Comments [For After Effects CS5, see "ProRes 4444 and ProRes 422 in After Effects CS5".]
UPDATE
See “ProRes 4444 colors and gamma shift when working with After Effects and Final Cut Pro” for information about gamma shifts with ProRes4444 media.
If you’re working with Apple ProRes 422 media in After Effects, you may have noticed some undesirable color shifts. The most likely cause for such color shifts is the fact that After Effects by default doesn’t know how to interpret Apple ProRes 422 media. Specifically, After Effects doesn’t know what color space the color information in these footage items is in. When After Effects doesn’t know what color space a footage item’s colors are in, it has to pick something, and it goes with sRGB—which is wrong for ProRes assets, so the colors are misinterpreted.
Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to tell After Effects how to interpret these colors correctly.
The automatic way is to add a set of rules to your interpretation rules file. If you do this, then After Effects will automatically identify Apple ProRes 422 as such and interpret the colors accordingly. (You can also manually assign input color profiles to footage items individually, but trust me: it’s easier in the long run to edit your interpretation rules file and let the automagic work from there.)
For information on how to edit your interpretation rules file, see the last section of the “Interpret footage items” page of After Effects Help.
Add the following lines of text directly above the line “# this soft rule should be the last in the list of soft rules”.
# soft rule: Apple ProRes 422 720×480 & 720×486 are SDTV NTSC
*, 480, *, *, "apch" ~ *, *, *, *, "r6nf", *
*, 480, *, *, "apcn" ~ *, *, *, *, "r6nf", *
*, 486, *, *, "apch" ~ *, *, *, *, "r6nf", *
*, 486, *, *, "apcn" ~ *, *, *, *, "r6nf", *
# soft rule: Apple ProRes 422 720×576 is SDTV PAL
*, 576, *, *, "apch" ~ *, *, *, *, "r6pf", *
*, 576, *, *, "apcn" ~ *, *, *, *, "r6pf", *
# soft rule: Apple ProRes 422 HD is Rec. 709
*, 720, *, *, "apch" ~ *, *, *, *, "r7hf", *
*, 720, *, *, "apcn" ~ *, *, *, *, "r7hf", *
*, 1080, *, *, "apch" ~ *, *, *, *, "r7hf", *
*, 1080, *, *, "apcn" ~ *, *, *, *, "r7hf", *
[Note: Be sure to use a plain text editor (like BBEdit or Notepad), not a word processor, to edit this file. Line endings and invisible formatting from word processors can make the file not work correctly.]
The four-character codes apch and apcn denote ProRes 422 HQ and ProRes 422, respectively.
These rules assign ProRes media the appropriate color profile by looking at the vertical frame size to determine whether the media is NTSC, PAL, or HD. You could add a similar rule for 2k assets, etc.
After you’ve made these changes to your interpretation rules file, start After Effects. Your ProRes media will now be automatically be assigned the correct color profile.
Of course, assigning the correct input color profile to a footage item doesn’t help anything if you’re not using the color management features that use those input color profiles to convert colors into the project’s working color space (project working space). You must therefore also enable color management by choosing a project working space. (Choose File > Project Settings, and choose a working color space from the Working Space menu.) For information about color management, see the “Color management overview” section of After Effects Help, and the white paper and tutorials that it points to.
(update: When you render and export the movie out of After Effects, make sure that you’ve assigned an output color profile that is appropriate for your output. If you’re “round-tripping” back to ProRes 422, then you’ll probably want to assign the same profile to the output file that you used to interpret the input file.)
Hey Todd,Thanks for the post. I was hoping this would address some color & gamma shift issues we’ve been having taking HD ProRes 422 files from FCP6 to AE CS4, doing some compositing in AE, and then rendering out ProRes 422 to go back to FCP6. Try as I might, the steps detailed here don’t seem to have any effect on the footage.Adding the rules to the interpretation file DOES successfully instruct AE to interpret ProRes files using the REC 709 profile, but setting up the project as as a 16 bpc/REC 709 project, and having the ProRes files interpreted thus, still creates the color shift when taking rendered ProRes 422 material (rendered using the REC 709 color profile) back to FCP. I gather from other posts that this has something to do with YUV>RGB color space discrepancies that Adobe has not yet addressed in AE, but since I’m not an engineer I can’t be sure …Any thoughts or suggestions on maintaining color & gamma values in this workflow would be greatly appreciated. We love working with ProRes but are tiring of running into this problem.Thanks again,-Nils
Nils, did you assign an output color profile for the output file to match the input color profile that you used to interpret the input file?
