Improve Color – and Color Management – in Premiere Pro

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about how colors appear darker in Premiere than in other applications, such as QuickTime Player. The problem is color management.

“Color management helps you to achieve consistent color among digital cameras, scanners, computer monitors, and printers. Each of these devices reproduces a different range of colors, called a color gamut.

“As you move media from your digital camera to your monitor, the colors shift. This shift occurs because every device has a different color gamut and thus reproduces the colors differently.

“Color management translates the media colors so that each device can reproduce them in the same way. The colors that you see on your monitor are close to the colors in your printed image. All colors may not match exactly because the printer may not reproduce the same range of colors as the monitor.” (Adobe Help)

First, if you have modern hardware and a current version of Premiere, go to Preferences > General and turn on Display Color Management. (It is off by default.)

Second, Caroline Sears, with Adobe, has written an excellent blog on what is causing this problem and how to fix it.

You’ll find it here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/quot-why-does-my-footage-look-darker-in-premiere-quot-color-q-a/td-p/4788414