To avoid confusion, this gamma shift issue only affects video on the Mac. It does not affect images or photo editing software like Lightroom, Capture One, Photoshop, etc.
Thanks for the explanation Todd. However I'm still confused! Is this Gamma shift problem affecting only Mac DISPLAYS, meaning someone using a Mac computer WITH a Mac DISPLAY? I use a Mac Studio with a TV for my monitor (thus NOT a Mac display) so am I still affected by this Gamma shift problem??? Do I need to click "Use Mac Display Color Profile for viewers" in Resolve, and /or use Rec709A ??? WHAT A MESS !!!!!!!!
I just did an export with Davinci Resolve and labeled it as REC 709 A. This was supposed to be a fix but it still looks different! Watching the film on a Mac, it looks correct in VLC Player. Looks the same as inside Premiere. But viewed in Quicktime, viewed on RU-vid and Vimeo through Chrome, I can see the gamma shift! This was supposed to fix it! Madness!
I should've watched this first. I was on YT all day figuring out why my videos are washed and how to fix it, and now I KNow. Thanks, Todd, for this! You are the greatest!
This is the best video that I have ever seen explain the dreaded gamma shift and Apple’s colorsync issue along with the confusing option of “Display Color Management” Thanks for this, Todd! :) Appreciate your efforts and time behind this.
Thanks so much for this! I came here as an inexperienced hobbyist trying to run some tests on my copy of Davinchi Resolve and playing the footage in VLC and Quicktime. I noticed that Quicktime was doing just exactly what you demonstrated whilst my video played beautifully on VLC. Now that I know that it's not me I'll just simply use VLC and give Quicktime a miss.
I spent an entire week downloading every compensation LUT I could find, turns out the best solution was to just do nothing and upload as is haha! Thank you for saving my Sunday morning!!
Hey Todd, very helpful story of Gamma. one thing that I can add to help is that if you calibrate a (hardware calibrated monitor) to a Rec709 with 2.4 gamma then you'll be seen exactly what you will see when exporting the video and previewing it in any QuickTime and web browsers, including vimeo, RU-vid, etc. It took me a long time to figure this out. but is the only way to accurately work. and color grade. I hope this helps others having this annoying issue.
A quick "fix" if you're running on Windows like me : Once the media's open in Quicktime Pro, go to Windows > sequence properties (ctrl+J), then click on the checked "video track", go to the "visual settings" tab and switch to "direct alpha" in the Transparency box down there. Don't forget to save the video as, so the settings will apply directly next time. I have it in French so I hope it translates into something like that. Hope it'll help, cheers
"Display Color Management" got me to the closest usable solution I think! Thank you for laying this all out. . .I was getting super frustrated endlessly reading about this. . .lol
Hey todd, first congrats for the channel and thanks a lot for this video. 🙌🏻 is so far the best video in youtube about this problem that we are all having with Premiere. You said that you edit your videos in your IMAC with Premiere too and I understood perfectly the 3 options suggested in the video, but which one is the one you use? because your videos on my apple devices have a very good color grading and looks really nice contrast and crispy. As the biggest problem would be that the videos would have less contrast and saturation on apple devices, i'm really curious to know how you do it to get a top quality like that in your videos. It would help me really, really a lot. I would appreciate it very much if you can tell it to me. Thanks a lot 🙌🏻 and keep it up with the channel. It is awesome ✌🏼
Apologies if this has been said, but a tried and true okay solution is viewing video in VLC which isn't subject to same level of gamma shift. It's not a great user-friendly app - and neither is QT anymore - but it's close to Premiere.
this will get you even more wrong colors on a mac P3 display, its not a universal "fix" as the rendition depends on many factors like your monitor profile etc
Hi Todd, Great video. You are the first one to let us know the reason behind the washed out video in Apple display. There is a work around in DaVinci Resolve. In the render panel, there is an option to tag the video gamma. If you choose the tag as Gamma 2.4. The rendered video on Quick time looks correct.
I have been in the post industry for 30+ years and this has been an issue since the beginning. Why can't this get fixed by Apple. Thanks for your expert analysis Todd.
