Premiere CC, AE CC, PJPEG Render Gamma issue?

Problem brought to my attention, rendering Photo JPEG from Premiere CC (and in my case After Effects CC) results in lighter, less contrast, somewhat washed out, less color. Not a horrible amount, but easy to see when compared side by side.

Rendering same clip to same PJPEG settings in Vegas results in exact same look - requiring close pixel peeping to see difference, at least in the sample test clip's case.

Rendering same clip to h.264 results in no change in gamma/contrast/look. Can see a little degradation in detail. Very slight.

Is this effect (the loss of contrast, washed out, less color) the reason some people mentioned PJPEG is obviously lossy? Are people that have problems with PJPEG primarily Adobe CC users? Is there a problem or is it settings?

Info:

Source files 3840x2160 (two files tested, one is from a GH4, the other from AX100 previously rendered (from Vegas Pro) to PJPEG, both had same result)

Rendered at 3840x2160, or 1920x1080, results are same as noted above.

PJPEG render settings:

Format: Quicktime Photo JPEG
Color Management off
Channels: RGB
Millions of Colors
Color: Premultiplied or straight - same results as above
Spatial Quality=90

It also happens with HD input. Just checked. I'm gonna check again. This is a bit disturbing.

Thanks for picking this one up Gene.

In a way, I'm glad that you are experiencing the same color difference between the original file and the exported one. At least I'm not alone in this issue.

But it is pretty disturbing if everyone using Adobe CC is having to deal with this. In my files, I don't see a loss of detail in the exported file (it even appears like it has more detail than the original), but the colors are off in both 4K and HD.

If there are others exporting PJPEG with Adobe CC, are you experiencing the same results?

What is the quality percentage you are using on export?

Did it just start or was a previous revision of CC good with no problems?

Quality=90% (changes don't make any difference, also exporting from Vegas at 88.5% makes superb results.)

Hadn't noticed earlier versions. Since I color correct, I was never looking at it from this perspective.

I'll open up older clips rendered from earlier versions and compare them.

90% here as well. This is actually the first time I'm using Adobe CC, it's a trial version of both AE and Premiere. I haven't been able to get any files out yet without color difference (PJPEG that is). CS5 had no issues with color differences between the original and exported clip. But it can't deal with 4k render/export, so an upgrade is needed.

Have you already uploaded footage from After Effects CC, Gene?

Quite a lot. But I'm never trying to make my clips look the same on export as they look upon import, so I never noticed it. I always check my clips after export, and never noticed any problems. Right now looking at finding older clips so I can compare what I had (after corrections to what was actually rendered. This will be an issue as I go into a large editing project where I will likely be importing clips to stabilize or clean up, and then exporting them back into timeline...I don't want to have to fix a change in gamma or color when there should be none.

Of course I'm also now discovering the depth of the chaos that ensued as result of my move last year - things got a little funny...

OK, the earliest saved AE session I could find (without having to dig through hard drives from the first half of 2013) is from 20-Feb-2014. While I have to look for the effect we are talking about it is there. (this is a gray day over Alcatraz, the change shows up most on a green door)

Prior to this time, I did not have After Effects as I was in a state of flux, having moved in the second half of 2013, and was not using AE during this time, simply saving up clips to be tweaked/fixed etc. This was one iteration of AE CC ago.

The way I'm checking now is to import the rendered file back into the AE session from whence it was rendered, and either layer the file underneath the original, or create new comp next to it. Either way I can switch back and forth between the two, lined up to the identical frame.

When I check the Vegas renders I do the same thing - import the render into the same session, and compare the same frame from one to the other.

There is an issue here - it's not really super noticeable sometimes, but other times it's very obvious.

I realize now that this is part of what prompted me to look for better media players with which to play the rendered files - I was thinking that several media players were changing things, and while that still may be true, I was responding more to the rendered file being different from the view I had been working on.