If your colors in Premiere Pro look different after exporting your video, I’m going to show you how to fix this fast, on both Mac and PC.
Fix Your Export Colors In 25 Seconds
The fastest way to fix your colors looking different in your exports is to open Premiere Pro and go up to File > Project Settings > Color. Then, for Viewer Gamma, change it to 2.2 (Web) and press OK.
Whenever you do this, you may see your colors shift slightly in the preview window, depending on which of these other settings you had chosen, and if you’ve already color graded your video you may need to go back through and tweak things a bit so they look their best. Once you do that though, and you hit export and render out your finished video, the colors in your exported video should match your preview perfectly.
And that’s it. You don’t have to read the rest of this. Have a great day!
Colors Still Looking Weird? Try This Fix
That said, in the event that changing this setting does not work, and whenever you go to export your colors are still looking washed out or desaturated or just weird, especially if you’re on a Mac using QuickTime to view your exported videos, please keep reading. We are not giving up. I have more fixes for you, and I’m going to explain why you’re seeing different colors in your exports and your previews.
Your next fix is to download a color correction that tweaks your colors and adds a bit more contrast and saturation so they look correct. This LUT was created by Adobe themselves, and all you have to do is download it for free right here.
Then, whenever you’re exporting your video from Premiere Pro, go down to the Effects tab in the export settings.
Select Lumetri Look / LUT, click the dropdown, select Custom, navigate to where you saved the .cube file, select it, press Open, and then export your video as normal.
Hopefully your exported video will now match up with the colors you’re seeing in the preview window.
Side note. If you’re overwhelmed by all of these export settings, and there are a lot of them, I want you to know I have a tutorial that shows you how to choose the absolute best export settings.
Why Your Colors Look Different When You Export
If your colors are still looking weird, stick with me, because you may have actually already fixed things and, depending on the program you’re using to play back your exported files, you may still think everything is broken.
I’m simplifying a ton here, but gamma, as in that Viewer Gamma dropdown, is a way for Premiere Pro to know how bright or dark to show the light and colors of your video in the preview window while you’re editing.
Whenever Adobe first created Premiere Pro, it was primarily an editing software made for creating videos that played on broadcast television. Think TV shows, The Price Is Right, game shows, sporting events. Stuff you watch on TV. That’s what Premiere Pro was made to edit.
So by default, for many years, Premiere Pro used a viewer gamma of 2.4 for broadcast television, which made shadows look darker, because Adobe assumed you were editing for TV. Your shadows would look great in the preview, but whenever you exported and watched on a computer monitor instead of a TV, the shadows looked washed out and not as dark and contrasty as you expected.
This was an issue for many years, and I remember complaining to Adobe in person about how they needed some sort of switch to change the gamma from broadcast to something meant for the internet, because the vast majority of people I know are not editing for broadcast television. They’re editing for YouTube or for clients, and it’s going to be watched on a computer or a phone.
Thankfully, with this dropdown you can now change from the 2.4 that was for broadcast to 2.2, which was meant for web. Or, alternatively, whenever you applied that Adobe color correction LUT from earlier, that was a more manual way of doing the same thing, shifting the colors from a gamma of 2.4 to 2.2.
A Mac Fix For Your Exported Colors
So you’ve switched things to web, and you’re wondering why on earth you’re still seeing colors that don’t match between your preview and your final export. That, dear editor, comes down to the final option in that dropdown, the one that says 1.96 (QuickTime).
You know how Apple likes to do their own thing and make their own products and their own software? There’s nothing wrong with that. But way back in the day, far before the iPhone was ever even an idea Steve Jobs had, before the iPod and the rainbow colored iMacs, Windows computers had already settled on a gamma standard of 2.2, which we still use today across the internet. And way back then, Apple decided to be different and make Macs use a standard of 1.96.
If a gamma of 2.4 has very dark shadows and 2.2 has lighter shadows, it stands to reason that 1.96 has even brighter shadows that look even more washed out.
And here’s the issue. If you’re editing on a Mac and you’ve correctly chosen a viewer gamma of 2.2, then whenever it comes time to export, if you use the default QuickTime player, or even the Mac preview that comes up when you hit spacebar on a video, that program is not using the same gamma of 2.2 you edited and exported with. It’s using 1.96, which makes the colors in that player look more washed out and desaturated.
But it gets worse, because if you take that exact same exported file and open it in a different player like VLC or MPV, those will use the correct 2.2 gamma and display your video just like it looked in your Premiere preview. And most importantly, whenever you upload that video to YouTube, it also plays back at 2.2 and looks correct.
It’s only when you view your exported video in QuickTime that things look wrong. So you may be thinking you have an issue with your exports from Premiere Pro when in reality they match your preview perfectly. You’ve just been using a video player with the wrong gamma.
Taking all of this back to that dropdown, the only time you’d ever want to select 1.96 (QuickTime) is if your client demands it, or if you’re exporting a video that is only ever going to be played back in the QuickTime application. Which feels very niche, but it also speaks to the power of Apple, in that Adobe offers a dropdown in Premiere Pro just for this.
My recommendation is to always select a gamma of 2.2 (Web), and in addition, use a different video player on your Mac. My two favorites are VLC and MPV. They’re both completely free and open source. They’re awesome.
How To Fix Your Colors On PC
Lastly, I hear you telling me, Matt, I sat through this whole rant about QuickTime and 1.96 gamma, but I’m on PC and my colors are still washed out and I definitely haven’t been using QuickTime on Windows. Do not stress. I have one more fix for you.
If you’re editing on a PC with a dedicated Nvidia graphics card, there’s a setting that may be giving you washed out colors in your exports. Open the Nvidia Control Panel, which you can get to by right clicking the Nvidia icon in the bottom right of your screen, then navigate down the bottom left to Adjust Video Color Settings.
Select your monitor at the top if you have multiple. Under “How do you want to make color adjustments,” pick With the NVIDIA settings. Go to the Advanced tab, and for Dynamic range, make sure it is set to Full (0-255).
This is essentially a setting where, if the card is set to Limited, it reduces some of the shadows you can see in your videos, which can make your shadows look more washed out in your exports. Setting it to Full should get you matching colors between your Premiere Pro preview and your exports. I’ve personally had this fix help me when I had washed out colors years ago.
Side note, if you do not see this setting at all, whether it shows up depends on the type of graphics card you have. It shows up for me on a desktop I custom built for video editing, where I bought a graphics card separately and put it in, but on a PC laptop I own that has a dedicated Nvidia graphics card, this option does not appear. I don’t know of any way to make it show up.
You may need to look into whether your computer manufacturer has a different program installed that’s affecting your colors. For example, Dell offers a program funnily enough called Premiere Color, no relation to Adobe Premiere Pro, and that can really mess with the colors you’re seeing on your screen. So I’d double check for a color shifting program like that and then tweak those settings.
Speaking of help, if you want more help editing your videos, I’ve put together a free guide called Edit Videos Like A Pro that shares some of my biggest tips for video editing. And that color correction LUT is free right here. If you want color presets that work great with Premiere Pro, mine are here.
And if you have a friend who is struggling with washed out colors, either on Mac or on PC, please consider sending this their way.