Adobe just made the biggest update to Premiere Pro ever, and it fundamentally changes how you color grade video. I’ve been in the beta for over a year, and Adobe even flew me out to their headquarters to be part of the launch video for this update. So I’ve had a lot of time with it, and I’m excited to break it all down for you.
You can try it out right now in the latest Premiere Pro Beta. Here’s everything you need to know.
What Is Color Mode?
When you open Premiere Pro, it’ll look familiar at first. You’ve got your editing tools, your Import and Export modes up top (added back in 2022), but now there’s a new option sitting right next to Edit mode: Color Mode.
If you’ve been wanting more from color in Adobe Premiere, this is going to blow your mind. It’s a radical rethinking of how you color grade video, and it’s a really good one.
The first thing you’ll notice when you open Color Mode is that it looks completely different from what you’re used to in Premiere. The monitor window is huge, which makes sense since you’ll want to see all the details of your footage while grading. Your video clips from your sequence live on the right side, and you can scrub through everything using the playhead at the bottom.
One thing I love: you can switch between a single clip view and a grid view, and resize it however you want. So if you’re editing a wedding video and need to see the getting-ready footage alongside the ceremony clips at the same time, you can do that easily. It’s a huge help for keeping your colors consistent across a project.
And unlike DaVinci Resolve, where you’re kind of locked into a horizontal line of clips, all of these panels in Premiere are moveable. You can rearrange everything however you like, which I really appreciate.
The New Color Grading Controls
So how do you actually color grade? Down at the bottom, you’ve got a set of tools that look like abstract color wheels. But when you click on them, you get a lot more control than you might expect.
Click and hold on Contrast, and a detailed scope pops up right there. Adobe calls this a HUD (Heads Up Display), and it gives you a ton of data right where you need it. No more digging through a separate panel. You can also resize or move any HUD if you want.
Drag upward to increase contrast, downward to decrease it. Drag left or right to shift the pivot of the contrast point, which helps you dial in your highlights and shadows further. It’s basically a Lumetri slider, but with an extra axis of control.
The same logic applies to Exposure: drag up or down to adjust exposure, left or right to adjust the black level. You’ve got temperature, balance, and saturation controls too, all with color scopes built right in.
By default, you’re adjusting the entire clip, but you can also target just shadows, just highlights, or define a custom zone. You can even shift specific hues in your video by selecting a color at the bottom and dragging your mouse around. And if you want sharper footage, the detail tools let you boost texture or sharpness just by dragging.
It feels intuitive. If you’ve used color wheels before, you’ll pick this up fast.
But what if you miss the old Lumetri sliders? Don’t worry, they still exist. Just go back to Edit Mode, choose the Color workspace, and all your Lumetri controls are right there like before. That said, Adobe has told me that Lumetri is basically old news now. It’s not using their latest color technology. If you want the best of what Premiere has to offer for color grading, Color Mode is where you need to be.
Styles and Style Modules
Here’s where things start getting really interesting.
So far we’ve only been doing basic color corrections on a single clip. But if you click the plus button next to Adjustment and choose to add a Clip Style, you’ll get a whole new menu full of style presets. Think of these like super advanced Instagram filters, but with way more control underneath.
You’ve got cinematic presets, cool and warm options, lighting presets, black and white, boosted saturation, and a ton more.
Now, you might be thinking “okay Matt, this is just LUTs.” And that’s a fair assumption, but hold on, because these presets are actually made up of individual building blocks called Style Modules.
Click the Style Modules tab and you’ll see them all: Color and Contrast, Color Shift, Contrast Kit, Detail, Film Color, Flare, and more. Each one does something different, and you can mix and match them.
For example, the Contrast Kit gives you similar contrast controls but adds the ability to target just the highlights, which is super useful for recovering overexposed areas. The Film Color module lets you choose from popular film stock negatives and prints, then dial in the overall look, the midtones, shadows, and highlights separately. Add a Flare module on top for a subtle cinematic fade.
The key difference from a LUT: everything is non-destructive and fully tweakable. You’re not making blanket adjustments to a clip. Every module can be modified, minimized, or removed. And if you land on something you love, you can save it as your own style preset.
If you still want to use LUTs though, you absolutely can. Click the plus button next to Clip Adjustment, choose Add LUT, pick from your installed LUTs, and adjust the intensity. It all works right alongside the other modules.
For more on using LUTs in Premiere Pro, check out my post on how to use LUTs to color grade LOG footage in Premiere Pro.
Object Masking in Color Mode
Remember the Object Mask feature Adobe added to Premiere a while back? The one that lets you select any object in your frame and track it? That works in Color Mode too.
Add a new adjustment module, select the Object Mask tool, click on the object you want to change the color of, right-click to track the mask, and then use any of the color tools on just that object. It makes color grading specific elements in your video dramatically easier, and it only takes a few clicks.
Grading at the Clip, Selection, and Sequence Level
This is where Color Mode really starts saving you serious time.
Everything we’ve talked about so far has been at the clip level. But look over to the right of “Clip” and you’ll see two more options: Sequence and Sequence Style.
Select Sequence, go to your style presets, and start clicking through them. As you do, you’ll notice something wild: all of the clips in your sequence are being color graded simultaneously.
So instead of going back to the edit page, creating an adjustment layer, dragging it across your timeline, and then opening the color panel, you can color grade your entire sequence in just a few clicks. That’s huge.
Of course, not all your clips were filmed at the same time with the same light, so here’s the third option that makes this even more powerful. Go to your clips panel, click on the first clip you want, hold Shift and click to select a range (or hold Command/Control to select specific clips), and a new menu option will appear at the bottom left called Selection.
Click the plus button, add a style to just those selected clips, make your tweaks, and those adjustments apply only to the clips you picked. It’s easy to use, but also packed with depth. Genuinely impressive.
Why This Matters for Premiere Pro Users
Looking back at Adobe’s updates over the last few years, including Import Mode and Export Mode back in 2022 (which a lot of editors complained about), it’s actually starting to make a lot of sense now. They were building toward this.
And I’ll be honest: I haven’t always used words like “intuitive” or “exciting” to describe editing in Premiere Pro. But Color Mode feels both of those things. Adobe managed to walk a fine line here, making color grading approachable enough for editors who are new to it while also adding the kind of advanced features that pros expect.
There are also no nodes here. Adobe could have just looked at what DaVinci Resolve was doing and copied that workflow, but they didn’t, because a lot of video editors are intimidated by nodes and don’t want to learn them. If you’ve been editing in Premiere and wanted more advanced color grading without having to learn Resolve, you no longer have to leave.
And this is just the beginning. I can already see Adobe adding new modules and updates to Color Mode over time, which makes it even more exciting.
If you want to keep leveling up your video editing beyond color grading, check out my Edit Videos Like a Pro guide. It covers the biggest rules I follow as a video editor, and it applies whether you’re using Premiere Pro, Final Cut, or DaVinci Resolve. You can download it completely free.
And if you want to go deeper on color grading in Premiere Pro, check out my post on how to easily color correct and grade footage in Premiere Pro for more fundamentals.