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Adobe Premiere Pro CC and other CC Suite 2021 products
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  • rheinpiratrheinpirat

    maybe this is useful:

  • VeskuVesku

    @rheinpirat

    Thanks. This is the theory but still I must ask again: What is the easiest way to mix 0-255, 16-255 and 16-235 clips so that the rendering is in legal range 16-235. Is there some automatic ways so that the Premiere reads "flags" or do I have to convert/adjust every clip individually?

  • rheinpiratrheinpirat

    Start sequence in studio swing as mentioned in Part 3.

  • VeskuVesku

    Start sequence in studio swing as mentioned in Part 3.

    ...And what then? How can i make all the different videos between 0-100 IRE?

  • LPowellLPowell

    @Vesku In Premiere Pro, some effects and plugins will preserve superwhites, others will clip them off. When making simple adjustments, I always try ProcAmp first, as it's also blazingly fast to render. The rigorous way to combine mixed-range footage is to pre-process all clips first in After Effects, with Color Management set to 32-bit Rec 709. AE will then automatically remap color values as needed, and you can use Color Finesse to measure and scale the gain levels to keep them within 100 IRE.

  • VeskuVesku

    @LPowell

    Thanks. I am not sure if this is the "easy way". I am actually asking this for my friend who has not much idea of video levels. I dont have Premier.

  • VeskuVesku

    I see lots of videos in Youtube with lost superwhites. I think many using Premier or Premier Elements dont figure how to save highlights from their camera to final video.

  • konjowkonjow

    I think easiest way is to use "3way color corrector" Set "in" and "out" range

  • caveportcaveport

    I did a series of tests in Premiere to see how it handles full range 0-255 (8-bit) video in a prores mov file which was rendered from Resolve. Premiere clips the highs and lows due to interpreting the prores format as video range 16-235. I have not found a way to stop the clipping. The Premiere effects tools all process AFTER the clipping has taken place. Premiere does not have an option to force the clips to be seen as video levels. If anyone has had actual hands-on experience with a solution, I would be keen to hear it.

  • spacewigspacewig

    They still haven't fixed the issue with ASIO drivers. Unbelievable for a company this size.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @spacewig

    I remember more than one case where Adobe managers told that they do not care until it sells.

  • LPowellLPowell

    @caveport

    The Premiere effects tools all process AFTER the clipping has taken place. Premiere does not have an option to force the clips to be seen as video levels.

    Premiere is sneaky. It tries to finesse the discrepancies between full range 0-255 and studio swing 16-235 video files behind the scenes. When all goes well, it will preserve superwhites (100-109 IRE) in full-range video files while working with them in its studio swing (0-100 IRE) timeline. However, you have to take care to use a full-range-compatible video effect to grade the highlights down below 100 IRE rather than clip them off.

    Here's a link to an article which explains the details. Basically, to preserve superwhites in a full range video file, don't drag it into a pre-existing timeline. Right-click on the video and select the New Sequence from Clip command. With timelines you create this way, you can drag other full-range videos into the timeline without clipping the highlights to 100 IRE.

    http://wolfcrow.com/blog/what-is-full-swing-studio-swing-and-how-to-work-with-video-levels-in-adobe-premiere-pro-part-three/

  • caveportcaveport

    @LPowell

    Thanks. The only issue is when one needs to add newly imported clips into an existing sequence. Premiere does not map the levels and so even with colour correction or Proc Amp tools the clip will not display the same as a clip that is mapped correctly. Yes there are workarounds, mine is to avoid Premiere unless I must use it for round trip grading work with DaVinci Resolve.

    It really annoys me that all the editing software packages available have faults and issues that cause post-production headaches. It's not like computer editing is new anymore. These kind of level mapping issues should never have happened.

  • LPowellLPowell

    @caveport Most reliable approach with Adobe SW is to preprocess mixed-range clips through After Effects, and dynamic link the AE composition to your Premiere sequence. That eliminates the intermediate render, but doesn't play back in real time in Premiere. With 4K footage, I pretty much have to resort to proxies anyway, so the AE detour is not much more of a hassle.

  • konjowkonjow

    While ago I thought I understand rang flags in Premiere: Mov Pres -full range. Mp4 16-235. After the last post I will not try anymore - too big hassle for me.

    As a ex FCP7 user Im still on mac but on Premiere since few years. This tests rally suppressed me! I did try FC X when realised. Unfortunately I was too old for its "smart" workflow. (Imovie pro way) Pity... they (PP and FC) do not meet on the midl workflow/performance (flags) ;(

    ITS ABOUT PREMIERE VS FCX PERFORMANCE

    It is not about Mac vs Pc for me! You can skip first half of video

  • caveportcaveport

    @LPowell "Most reliable approach with Adobe SW is to preprocess mixed-range clips through After Effects, and dynamic link the AE composition to your Premiere sequence. That eliminates the intermediate render, but doesn't play back in real time in Premiere. With 4K footage, I pretty much have to resort to proxies anyway, so the AE detour is not much more of a hassle."

