standards.