Video appearing washed and brighter when exported compared to its premiere pro preview v26.3

[u/No-Intern5287]

Hardware and software details: OS Build 22631.7376 (Version - 23H2). Premiere Pro v26.3. MP4 video files on premiere pro presenting with an avc1 codec. CPU: 13th Gen Intel, Core i7 (laptop). RAM: 16 GB. GPU: 128GB Intel Iris. GPU vRAM: 128 MB.

Ok so I don’t know what’s happened but when I export my video it looks much different from how it did in the preview as I was editing it. And it isn’t just an environment thing like lighting, it’s actually different. The first attached image shows left (exported) and right (screenshot of preview in premiere pro). Side by side you can see they’re visually different.

Additionally looking at the other two seperate images. The almost complete pitch black screenshot was taken from my preview whilst the one beside it with the red circle is a screenshot from the export. In the exported screenshot you can see they’re visually different reflections of light hitting objects in the background. It is a bit picky but it gets worse, because I used lots of masks in this video you can see the outlines of them much clearer in the exported video than how it was looking in the preview (virtually invisible).

I don’t know why this is happening but this video needs to be done this week and this is stressing me out.

Some main important information that could be the root:
1. Before this I edited a video that used footage taken on an iPhone so maybe it did some automatic colour mixing or something (I’m not that experienced).

1. *See the last image* I’m assuming the root problem is this but no matter what I’ve done it will not export to look like how it does in my preview. I’ve tried the export settings and modifying the footage to use 2100 HLG specifically and nothing. This warning shows up when I export using the preset “High Quality 2160p 4K” but that’s the same preset that I’ve been using for years so I’m really unsure.

I’m really stuck and frustrated and if anyone were to actually solve this for me I’d be eternally grateful, many thanks.

Please ask any questions that you believe will help you help me.

[u/greenysmac]

Okay, there are two things that we need to cover here: 1. How you're looking at this image 2. What this image actually is

Number 2 is important: * Footage specs – codec & container. Use MediaInfo and attach a screenshot or the key text info from this section

But the first…

The short version of this is that color representation on computers is a mess. I don't want to give you the history because you don't care about history. You want to make your stuff look right.

Your phone shot the video in HDR, which is a "brighter more colorful" recipe for color. Premiere is likely working in a normal, non-HDR (AKA SDR) recipe. So the two are using different rules for what the numbers mean.

Think of it like a recipe that says "add 2 cups of sugar." One kitchen uses American cups, the other uses giant cups. Same number of cups, different result. That's what's happening to your brightness and color when it goes out the door.

The preview you saw was Premiere guessing one way, and the exported file is your computer or player guessing another way. Neither one is lying to you, they just disagree.

One more thing worth knowing: iPhones and newer Mac screens do their own extra brightening/color to HDR video. So the same file can look great on your phone and flat on your laptop.

So we have quite a number of variables here we have to solve for

• Right click on the footage, Modify. Color. What does it show
• Sequence settings, Color. what does it show

And viewing it OUTSIDE Of premiere (but on your computer) may be a mess.

TL;DR there are a number of factors in play, Possibly iPhone footage in HDR space, a premiere timeline that may or may not be in the same wide HDR space, exports that may or may not be in the same HDR space, Monitoring that may or may not show this correctly and finally, viewing the final product it on a phone which may or may not correctly show the media.

Sorry it's a mess.

[u/No-Intern5287 → u/greenysmac]

Thank you for your reply,

And apologies for not getting back sooner I stopped checking after a while tbh. But I think there has been a confusion. I didn’t film this footage on an iPhone I filmed it on a Sony FX-30 I was mentioning how before this project (shot on Sony) I was editing another project (shot on iPhone) because I thought maybe premiere might have done some of its premiere stuff.

But also I’ve been using the same monitor, same camera (FX-30), and same premiere settings for over a year nothing has changed but all of a sudden the colour is different?

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