P3 Gamma support? iMac Pro unusable due to gamma shift

[Lucasenglund]

I found out a few weeks ago that the colors in Premiere doesn't look the same after export.

There's a huge gamma shift, and i later on found out this is due to the P3 Gamma on most Macs later than 2015 that PP can't handle.

So, right now i'm on a $9,000 iMac Pro and i can't use it professionally as Premiere doesn't show what's actually happening in the grade.

I know there's a few workarounds with different LUT's etc, but they're not 100% accurate and it's not really an acceptable workflow after paying loads of money on high end computers and software. It's so damn frustrating. I don't want to switch to FCPX, but i can't deal with this for much longer.

So, is there any real solution on this problem, except getting an external display?
I recently tweeted Adobe about it, so i'm hoping to actually get an answer on this topic.
And hopefully a date for when the support for color management will be out.

I'm 100% sure about the problem as i've been researching and testing everything out. So please avoid claiming that the problem is something else

[Jim_Simon]

I think Jamie LeJeune has it right in the following thread from the Blackmagic forums.  He's specifically talking about Resolve, but the idea holds true for all NLEs.  The upshot is, "The only image you can trust is to run SDI out to an accurately calibrated reference monitor."

http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=68410

[Lucasenglund]

Well, it doesn't matter how calibrated my display is if Premiere can't handle the gamma. And that's where the problem is.
No matter what gamma i chose my display to work in, Premiere will just ignore it

[R Neil Haugen]

PrPro doesn't have options for user-settings for color management. It's a Rec709 app, which means sRGB, the standard for professional video production.

Your fancy Mac doesn't give you the options to set color profiles either. I notice people tend to complain about Adobe not offering options when their gear doesn't allow options either. Seems strange to me, both ends could ameliorate the problem.

Using the new 'UserVoice' feedback system, go search for color management requests ... and pile on. We do need more control in PrPro.

Neil

Adobe Bug /Feature Request form: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro

[Lucasenglund]

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. I can switch between loads of different color profiles for my display, but that won't change anything as Premiere i just ignoring it all? Everything except the playback in Premiere changes when i switch between color profiles.

[R Neil Haugen]

From everything I've been told, your Mac's monitor stays pretty much P3 ... which isn't something that PrPro works with.

PrPro works in sRGB ... period.

Unfortunately, that's not something you can get around ​other​ than as Jim suggests, having a separate monitor that can be set for sRGB and preferably run by an external box. Although one can get by with an external calibrated computer monitor of very good quality ... with the understanding ... that you need to constantly test your exports on a full b-cast setup TV monitor to have any confidence your color/tonal work is usable.

Neil

[Lucasenglund]

Hmm, i'm actually not sure about that as the colors in every other program than Premiere changes when i switch color profile on my computer. That's how i preview and work on photos that are going to be printed in a specific ICC profile.

So, i guess i will have to get a sRGB display until Adobe releases support for color management within Premiere just like in AE.
I don't get why i would need to test my exports on a tv monitor if i have a monitor that shows the correct colors in Premiere though?
Cuz that's what i do now. I grade my work, export the shot to view it as it will look, and then go back to tweak it. It's a nightmare

[Conrad C]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/R+Neil+Haugen  wrote

Your fancy Mac doesn't give you the options to set color profiles either. I notice people tend to complain about Adobe not offering options when their gear doesn't allow options either. Seems strange to me, both ends could ameliorate the problem.

That's not quite what's going on; it's kind of a subtle but important distinction. Both Windows and macOS do allow you to apply a display profile, in very similar ways (system settings). But that won't solve this problem. The job of a display profile is to tell the system what the actual gamut of the display is. In other words, applying a profile only describes the behavior of a display, but can't change it. As in Windows, if you have a display that is not sRGB and you apply an sRGB profile to it, you're giving the system incorrect information about the display and color will probably look wrong. So setting color profiles in the system does not solve this problem on Windows or Mac.

What would actually make Premiere Pro look right is to change the actual gamut that a Mac P3 display shows, to be able to switch it to sRGB in hardware. But this a rare feature on both Windows and Mac. No Mac with a built-in wide-gamut display is able to restrict its gamut to sRGB, but the Microsoft Surface Studio desktop appears to be able to. The usual place that you find this feature is on better wide-gamut third-party displays like the NEC SpectraView, BenQ SW, or Eizo CG lines; you can switch between wide gamut and sRGB (and sometimes Rec.709) in the display, and that works with both Windows PCs and Macs.