This is a big help, Todd. But I’m still confused by AE ProRes handling. When I shift between an 8-bit project and a 16-bit project, there is a major gamma shift. Any ideas on why that is happening?This is before I output, it is glaring just watching the canvas as I toggle back and forth between 8-bit and 16-bit.
hi Geoff,Did you figure out how to work with Apple ProRes in both AE and FCP successfully with acceptable color space resolution? I’m in preproduction on a little art video and researching this.the post production for video will also need both AE and FCP and i’m considering transcoding hdv video capturing and rendering to Apple ProRes 422.Any sharing of advise appreciated.
The posted solution didn’t work for me, I still have a gamma shift (becomes darker) after viewing the output from After Effects in Final cut. I have changed the color space in project settings and output render que to many different settings with no luck. So I just apply an adjustment layer with a gamma increase of 1.22(using levels effect) in After Effects and render it out in ProRes codec. This seems to offset the problem perfectly everytime. Adding a adjustment layer is just about as annoying/time consuming as setting color space options, so its not that bad of fix considering…I only work in 8 bit..but I would try coming up with a gamma adjustment for 16 bit that works…
I have had promising results with ProResHQ (1080) using following settings.Interpret: Rec709 (16-235)Working space: sRGBOutput: Rec709 (16-235)Round tripping gives accurate results in the canvas.
Thanks for this info but I wonder why these lines are not added by Adobe by default?[response from TMGK: When codecs come out after we have released a version of After Effects, the codecs obviously won't be included. We do often include things like this in updates to the software. Makers of applications that read media are in a constant state of catch-up as new media types are developed and released. That's one reason why we provide customizable files that you can add to as needed.]
Thanks for the response I understand that you can’t include brand new codecs but Apples ProRes 422 can’t be called a new codec anymore. It was introduced three years ago in 2007 with Final Cut Studio 2 and my AE CS4 interpretation rules file still didn’t include those lines.
Thanks that was a good article!
curious about the correct HDTV 709 color space.Which one are people having the most success with…the 709 or the 709/16-235?I seem to see very little difference with the 709 compared to a similar proRes clip in final cut but when using the 16-235 I do see a bump in the gamma.thoughts?
Hello! I have a problem that is not DIRECTLY related but I am desperate to find help!I’m having a very annoying gamma/color shift upon importing ANY and ALL footage into AE CS4.Basically, all footage in the AE comp window appears darker than in quicktime, and also darker than the final outputs appear in Quicktime. I have a work around using ProRes, as it seems to keep the colors the same on export, but if I bring the ProRes renders back into AE, it darkens them even more!This does not happen on my older Leopard setup, only in SnowLeopard. I have tried all of the various options to change the color profiles/management within AE to no avail. I am using fully updated software on a Mac running SnowLeopard, and CS4, along with a calibrated Apple monitor.Any help much appreciated!
What happens when the interpretation rules don’t contain the line “# this soft rule should be the last in the list of soft rules”?I’ve had this issue with After Effects CS3 for a while., everything becomes darker as soon as I import.It doesn’t matter where it’s come from, straight out of my 7D, converted to ProRes from Mpeg Streamclip, or a ProRes timeline out of FCP. Always does the same thing.I’ve avoided AE for this precise reason.Now I have an assignment due in on Monday that I have to use AE, not really happy about this bug. Should a user really have to faff around with interpretation rules? And feel they have to avoid the program where ever possible?
