How To Fix Desaturated Colors In Your Adobe Premiere Pro Exports

Do your Premiere Pro exports look more desaturated and washed out than you see in the preview window? I've received many emails over the years from people having this issue, so here's how to fix it on Mac and PC.

Ending Music:
How Far We Can Go by Upstate
Licensed from Musicbed (linked below)

Music licensing sites I recommend:

I’m required to state that I'm a part of affiliate programs for Amazon, B&H, SoundStripe, ArtList, Musicbed, and Adobe and that some of the links above are affiliate links.

[jessechuff]

This works, but I also think it is inexcusable that this is an issue in video editing software marketed to professionals.

[whoismatt]

Hope this helps you if you've been having washed out colors in your exports from Premiere! 😁

[LaloRacer]

Wow! I've been looking for an effective fix to this issue for years! Thank you so much!

[rollofpv]

Thanks a lot for this! I feel like I've struggled with this issue since day one with Premiere on my Macs. However, when I first added this LUT and exported it didn't work. The exported video was too dark. So I went to Preferences > General > Enable Display Color Management and checked it. Now the LUT makes my exported videos look 98% like inside of Premiere. The hues are off in the green/magenta balance, but this is the best fix for this issue BY FAR. Just wanted to share that if anyone else tried this fix and it didn't produce the expected results. Thanks again. :)

[CANNOTDIEFILMS]

Hey Matt! This was very helpful. Like many others though, my footage was a bit too dark after the Adobe LUT fix. HOWEVER—I figured out how to perfect the formula:

I created an adjustment layer for my whole timeline called “Export Layer.” Then I made the following color corrections to this adjustment layer:

Temperature @ 3

Exposure @ 0.2 for “normal” clips
Exposure @ 0.5 for “darker” clips
Exposure @ 0.7 for “darkest” clips

Highlights @ -17

Shadows @ 14

Saturation @ 105 for all clips

Took me several tries to get it right, but my exports are looking extremely accurate to my Premiere preview window now!

Hope this helps.

[ChaseMurphy]

I've seen countless YouTubers offer this solution, but the final export still doesn't match the preview window. Sure it's darker, but it isn't the same grade in the slightest!

Is anyone still experiencing this issue in 2024? I haven't seen any update or fix from Adobe and am finally coming to terms with the fact Davinci Resolve may be my only solution. Please help!

[Ethobot]

Straight to the point, and well articulated. Thank you.

[ziggytrix]

For anyone on Mac OS X Mojave or later who gets a black screen in their preview (and a black screen in any renders too) when using this method, you may need to change your Renderer under File - Project Settings - General. For me, switching it from "Metal" to either "OpenCL" or "Software Only" does the trick. I suspect this is an issue related to older video card support going away on the newer OSes.

[langilledylan]

This is invaluable Matt, thank you! For those whose footage is turning out just a bit too dark with the LUT, this helped me: before color grading go to Premiere preferences > General and make sure Display Color Management is checked. This will adjust the view to your to your screen (and in my case, hopefully yours too, darkened it). I believe this darkening is happening at export but now that you have it enabled, you can accurately color correct and then your export with the LUT will work.

[Onlyusnevadem]

this video should be the first thing that pops up when searched. Still super helpful 3 years later

[joshitzkowitz]

Great fix. I used it via an adjustment layer in my timeline (added the lut through color correction to that layer) instead of applying it during export, and it worked perfectly.

[Musicaadorecchio]

I was one of those who asked you about this terrible issue. Thank you for having posted the solution.

[NotThePulla]

Much appreciated for creating a walkthrough on how to fix it. The most annoying part is that this is just another reason Premiere is infuriating and continuing to go in the wrong direction. You now have to add an extra render-slowing lut onto the footage just to make it look like its supposed to. Why wouldn't they have a check box in the render window for broadcast safe, than forcing everyone to just go that way and add extra steps to to reverse it. its like apple automatically adding the U2 album to every iphone

[laurenjankovskis]

You have saved my life SO MANY TIMES! Of the many, many, many YouTubers giving filmmaker tutorials on this platform you are by far the best. Thanks for all of your work and for your fun, laidback style of explanation. I owe a good 15% of my career to your advice at this point!

[lukestockman]

MATE! game changer! this was the best explanation ive seen for this issue, Ive been trying to fix this for AGES and this has been the most straight forward best way I have seen to fix it let alone how you explained it, thanks Matt! killing it as always mate!

[TacticalChristian]

WOW!! FINALLY!! I'VE SEARCHED THIS FOR OVER A YEAR AND YOU FINALLY FOUND A SOLUTION!!! THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME FROM SWITCHING TO FINAL CUT!!

[samantha]

dude.. you are by FAR the best person to learn from. thank you

[TaylorBrownPhotoVideo]

Wow! Super effective. It's weird that this is not just an option in the software already. I was trying to compensate by adding saturation / contrast in my grading but never ended up right after exporting. Thanks for the easy fix!

[Liz_Luke]

This also works for this issue in After Effects! Just export through Media Encoder (Composition > Add to Media Encoder Queue) and apply the same LUT in the export settings dialogue box (under the "Effects" tab - it looks in the same in AME as it does in Premiere, so this video will show you where it is).

[RobKellett]

Thank you for making such a professional, super simple, and to-the-point tutorial! It gets pretty annoying watching tutorials on YouTube sometimes when the creator stretches out 6 minutes of actual tutorial into 12 minutes just so they can get more watch time... You a real MVP! Straight to the point... and for that, I instantly subscribed :)