But because it's so rare to be sitting in front of a monitor where you can switch the gamut in hardware, the best solution for most Premiere Pro users would be for Premiere Pro to support color management like After Effects and the Adobe non-video applications (Photoshop, Illustrator...) have for years. Or to hook it up to a display known to be hardware calibrated to sRGB/Rec. 709.

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks for the knowledgeable correction/addition and advice!

So ... yea ... what he said! 

Neil

[mssngpeces]

@lucase8052786

Hey guys. I'm stuck on the same issue. Just purchases a new iMac for the purpose of premiere editing and am shocked that I can't figure this out. When I export, I get dramatic gamma shifts compared to the preview image in premiere. I've tried to calibrate my mac and have used the sRGB profile that the computer comes with. That seems to help with the difference between the preview and the export, but I am still getting a dramatic shift when I watch the video on say an iPhone. Everything seems to be darker and more saturated when on my mac vs other displays.

Is there no answer? How are colorists works with these new iMacs? What can I do?

[Lucasenglund]

The problem is within Premiere, not you iMac.

It doesn't matter what display profile you use on your iMac as Premiere will ignore it as it's straight Rec 709 no matter what.

I've got the same problem. So my solution until Adobe fixes color management for Premiere (Like AE, PS etc has) is that i'm buying a regular sRGB monitor online. Uses it for three weeks, getting it refunded and sending it back, then ordering a new one from another store.
I don't wanna buy a separate monitor when i've got an iMac Pro for $8 000, so that's my solution until Adobe fixes the problem, haha.

It works with our customer laws in sweden, not sure about your country.

[chrisw44157881]

in a pinch, a transform lut p3 to rec. 709 would work, but you'd have to combine it with a calibrated lut as well or on top since color profiling is disabled.

[R Neil Haugen]

The problem is within Premiere, not you iMac.

So, the machine has no user controls, costs about 2-3 times as much as an equivalent PC for gear, and .... it's not the fault of the gear ... or the person ​choosing​ the gear. A fascinating viewpoint.

Understand, I'm also advocating for giving the user control management settings ... we do need them. I'm just not so enamored of spending so much for such a limited machine that's not very user-friendly for mods & configuration. Apple ​used​ to make great gear for the graphics artist.They're into Devices now, not the real pro graphics artist. Which is quite sad, even for a pc person like me. That was so cool.

But every bodies mileage always varies.

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

How are colorists working with the new iMacs? Quite a few, quite bluntly ... aren't. Colorists have  been about the most Mac-centric group around. But after five years without any new serious gear, and so many changes in the software/cameras/codecs, most of the colorists I know have not only abandoned the very limited Mac world, but are teaching it at NAB & other places. For the same cash, you coulda got a real monster built. Much heavier specs. Ah well.

Robbie Carman, among many others. And he was about as Mac-centric as you can get.

So ... you chose to buy an expensive machine that comes blatantly with severe limits on what you can do with and to it. And want the software to make up for the lack of controls in that limited machine. To me, that seems like buying a low-slung racing car and then being surprised it can't do off-road rutted tracks stuff. But realistically, if you've been in that multiverse all your life, it probably seems normal. Sadly, Apple used to really provide support for the graphics arts area, which was cool. But now, they're into "devices". Again, sad to see.

That said, PrPro does need to start offering color management controls for the users, especially with HDR coming ... and it is coming, soon. Unlike 3D, HDR is actually becoming used in consumer broadcasts. Wider gamuts also are making their way into consumer gear, so at some point, the sRGB of Rec709 won't be The Standard for professional video.

So pile onto the user voice feedback system asking for color management settings in PrPro. Search for color management controls, you'll probably see a number of requests to add your voice to.

Neil

Adobe Bug /Feature Request form: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro

[TKX_0104]

Same problem! i buy iMac Pro and I noticed this problem...

in my thunderboltdisplay is working normal, but in imacpro monitor it gets saturated...

another thing I realized was when imacpro started. in the login part at the beginning gets saturated ;(

[R Neil Haugen]

You have to check out the gear and the needs you're working with before purchasing. I would never buy a monitor without knowing what color space it works in, how it does relative to colors of the spaces I need, the gamma, all that. Even for my UI monitor, I know what the color/gamma is going to be. The 'confidence' monitor used for Mercury Transmit is the more crucial, and must be up to what I need, but I'll even be close with the main UI monitor.

