Premiere Color Management Options

[R Neil Haugen]

The Adobe developers are working at adding in color management options and they are coming in piecemeal and are a bit confusing at times.

The basic structure is they are adding is the ability to set color space for clips in the bins for media clips, a working color space in the Sequence settings, in the Scopes panel, and in export settings.

Currently the only media types you can set or override color space for are ProRes and  Sony XAVC-Intra media.  Select one or more clips in a bin, right-click/Modify/Interpret Footage. Currently options are Rec.709, Rec.2100HLG, and Rec.2100PQ. There are the same options for the Sequence panel.

In the Scopes panel they have options for Rec709, Rec.2020, and Rec.2100HLG and Rec.2100PQ.

Exporting is a bit tricky as to get to the Rec.2100HLG/PQ options with H.264 requires selecting the Level as High10 rather than Baseline or High. It is clearer with ProRes which options to use. JPEG2000 in MXF allows Rec.709, Rec.2020, and P3D65. They have a pdf file if you can find it that has their HDR and other color management data for the current time listed with all export options.

They're also working to get HDR capabilities for general working. Currently they list things as requiring an AJA or BlackMagic device to get the signal off the computer and into the HDR monitor's inputs, but the most recent public beta seems to have some capabilities to work with Windows HDR settings if Windows recognizes a monitor as having HDR capabilities.

Going to the Adobe public beta forum is probably the best way to find the most recent posting about new color management options. I'm including a link to a public beta forum post by Francis Crossman, previously a color engineer and now co-product manager for Premiere.

HDR display on Windows using DirectX

Neil

 

[Anton Meleshkevich]

In adobe 2020 products on windows default prores presets are 8 BIT!!! And have offset to magenta! This can be fixed by enabling 'render at maximum depth' or something like that. I don't exactly remember the name.
But what can't be fixed are the wrong colors with prores from alexa. Looks like something with rec601 vs rec709. But you have to add a retiming or scaling or add some text to force premiere to re-encode prores to notice this, otherwise it will just copy the frames. And you should check it somewhere which is not adobe, because this happens at the reading of the file, not at the export.
This is true for me as well as for all the editors, who use premiere 2020 I worked with, and when we choose pre-conformed EDL pipeline. And this is also true for clean up artists who use After Effects 2020 I worked with.

[R Neil Haugen]

Which 'default' presets are you referring to? Export? Premiere is supposed to be set to process exports to the bitdepth of the format/codec chosen. If it isn't for some reason that's naturally a problem. I know there are for some users issues with the DNxHD in high bitdepth 12 bit files.

I've seen a few people say that Premiere only does ProRes in 8-bit. But I can't replicate that on my Win10 machine.  Not saying it doesn't happen on yours, just that on mine, ProRes works as expected in Premiere. Actually, both in Premiere and in Resolve.

I just ... again ... tested by exporting a ProRes file from my BMPCC4K from Premiere. Imported into Resolve, and file bitdepth there was listed as 10-bit. I had the same color as within Premiere, no visible shift at all, with virtually identical scopes. And this was without checking the "Max bit depth" in the Premiere export dialog.

I haven't dealt with a ton of Alexa files, but the ones I have worked with have given the same results. They simply worked as expected at full file bitdepth. Same with RED files.

If you had a short clip that you could provide for me to test, I'd love to check this on my machine between Premiere, Resolve, and MediaInfo. It would be interesting to see if we get the same results.

Neil

[Anton Meleshkevich]

Actually even DPX presets are 8 bit. Yes, it shows 12 or 10 or 16 bt in Resolve, but in fact there is 8 bit information. I tested it about 2 days long with 16 bit generated linear gray scale ramp. It is easy to see if add a lot of contrast in Resolve. Magenta offset tint and 8-bit banding.

Sure! I'll be able to send you a file tomorrow

Edited January 14, 2021 by Anton Meleshkevich

[R Neil Haugen]

Would love to test this out.

 

Neil

[Anton Meleshkevich]

First is 16 bit DPX + tons of contrast in Resolve.
Second is ProRes 4444 export  with unmodified ProRes 4444 preset + the same amount of contrast in Resolve.

Of course 12 bit is less then 16 bit. But here is definitely 8 bit banding. I compared it to 8, 10 and 12 bit export from Resolve.

I attached 16 bit DPX, that should be imported in Premiere Pro 2020 (or Media Encoder 2020) on Windows, then exported with ProRes 4444 preset.
all_tests00000001.dpx

This magenta tint and 8 bit encoding both can be fixed by enabling 'Render at maximum depth'.
 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Anton Meleshkevich

[Jamie Neale]

How do you guys deal with the shift when exporting from Premiere?

All my shots match across Davinci and premiere viewers/calibrated monitor but as soon as I go back into Premiere and finish the project it looks washed out. I've got a workaround but be great to hear how you guys deal with that?