I'm convinced there's still something we're missing here. I'm on an M1 MacBook Pro, and I've compared the color of THIS video in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. The color looks exactly the same in all browsers. No difference in gamma whatsoever in any browser. Firefox looks identical to the others. So either Firefox has changed the way it handles color, or something else is going on. Another factor is that when I view an h.264 file in Quicktime on my Mac--which was originally exported from a PC--it looks fine in Quicktime, viewing on my Mac... But then when I upload to youtube, it shifts gamma only at that point. Why would it look correct in quicktime, then get washed out only after uploading? Note: the same video file looks identical in both Quicktime and VLC. The only explanation that makes sense there is that there are flags set in the meta data of the video file... The PC is setting some sort of flag on export, which my Mac isn't setting. Otherwise the PC exported file should look different in Quicktime vs VLC. Whereas my Mac-exported video does look different in Quicktime vs VLC.
I agree that when viewed on Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, the colors look the same. I on the other hand a seeking colors look flat and blah in QuickTime. I never ever knew this was an issue until this week when I noticed how colors shift in both Premiere and After Effects. Very frustrating!
Thanks Todd - thats the most comprehensive breakdown of this issue. This issue has been driving me nuts for years (on and off) - great video sir - amazing
Great explanation of a problem that's been around for so many years, can't believe Apple never fixed this, so many confused users. I think the best solution is your third option, finding a middle way where the video looks ok in contrast on all screens. It's also critical to have a monitor you can trust, apple monitors are often to contrasty and a bit too cool in temperature.
thank you for this video. I'm a new content creator and just realised this issue today. I thought something was wrong with my video exports. appreciate it! 🙏🏼
Thanks Tod for explaining it in a way I haven't understood before. Nice to get the history of it. I ended up making my own contrast curve and comparing it between exported look and time line look and making a LUT from it. But I see that it might be bad for all the PC viewers. I shall test Rec 709-A to see what happens. Though I have to say when looking at movies from Netflix on iMac 5K it looks fantastic much better than the TVs I have seen it on. Thanks for this video, Tod!!!
Thank you, Todd! This was so helpful. Lately when I edited a music video I got so confused, when I had exported the file and saw this flat and unsaturated image. Now this all makes sense. Thanks! :)
Thanks for making this video! Color management is a headache! But what about changing your Retina display under the System Preference from P3 colors to sRGB colors? Will that help? When you know that your video is to be uploaded to the internet you know that its in a space with sRGB colors and a gamma of 2,2. So if you set your display to sRGB you will watch you video in the intended colors. Mac and iPhone users will not see the video online in the correct way I guess, because they have set their displays to P3, but most of the other users will. You want the colors to be correct for the majority of your users, and the majority of your users are not on an iPhone, but on some other android phone.
Todd - so well done! I've lost so much time trying to understand this, and you've made it extremely clear. Thank you! I suspect I know the answer, but can I ask a question? I'm using (2) LG sRGB monitors with Premiere Pro along with a 3rd monitor, a Samsung LED that uses Mercury Transmit for full-viewing previews. I've calibrated all (3) monitors with Calibrite, and have been happy with the picture match between monitors. I haven't been using Color Management in PP. Would you suggest that I turn it on, considering my set up?
Thank you for the video! Very difficult. Apple has an excellent display and operating system. But in order for everything to be clear, you need to switch to Windows?
Nice explanation! Unfortunately the LUT is not a solution for me. It fixes the color in Quicktime Player but if I open the same video in VLC it has way too much contrast. Basically: No gamma shift LUT -> Looks good in VLC & Bad in Quicktime Gamma Shift LUT- > Looks good in Quicktime & Bad in VLC Any solutions for that? :/
Great video… I finally understand the problem thanks to you… And of course there is no problem unless I know we’re going to the Mac. I use resolve mostly with 709 - A. so I guess now I understand when to use that and when not to use that. Yikes. Thank you for your great research.
