Color faded when exporting ProRes MOV

[Micah Buzan]

Recently I've noticed the color is extra desaturated and washed out looking when exporting ProRes MOV. I don't know how much this could be on Quicktimes side, but I really hope there is a solution to this.

[slowtiger]

This should not happen at all. Can you please add info about your system? viewtopic.php?t=6167

[Micah Buzan]

iMac 27-inch, 2017. Memory 64GB.
Using TVPaint 11.5 Pro

Gamma shift is unfortunately normal when exporting to quicktime mov, but it's gotten much worse since TVPaint no longer has the option for "Million colors +" when exporting premultiply alpha. The colors are noticeably more washed out.

[D.T. Nethery]

Recently I've noticed the color is extra desaturated and washed out looking when exporting ProRes MOV. I don't know how much this could be on Quicktimes side, but I really hope there is a solution to this.

Gamma shift is unfortunately normal when exporting to quicktime mov, but it's gotten much worse since TVPaint no longer has the option for "Million colors +" when exporting premultiply alpha. The colors are noticeably more washed out.

Edited- 10/10/2022 -

I have noticed the same thing. I have wondered if it had something to do with the FFMpeg ProRes 4444 codec that TVPaint now uses instead of the Apple ProRes 4444 codec. FFMpeg ProRes is not exactly the same as Apple ProRes in Quicktime (which allowed the option of Millions of Colors+.) Although we are often told "Quicktime is dead" it seems some applications such as Adobe AfterEffects and Toonboom Harmony continue to use Apple ProRes Quicktime codecs, which seem to have more consistent results than FFMpeg ProRes in terms of color fidelity.

After Effects: Option of setting color depth to Millions of Colors+ is still available:

After Effects Export Quicktime ProRes Millions of Colors.PNG (79 KiB) Viewed 4697 times

https://docs.toonboom.com/help/harmony- ... macos.html

Toonboom Harmony export options with ProRes codecs does not show the option of setting color depth to Millions of Colors+ , but it does use the original Apple ProRes codecs , not FFMpeg -

Screen Shot 2022-10-10 at 10.00.42 AM.png (28.56 KiB) Viewed 4689 times

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2nd Edit - 10/10/2022 - -

I ran a few tests just now to confirm what I'm seeing. With FFMpeg ProRes I definitely see a color shift ; the colors in the exported .MOV file are lighter, not as saturated or vibrant. I confirmed this by loading the .MOV file in Photoshop and After Effects, then using the eyedropper tool to sample various colors. The RGB values are different in the .MOV (exported with FFMpeg ProRes) than in TVPaint.
However, when I switched to using FFMpeg PNG (Lossless) codec the colors in the exported .MOV retain the same RGB values as the original colors in TVPaint, although as displayed in TVPaint my perception is that the colors in TVPaint look a bit more saturated/vibrant than in the exported .MOV file (both with FFMpeg PNG Lossless and FFMpeg ProRes, so this may be a display issue in TVPaint or it's a problem with the color space calibration of my monitor. (?) My experience with Apple ProRes 4444 is that it had better color fidelity than FFMpeg ProRes 4444 . I wish it was possible for Mac users of TVPaint to still use Apple ProRes codecs using the Apple AVFoundation framework, which is pre-installed with macOS. (or perhaps some additional tweaking could be done with FFMpeg ProRes?)

[Micah Buzan]

Thanks for the detailed test and response D.T. Nethery!

Do you know if there's a way to get Millions Color+ back or any other work around when exporting from TVPaint?

I'm working on a client project that has specific color instructions, so this is giving me some problems.

[D.T. Nethery]

If I had a client specifically requesting files delivered as ProRes 4444 (with Millions of Colors+) I have an older Macbook running Mojave , which is the last MacOS that will run 32bit apps, so I have a copy of Quicktime Pro 7 and TVPaint 11.0.8 (32bits) which will export to Quicktime ProRes 4444 codec. For a period of about 3 years I was working on and off on a project where the compositor specifically wanted the files delivered in ProRes 4444 , so that's why I stayed on Mojave for so long, because I could still load up TVPaint files that I had worked on in 11.5 into the older version 11.0.8 (32bits) to export to Apple ProRes 4444.

Now, working on MacOS Monterey with TVPaint 11.7 I think the best option is FFMpeg PNG Lossless codec. I think AVI RGBA gives good results , too , but I usually use MOV instead of AVI.

[Micah Buzan]

That's exactly what I ended up doing haha. I have a 2011 iMac with the 32 bits version of TVPaint on it. So I'm swiping files between my two computers. Kind of annoying, but at least my old iMac is getting the dust wiped off it now.

[D.T. Nethery]

Here is some more info (which ,frankly, puzzles me).