That said, the only two places I'm totally concerned are 1) that confidence monitor and 2) what the scopes show. And the UI monitor ain't gonna be nearly as tight as that other one, so I don't judge anything by how it looks in the Program monitor on the UI interface.

Neil

[TKX_0104]

your answer does not solve this problem ;(

If the problem is on the monitor, that's okay.

but if the problem is in the software or some bug, I'd like it to be fixed.

[R Neil Haugen]

If you've read through this and other threads on this, there is a lot of information there.

If you are doing pro level video post, monitors need to have the correct color profile as a fairly native hardware situation for the media and market you are working in. Both for color and gamma besides a brightness of around 100 nits.

Broadcast specs internationally are based on BT(Rec.) 709, which is sRGB and gamma of 2.2/2.4.

With appropriate calibration you can adjust a monitor to tighter specs, but you can't really make a monitor built for P3 into a great monitor for Rec709.

If you check out the high-end Flanders monitors for instance they are built for specific standards of Rec 709 and now a couple for Rec2020 I think and HDR.

With the controls of say Resolve, the app can attempt to show say Rec 709 on a P3 monitor but it would never be close enough to trust for delivery.

So while a bit more user controls  (which we should have) would make the situation easier, an editor still needs to know what standards they are delivering to and have the appropriate hardware to meet that standard.

Past that, Firefox is the only correctly color-aware browser, VLC and Potplayer for video players, and YouTube can sometimes re-encode PrPro exports properly and sometimes doesn't.

And in the end, all you can do is be sure your gear meets the standards so you create material that matches other pro content. Understand it will never ever look like it does on your screen on any other screen. But if you meet standards, your material will look like other pro produced content on those screens.

Then let it go into the wild where you have no control, and get to work on your next project.

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

HI,

A P3 to Rec.709 LUT applied to an adjustment layer over your entire sequence will help you get WYSIWYG color control. You can check the results in VLC (not QuickTime Player). If that does not work for you, please let us know.

As others have said, a broadcast monitor attached to your system is another way to check real world color.

You can also make a feature request for better color management in Premiere Pro here: Premiere Pro: Hot (1271 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

Regards,
Kevin

[davids19419774]

I'm sure that feature requested has been made a lot in the past few years with no one from Adobe saying if we're ever going to get the request done

[R Neil Haugen]

They're a publicly traded company. They take the law that they can't do things to affect the value of stock seriously ... including that they never talk about what's coming until it's here. Kind of a pain, but that's clearly what their legal department insists on.

From the talk at NAB, the engineers are clearly aware how fast HDR/DolbyVision and wider-gamut screens are coming toward usability in broadcast work. This app is clearly built around b-cast standards. The standards are changing. I think it's pretty safe to expect they'll change the app at some point.

And totally safe to predict we won't have a clue until it "drops" at maybe midnight US PST some day. They've been dropping at typically some major event like Adobe MAX (October, this year) or NAB-Vegas (April). IBC in Amsterdam is what ... next week or two? Could be we see something this fall, could be next spring or fall ... or the year after that.

Like waiting for Christmas presents except you don't have a clue when Christmas is ... sigh.

Neil

[davids19419774]

I understand they can't menion anything, it's just a pain having got an expensive iMac at work (another reason I hate Macs) and not being able to use it properly.

Will my colours display the same as they do in premiere on non P3 displays? So if i send my videos to clients and they view it on an srgb monitor will they see what I see in Premiere? Or will it still be washed out?

[Jim_Simon]

I understand they can't menion anything

Actually with the new User Voice system, Adobe can and often does post the status of the work they're doing on any particular Feature Request or Bug.

[Jim_Simon]

not being able to use it properly.

You are able to use it "properly".  The proper use for the GUI display is to view content.  For proper quality control, you need one of the following

1. An I/O device connected to a calibrated display.

2. An export played from hardware to a calibrated display.

It's been said and I think rightly, "Grading by viewing the image in the GUI just doesn't work."

[davids19419774]

But for many people, who's company they work for can't afford all the extra items, or people with limited technical knowledge (like myself) this all gets confusing and hard work...

If everyone had a proper calibrated display then I can understand getting one but when only a small percentage do it seems like it wouldn't do much anyway.

Even if I edited it on an sRGB monitor, then by what everyone's saying it will still show as washed out on the new Macs anyway because of the wide gamut and that's just what will happen until technology all catches up with eachother.

I've noticed what I see on my premiere screen is what I see on my phone and home computer and older Macs and other peoples work stations who don't use the newer macs, so it probably is just an issue with these crappy monitors (damn you apple)