    That workflow is no good when I have a show with over 800 clips in it. I don't have the time to mess around when my turnaround time is less than 12 hours. Many jobs arrive for grading as Premiere projects and the editor has not been able to adjust levels on import. Some jobs do not have the time to round trip to Resolve so we need to grade in Premiere. Adobe just need to add a setting in the "Interpret Footage" panel to force levels to be read appropriately when the source material can't be identified by Premiere correctly. Avid can do it, DaVinci Resolve can do it, FCPX does not clip the levels when it gets it wrong. Having to do a workaround for this is ridiculous and inefficient.

    Dynamic linking breaks the round trip process for grading in Resolve too!

    Thanks for the ideas, but in a tight turnaround professional workflow (which is every day for me) these kind of workaround solutions mean we lose customers because we can't meet deadlines.

  • LPowellLPowell

    @caveport

    Adobe just need to add a setting in the "Interpret Footage" panel to force levels to be read appropriately when the source material can't be identified by Premiere correctly.

    Agreed, but Adobe refuses to admit it's even a problem, much less provide a user-oriented solution.

  • VeskuVesku

    What is actually video level "flag"? Inside video file is somewhere VUI (video usability info) flag for full range or limited range. Can I see the VUI flag somehow? Is it in video exif? What a player or editor does with that flag? Does the Premier do something when a file has a flag? Is there always a level flag in video file?

  • VeskuVesku

    Is this an automatic way to "legalize" rendering output?

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/legal-luma-chroma-levels-premiere-pro-cc-2015-simon-walker

  • caveportcaveport

    Correct levels interpreting & legalising are completely different things.

  • VeskuVesku

    @caveport

    Correct levels interpreting & legalising are completely different things.

    Can you explain? Do you mean correct levels are image adjusting and legalising is video level range thing?

  • caveportcaveport

    If a video file has levels from 0-1023 then an editing software needs to remap them to 64-960 if the editing sequence settings are set to that range. If not, then manual adjustment is necessary but it's quite difficult to achieve the exact same visual appearance as the correct mapping, due to colour tools not matching the exact same process. It will look like a gamma shift.

    Legalising is making sure that the final output media does not exceed the broadcasters delivery specification for Luminance, chrominance and RGB gamut 'overshoots'.

  • LPowellLPowell

    @Vesku @caveport Bear in mind that the 8 or 10-bit levels encoded in an H.264 file are not static RGB values. They are variably-quantized YUV levels scaled relatively within each macroblock. When loaded into a video editor, these YUV components are converted into 10-bit (or greater) RGB values that may be scaled either to full range (0-1023) or studio swing (64-960), without loss of image quality. An optional VUI metadata flag that indicates whether the video is full range may appear in the file, but the encoded data remains the same regardless.

    In Premiere Pro, all clips are automatically scaled to studio swing when placed on a timeline (the source clip is left unaltered). Problems can arise when Premiere misidentifies a full range video clip as being a studio swing video with superwhite levels in the range 100-109 IRE. Depending on various historical blunders, these superwhites may be inadvertently clipped off to 100 IRE. Take care as Premiere will not warn you when this happens.

  • VeskuVesku

    Problems can arise when Premiere misidentifies a full range video clip as being a studio swing video with superwhite levels in the range 100-109 IRE. Depending on various historical blunders, these superwhites may be inadvertently clipped off to 100 IRE. Take care as Premiere will not warn you when this happens.

    Almost all consumer camera videos contains superwhites. The result is clipped highlights with many or most Adobe users.

  • LPowellLPowell

    @Vesku Whether you call them "superwhites" depends on your frame of reference. Historically, H.264 was defined as an 8-bit studio swing format, and in that context the 100-109 IRE range contains superwhite image data. However, the H.264 standard has been amended numerous times and currently supports 10-bit full range formats (where max level is defined as 100 IRE) as well as the orginal 8-bit studio swing format.

    The problem with Premiere and other legacy editors is they attempt to finesse these technical issues behind your back, in an effort to make things appear seamless. The alternative would be to require each of us to learn the distinctions and correctly identify each file on import, which would most likely create even more confusion and mistakes. Adobe should've cleaned up the clipping problem long ago and provided manual override options in Premiere, much as they do in After Effects. Until then, check your scopes often!

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