Export in AVI RGBA mode produces excellent color fidelity, but the file sizes are HUGE compared with FFMpeg MOV ProRes (lossy) or FFMpeg MOV PNG (lossless).
Surprisingly the file size of FFMpeg ProRes (lossy) is significantly larger (36.6 MB) than the FFMpeg PNG (lossless) file (9.7MB).
This is odd , because as I understand it , the intention of ProRes is to produce high-quality video at a lower file size to facilitate editing without getting bogged down with very
large files sizes. So I would think ProRes (lossy) files should be smaller than PNG Lossless files.

Screen Shot 2022-10-12 at 11.37.15 AM.png (38.17 KiB) Viewed 4627 times

Also, it seems to make a difference depending on what video player is used to view the exported MOV file. Quicktime Player X will not open FFMpeg PNG (lossless) at all. However,when Quicktime Player X opens FFMpeg ProRes (lossy) the colors look dull and washed out. BUT ... when I open the same FFMpeg ProRes (lossy) file in DJV2 Video Player the colors look vibrant and saturated, the same as in TVPaint. In fact, using the Color Picker in DJV2 Player it shows that the RGB values of the FFMpeg ProRes MOV file match the RGB values of the color palette in the original TVPaint file. (in fact , to my eye the colors look a tad more vibrant in DJV2 PLayer than in the original TVPaint file, but the Color Picker says they are the same RGB values.

Compare to how washed-out the FFMpeg ProRes file looks when opened in Quicktime Player X alongside the original TVPaint file.

(click on image to view larger)


So, the video player you use to view the exported MOV file definitely makes a difference. FFMpeg ProRes files in Quicktime Player X look dull and washed out , but the same FFMpeg ProRes files in DJV2 Player look vibrant and saturated . VLC Player also has vibrant/saturated colors when playing back FFMpeg PNG (lossless) , but VLC will not open FFMpeg ProRes (lossy) files exported from TVPaint.

Apple ProRes 4444 and Apple ProRes 422 files exported from AfterEffects and Toonboom Harmony have no problems opening in Quicktime Player X or VLC Player or DJV2 Player.


.

.

[Jeremy Richard]

Quicktime Player X will not open FFMpeg PNG (lossless) at all. However,when Quicktime Player X opens FFMpeg ProRes (lossy) the colors look dull and washed out.

Your problem might be the "Quicktime gamma shift".
As far as I understand, it's only happening in Quicktime Player where, when the gamma value of the prores file generated by TVPaint is 2.4 (or also called BT.1886), Quicktime plays it with a value of 1.96, and that difference creates a colour shift.

VLC will not open FFMpeg ProRes (lossy) files exported from TVPaint.

It could be because the file doesn't have an audio track. The same happens with my animation files.

As an alternative to VLC there's MPV with which you can use the keys , (comma) or . (full stop) to go one frame backwards or forwards. And it can play the ProRes videos generated by TVPaint.

FFMpeg ProRes is not exactly the same as Apple ProRes in Quicktime

As a side note, if a delivery specification specifies "Apple Prores" as a delivery format (like with Netflix, for example) it is maybe worth checking that, whoever generates the specifications, really mean the native codec and not the ffmpeg version (which is reverse engineered). I've not experienced it myself but it could maybe be a reason for the deliverable to be rejected.

[D.T. Nethery]

As an alternative to VLC there's MPV with which you can use the keys , (comma) or . (full stop) to go one frame backwards or forwards. And it can play the ProRes videos generated by TVPaint.

Thanks for the link to MPV. I had not tried it before. It works very well for stepping through video one frame at a time , forward or backwards.

[Jeremy Richard]

It works very well for stepping through video one frame at a time , forward or backwards.

Indeed.

You can also loop the entire video using SHIFT + L

Or if you want to loop a specific section of the video:

1. press L a first time to determine your In point,
2. then press L a second time to setup your Out point.
3. And press L a third time to clear the loop (they call it an A-B Loop)

By default the player closes at the end of the video, so if you want to keep MPV open after the video has been played, you need to use that command in the configuration file:

Code: Select all

keep-open=always

The mpv.conf file is a simple text file (with the extension .conf) placed in

• /Users/username/.config/mpv/mpv.conf (on Mac)
• C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\mpv\mpv.conf (on Windows)
• ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf (on Linux)

You can also set the player to loop the video by default, changing the mpv.conf file with this line (if one doesn't want to use the SHIFT + L shortcut):

Code: Select all

loop-file=inf

And pressing the i key shows the metadata (codec, image size, etc.) of the file being played.

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Another player I found out about more recently is Keyframe MP. The demo version allows, amongst other things, to set up markers so to create a play range.

And it can play ffmpeg prores file generated by TVPaint also.