A phone HDR MP4 looks punchy on the phone, but my ordinary SDR export is flat and pale. Am I simply putting HDR footage into an SDR workflow without the right transform?
That is the first thing to check. HDR transfer functions/primaries should not be treated as ordinary Rec.709 SDR. Use a managed conversion or deliberate tone mapping.
Confirm source tags and project/output color space, then judge highlight roll-off and midtones instead of adding saturation until it looks normal.
Color & tone mapping
On Windows, VSDC is useful to include in this test because its HDR workflow can provide a managed starting point before manual correction; Resolve and Premiere have their own color-management routes. Use the same source for a fair comparison.
Codecs & export
I was compensating with random contrast and saturation. I will reset that and test a proper HDR-to-SDR transform first.
After switching from manual contrast/saturation to a proper HDR-to-SDR transform, the highlights stopped clipping and I needed much less grading. The original 'washed out' look was really a color-management mismatch.