Thank you very much for the very informative video! So... basically all the youtube tutorial videos I watch through my "macbook pro" about color grading are actually not what the creator intended the colors to be. So... if i liked someone's color grading style and I saw the video through my macbook, in theory I actually liked the washed out look/style. So in order to have a more accurate assessment of a video's color grading. I should watch the youtube video through my PC? Is this making sense? Thanks!
Ok so here is the question. I watched this video of yours on my phone , MacBook Pro and my tv and it looks flawless. My videos only look great on my tv. On my phone and Mac they still. Looked washed out, with the compensation lut applied. Any thoughts? TIA!!
Unfortunately the color management software in macOS / iOS and the Safari/Chrome web browsers use the brighter gamma. If you look at the same video in Firefox, it should look like your TV. Point here is that - unfortunately - there's no magic bullet. It will always look different no matter what you do. The best we can all do (as video creators) is adhere to the Rec.709 standard.
@@dominey I think what he might have meant is after talking about color management in this video, what workflow do you use? ie What do you do in Premiere to quicktime to youtube. Are you on a Mac?
How is it then that this video looks the same in both Safari and Firefox (on a Mac)? This very video implies that shouldn't be possible since one (Safari) forces gamma to 1.96 and the other (Firefox) doesn't. I made screenshots and pulled them into Premiere and the waveforms are nearly identical. Am I missing something? I know it's been awhile since you published this, but I really hope you'll answer this question, because this video is the best explanation of this phenomena I've seen yet. I felt like I understood everything, but now I'm confused again. Thanks for making this and great work!
Wow, this was so informative! Thank you so much for this! What's interesting is that I never had this gamma shift on my older Mac book pro. Only once I bought a new laptop did I start running into this issue. Any insight as to why that might have been? Perhaps I'm missing something. Regardless.. this was an awesome video!
Great video, I was so frustrated with this and thought I was doing something wrong with the export settings, hope apple fixes this in the near future 🤞🏼
Thank you so much Todd! I'd been looking for the answer to this and the LUT was still not fixing my videos. Another question for you... If you have a short film that will be viewed in a theater do you think it's appropriate to take the 1.09 effect back down to 1.0? I'm not sure what to output because this film will play online and at film festivals. Any suggestions much appreciated!
I've been using primarily Final Cut and occasionally Davinci Resolve and haven't noticed any weird color/gamut shifts. Am I doing something wrong? Am i just blind or didn't pay enough attention? :) Is it only applied to Adobe and if so, is it Adobe to blame if everyone else is doing it all correctly? Very good video regardless, interesting issue I didn't know about before. Really appreciate such quirky subjects, thank you for bringing it to light.
this is nuts! I spent close to 4k on a new imac so I can edit and render videos faster but I noticed all my exports look washed out , colorless ....and as you mentioned if I apply the QT conversion lut , the video will be darker...this is really irritating.. not only does it look washed out but it also looks pixelated like poor quality export, even when I export in QT Pro Res :(
Thank you Thank you! I notice the issue but didn't know or understand what was going on. I would like to know about how this impacts photos.....Also if you're doing a video about calibrating monitors please keep in mind that doing so would slow down browsing photos in Lightroom. I've experienced that and was unable to find a work around or unable to find an explanation for the slowdown.
Thanks Ruben. Photography isn't really affected by this. Gamma shift is something that happens with Rec.709 video using gamma 2.4. As long as you are saving your images using sRGB (which is gamma 2.2), you'll be fine.
@@dominey Thank you for the replay. love the content and all your insight. Already Subscribed. I still want to comment on your upcoming monitor calibration video. There is a comments feed recently where adobe acknowledged that calibrating your monitor could slow Lightroom down. I can provide a link if needed be. They recommend not using a new color profile but use the standard SRGB or AdobeRGB. Have you experienced this? Why calibrate your monitor if you can’t use the new color profile? Am I missing something? Again love the content and love all the insight you bring.