I really hope that ProRes is dealt with properly in AE CS5 (on order). This codec is becoming ubiquitous with AJA, Arri, FCP, and many others. Also as a standard for archiving. Please make this codec handling transparent.[response from TMGK:Yes, ProRes handling in After Effects CS5 is much better. That's one of the new features listed here, in fact:http://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS3bf812c123007fb87794c65512708459afc-7ffe.htmlKeep in mind, though, that half of this problem is because of inconsistent and unpredictable color handling by QuickTime, so we're chasing a moving target when trying to figure out what to do to be compatible with Apple software.I have a post scheduled for next week that gives the details about how After Effects CS5 handles ProRes media.]
my interpret footage text does not have the line that says, “# this soft rule should be the last in the list of soft rules”.Does anyone know what that means, or what I could do to get it to interpret my prores footage correctly?
This is fantastic information. Instead of dealing with the color changes we have just migrated back to working with 10 bit uncompressed. It takes up more room but when it comes to speed and clients its good to keep things consistant!On a side note I think the problem appears to be worse when dealing with prores4444 footage. Would this fix be good for that too?
Don’t forget to double click where it says 8 bpc in the after effects project window then when the project settings window opens put a check by the ( Match Legacy After Effects Quicktime Gamma Adjustment ) If you don’t do that everything will come out darker post After effects
After Effects warning: could not use the “interpretation rules.txt” file because of syntax error on line 137.
I did as instructed using BBedit and pasting the contents in there. The line on 137 is 2nd line pasted from above
*, 480, *, *, “apch” ~ *, *, *, *, “r6nf”, *
I just upgraded to Snow Leopard. In the previous version, the gamma shift went brighter and now in Snow Leopard, the gamma shifts darker. This is ridiculous.
[response from TMGK:
Some text editors add extra formating or invisible special characters, and they can cause such errors.]
I’ve also been getting the same AE error as Scott.
After Effects warning: could not use the “interpretation rules.txt” file because of syntax error on line 137.
I’ve used TextWrangler, Komodo, and BlueFish with the same result, is there a specific Text Editor I should be using to get the desired result?
[reply from TMGK:
I tracked this issue down to our new blog platform using the wrong kind of double quotation marks in code blocks. I fixed it. (It works for me, anyway.) Let me know if it is still failing for you.]
This worked perfectly for me.
However, I ‘m experiencing the same gamma shift using the apple animation codec. Is there another fix for that codec?
man this sucks.. isnt there an easier way?
Yea! It worked this time. I retried the method and it’s working now! Thanks TMGK! I wished I would have gotten a response via email that you responded. I used the same BBedit.
I guess you updated the incorrect quotations in there….
BIG THANKS!
I applied the fix to the Interpretation Rules and that worked, but I have found a new issue with our systems. Under AE CS3 8.0.2.27 we are having problems with 10-bit material in ProResHQ and the AJA 10-Bit RGB codec showing as 8 Bit. AE can render 10-bit to both codecs fine, but on import it is only seeing 8-bit.
I made a grayscale ramp and reading the pixel values in the info pane (on 10bpc mode, AE set to 16bpc) show it jumping by 4 for ProResHQ and AJA 10-Bit RGB. Recompressing either codec to Uncompressed 10-Bit 422 and importing that back into AE shows the correct pixel values increasing by 1, which proves that the encoded video is 10-bit, whether output from FCP or AE.
When looking at the video info next to the thumbnail, After Effects shows Uncompressed 10-bit as Trillions of colors, but shows ProRes HQ and AJA 10-Bit RGB as Millions. I imagine this is where the problem is, but do not know how to fix it.
Thanks in advance for any help with this issue!
My two cents/pennies. I find Pro Res works if in a 16/32 bit comp, but if rendered from an 8 bit comp and brought back in there is gamma shift even with the incorrect 1.8 to 2.2 setting turned off in codec render settings. Am assuming this is an 8 to 10 bit issue, so it is not a good idea to use a 10 bit YUV codec in an 8 bit RGB comp. Will test/check interpretation and project settings but I advise switching to 16 bit for rendering.
Can we confirm that the interpretation settings are now correct in CS5.5?