QuickTime

QuickTime

QuickTime continues to have special issues of its own
separate from, but related to Adobe’s color management.
Because Apple constantly revises QuickTime and the spec
has been in some fl ux, the issues particular to the version
of QuickTime at this writing (7.5.5) and how After Effects
handles it may continue to evolve.
The current challenge is that Apple has begun implementing
its own form of color management without sharing
the specifi cation publicly or letting anyone know when it
changes. The gamma of QuickTime fi les can be specifi -
cally tagged, and the tag is then interpreted uniquely by
each codec, so fi les with Photo-JPEG compression have a
different gamma than fi les with H.264 compression. Even
fi les with the default Animation setting, which are effectively
uncompressed and assumedly neutral, display an
altered gamma, and at this writing, that gamma will display
differently depending on which application is displaying
it. Gamma handling is not even consistent among Apple
video applications.
The Match Legacy After Effects QuickTime Gamma Adjustments
toggle in Project Settings is not only the longesttitled
checkbox in the entire application, it is an option
you should not need, in theory at least, unless you’ve
opened up an old 7.0 (or earlier) project, or you need a
Composition to match what you see in QuickTime Player.
However, many of us deliver client review fi les as QuickTime
movies, so your best bet is to enable Color Management
for any project intended to output QuickTime video. The
option to disable the Match Legacy toggle is reserved for
cases in which that approach doesn’t work; these do unfortunately
crop up and remain a moving target as new versions
of QuickTime are released, further revising the standard.