Well nice explanation, i like it i brought a macbook air m1 two weeks ago and i use it to edit photos with capture one pro software and i have also calibrated my macbook to gamma level of 2.2 for photo editing through spyder 5 pro calibrater. Now my questions are 1. Will my edited photos look les contrasty, if i have exported them and viewed them in preview or photos app. 2. I use safari to view instagram , does it also shows the photos little washed out. 3. What about watching netflix and youtube on safari.. I am new to apple ecosystem and after spending so much money on macbook and the calibrater. I am litte nervous now.. waiting for your reply Thank you
No need to be nervous. What I talked about in this video is particular to Rec.709 video using a gamma value of 2.4, which is what Premiere uses. Photography isn't affected by this. The main recommendation I'd have for photography is to make sure you're saving images using sRGB so they appear correctly on other screens.
Thank you so much!!! This thing was driving me crazy! In Da Vinci you can choose the gamma during the work, for products that only go on the web, or in any case not on TV / cinema, can it make sense, for you to, work with a 2.2 gamma in preview and rendering? It could give a preview more similar to what will be the actual displayed then on computer monitor, or this is useless? Thank you again!
Hey Todd, dont know if you still check comments on old videos, guess I'll try my luck tho: Is there a chance that we can turn off coloursync on mac to fix the issue?
Thank u so much for this video, this really helped me understanding a lot of color problem with quicktime, one question. theres any change of gamma or related using a 5K iMAC???
Technically yes, you can change the gamma of a Mac by changing its display profile (System Preferences > Displays > Color tab). That said, I wouldn't recommend changing it from its default 2.2 value. This is a standard gamma value for sRGB that is used across all desktops, laptops, phones, etc.
it's crazy that this is such an issue on Macs... most color professionals use Mac and we shouldn't have to use vlc to get the right colours using mov. Insane!
Do nothing this goes rec709 to broadcast and youtube. To view correctly on mac use VLC player. If you're using photoshop to create graphics and the graphics don't match the output, make sure you're using "Monitor RGB" under the View>Proof Setup menu to work in the same color space. How ever, Quicktime will always shift it. The funny thing is that it doesn't happen when exporting from Davinci and I wonder why. I would avoid LUTs by all means for now you would be compensating to the other side on non managed displays.
PS… So the solution for my clients will now be this… I will make a 709 -A copy for those who are on a Mac… and a regular 2.4 copy for those who are not looking at my work on a Mac. and I also have the premiere Pro lut.
It's just an issue with QuickTime Player. And nothing else. We are not doing anything wrong. I installed VLC Media Player on Mac and opened the exported video, it is showing exact same colours withoutany changes. We don't have to make any changes to our video on timeline.
I don’t use FCP, but from what I understand it natively uses the same 1.94 gamma described in this video. Which means what you see in FCP should be pretty much the same as what you see in QuickTime. So no, in that sense, I don’t believe you will see the same shifting as you do when using Premiere.
I have an issue where my video become totally black whenever i try to load this QT Gamma Compensation LUT. I have tried to load the LUT when i'm in the export settings and also when i put a layer on top of the whole timeline to load the LUT in lumetri color. But both ways resulting my video become black instead of increasing the saturation and black point to correcting the gamma. Does anyone know how to solve this? Thanks!
just wanted to ask if anyone knows of a web browser that is not affected by this issue? cos right now Firefox is also affected by the gamma shift. my videos only have the correct look in VLC and Resolve..
Hi Todd. I am experiencing a gamma shift between between 1080 and 4k versions when uploaded to RU-vid (exported as 1080 and exported as 4k. When i view the exported files on my mac and compare them to what i see in da vinci, they look exactly the same. Why would i be experiencing a gamma shift when uploading? Hope you can help. Thanks in advance.
I called Adobe and was asked to use VLC. This workaround is extremely annoying especially when I’m creating work that needs to be looked at by others. How can I ask all to download VLC?
@@ItsJustMeStevie yeah it is annoying. You could always upload unlisted to RU-vid for collaboration if compression isn’t an issue, has worked for me in the past.
@@ItsJustMeStevie and for clients you could send them the file and an unlisted RU-vid video, and let them know about the colour shift on quick time and that they’ll need to look at the RU-vid upload for accurate colours. Gotta do what you gotta do, apple isn’t gonna change anything for us any time soon.
