<p>Exporting to H264 will always introduce a slight colour shift due to a gamma tag in the file header. At least, I didn't find any solution to export without a gamma shift. Neither in AE nor in any other video editing program. </p>

<p>Maybe also have a look at this answer: <a href="https://video.stackexchange.com/a/10336/11423">https://video.stackexchange.com/a/10336/11423</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-22T15:17:01.657Z
2015-08-22T15:26:37.770Z
2017-04-13T12:46:08.110Z
Bram
<p>Something that I noticed about encoding to h.264 in premiere and after effects was that when you select the VBR/two pass encoding you get MUCH better results with h.264 than a single pass with VBR or CBR (no duh, right?) in terms of color shifts/gamma shifts. It wasn't obvious to me, but after that, the color problems were barely noticeable. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-25T04:53:06.627Z
Thanks for your suggestion - I tried it and there was unfortunately no improvement. My video does not have other video - just animated images and sound.
RunLoop
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-24T20:03:01.713Z
2015-08-24T20:03:01.713Z
Scott James Walter
<p>If I preview my project in After Effects all colors appear as they should. However, if I render using either the AE renderer (lossless/best) or Media Encoder (YouTube 1080 H264) the colors are all slightly washed out. I have tested using no color profile and also using sRGB, but the results are exactly the same. My project consist solely of audio and png graphics (it does not contain another video). How can I get the final exported video to have the same colors please?</p>

<p><strong>Other info</strong></p>

<p>After Effects CC 2015</p>

<p>OS X Yosemite 10.10.4</p>

<p><strong>Update</strong></p>

<p>Hours of reading and experimenting later, I have established that this is not an After Effects problem, because if I open the file in VLC or view it in a browser other than Safari, colors are rendered perfectly. This appears to be a complicated quicktime issue. See <a href="https://vitrolite.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/quicktime_gamma_bug/" rel="nofollow">here.</a></p>

<p>I have also tried opening the mov file in handbrake and exporting with the x264 codec - this improved things a bit but not materially enough to matter. </p>

<p>I found so many articles on this, but no definitive answers. There must be video pros out there who know how to fix this - if so, PLEASE help.</p>

<after-effects><codec><quicktime>
Color shifts in Quicktime when playing h264 encoded movie from After Effects
RunLoop
# Color shifts in Quicktime when playing h264 encoded movie from After Effects

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-08-22)

If I preview my project in After Effects all colors appear as they should. However, if I render using either the AE renderer (lossless/best) or Media Encoder (YouTube 1080 H264) the colors are all slightly washed out. I have tested using no color profile and also using sRGB, but the results are exactly the same. My project consist solely of audio and png graphics (it does not contain another video). How can I get the final exported video to have the same colors please?

**Other info**

After Effects CC 2015

OS X Yosemite 10.10.4

**Update**

Hours of reading and experimenting later, I have established that this is not an After Effects problem, because if I open the file in VLC or view it in a browser other than Safari, colors are rendered perfectly. This appears to be a complicated quicktime issue. See [here.](https://vitrolite.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/quicktime_gamma_bug/)

I have also tried opening the mov file in handbrake and exporting with the x264 codec - this improved things a bit but not materially enough to matter.

I found so many articles on this, but no definitive answers. There must be video pros out there who know how to fix this - if so, PLEASE help.

**Tags:** after-effects, codec, quicktime


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-08-22. Score: 1

Exporting to H264 will always introduce a slight colour shift due to a gamma tag in the file header. At least, I didn't find any solution to export without a gamma shift. Neither in AE nor in any other video editing program.

Maybe also have a look at this answer: <https://video.stackexchange.com/a/10336/11423>


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### Answer by username_2 on 2015-08-24. Score: 0

Something that I noticed about encoding to h.264 in premiere and after effects was that when you select the VBR/two pass encoding you get MUCH better results with h.264 than a single pass with VBR or CBR (no duh, right?) in terms of color shifts/gamma shifts. It wasn't obvious to me, but after that, the color problems were barely noticeable.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for your suggestion - I tried it and there was unfortunately no improvement. My video does not have other video - just animated images and sound.  

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