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What colour science is happening in Adobe Premiere Pro CC?

Daniel Wieckmann

Daniel Wieckmann

Hi All,

I'm trying to find out what exactly is happening in the background of Premiere Pro CC with regard to colour. I have had a good look online and can't seem to find a clear answer to following:

- What colour space does Premier Pro CC operated in? (I've read RGB, but is there more to it than that?)
- What colour space is the image being displayed in when previewed? or Is this something that is just controlled by my monitor?
- What bit rate is the video being displayed at 8bit, 10 bit, 32bit?
- What Gamma is Premiere Pro working in? Is it similar to Final Cut?

These may be very stupid questions to some, but coming from working in Resolve and After Effects where I need to choose the colour space, display profiles etc... I'm a little lost as to what is going on in Premiere Pro CC.
 
Color processing: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/825920

After skimming through:
Premiere processes everything in 4:2:2 YUV, but converts to RGB 4:4:4...
a) For GUI Display
b) For RGB-based effects (then back to YUV again)
c) For outputs if export settings or the target file format require it

CUDA effects are always processed in 32-bit float.
Colorspace and Gamma are defined by your display.

Bit depth: http://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2010/06/understanding_color_processing.html
The timeline processes in 8-bit, but maximum bit depth is ultimately limited by your source footage.
Checking Render at Maximum Depth in the Video Previews or Render dialog will promote either one to 32-bit float to take advantage of source footage over 8-bits.

Interesting question. Hopefully this helps, but it's 2AM, so I might have missed something.
 
Regarding color space and display profiles I think Premiere Pro CC of later breeds always expects Rec 709. I think the "Mercury Transit Engine" defaults to Rec 709 always and I don't think that can be changed. I also think anything not going through the "Mercury Transmit Engine" is completely RAW and isn't color managed at all.

On a side note when doing "realtime processing" with their Mercury engine you are NOT seeing full quality. I've seen instances where the picture "jumps" a little after pressing stop and this is due to internal "better performance" vs "best quality" solutions. According to a contact I have with Adobe "in most cases you won't notice this", which is true, but it some you do. Especially when dealing with high resolution graphics or high contrast / colorful scenes.
 
Jason Myres said:
Color processing: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/825920

After skimming through:
Premiere processes everything in 4:2:2 YUV, but converts to RGB 4:4:4...
a) For GUI Display
b) For RGB-based effects (then back to YUV again)
c) For outputs if export settings or the target file format require it

CUDA effects are always processed in 32-bit float.
Colorspace and Gamma are defined by your display.

Bit depth: http://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2010/06/understanding_color_processing.html
The timeline processes in 8-bit, but maximum bit depth is ultimately limited by your source footage.
Checking Render at Maximum Depth in the Video Previews or Render dialog will promote either one to 32-bit float to take advantage of source footage over 8-bits.

Interesting question. Hopefully this helps, but it's 2AM, so I might have missed something.
Click to expand...


Hi Jason,

Thanks so much for your reply. I'll have a good read and post any new findings.

P.S
I'm a huge fan of the coloristos colorcast, my only complaint is the long wait between each one! I want more:) Keep up the great work and pass my gratitude onto Juan & Josh!! Thanks again!
 
Erik Lindahl said:
Regarding color space and display profiles I think Premiere Pro CC of later breeds always expects Rec 709. I think the "Mercury Transit Engine" defaults to Rec 709 always and I don't think that can be changed. I also think anything not going through the "Mercury Transmit Engine" is completely RAW and isn't color managed at all.

On a side note when doing "realtime processing" with their Mercury engine you are NOT seeing full quality. I've seen instances where the picture "jumps" a little after pressing stop and this is due to internal "better performance" vs "best quality" solutions. According to a contact I have with Adobe "in most cases you won't notice this", which is true, but it some you do. Especially when dealing with high resolution graphics or high contrast / colorful scenes.
Click to expand...


Thanks Eric! I'll continue to investigate:)
 
Bump for 2016, with a question... Does the newest current version of Premiere (9.1.0 in CC 2015 as I write) support editing DCI P3 source footage, or does Premiere still assume rec709?
If Premiere does now support a DCI P3 pipeline, does anyone have any experience with it and is it a clean pipeline or are there color shifts/degradation/etc?
Thanks,
John
 
John Pilgrim said:
If Premiere does now support a DCI P3 pipeline, does anyone have any experience with it and is it a clean pipeline or are there color shifts/degradation/etc?
Click to expand...

What purpose would you have for having to edit entirely in a P3 environment? I think it would make more sense to use an external Rec709 -> P3 LUT to get there, or at least do the final conform for DCI with a compliant platform like Resolve or Nucoda or Mistika or Lustre or whatever. My opinion is that it doesn't make sense to do the final conform in an NLE per se.
 
This is really common problem these days:"we can not shoot log/raw as we do not see the actual image, how do you expose like this?"

"we can not edit as it is pale"

Seems like lack of imagination or just the ability to work like this.

Story is still there despite the colors?
 
Marc Wielage said:
What purpose would you have for having to edit entirely in a P3 environment? I think it would make more sense to use an external Rec709 -> P3 LUT to get there, or at least do the final conform for DCI with a compliant platform like Resolve or Nucoda or Mistika or Lustre or whatever. My opinion is that it doesn't make sense to do the final conform in an NLE per se.
Click to expand...
I completely agree. I didn't set up the post pipeline on this project and am just trying to help some colleagues stay out of trouble / keep their film looking good. The colorist isn't available for final conform and the editor doesn't do Resolve.
 
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