I found the solution! But not without a rant: all graphic people know that white on the black is the worst readability on print and on web and HURTS THE EYES. This is why websites do not use "dark mode" black background for readability,. Video editing is very straining on the eyes and to think having a cool "dark mode" option is trendy is unthinkable for tasks where long hours of staring at detailed information and every tiny detial is critical for editing. Premiere, please get your act together: apparently your developers are not video editors and do not understand this basic UI. Please consider adding quick theme choices for your users (How about Dark/Light mode On/OFF button)? Please don't put your users through a hack.

Here is the solution on Youtube. It takes a few clicks to switch to Light mode and is not too difficult:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPKfTKq4J2Y

Note: when you follow the instructions above you get "white screen" in the console. Do this to the menu options: change the console menu from 'Console View' to 'Debug Database View' by clicking the sandwitch menu next to the console tab.

Hurts my eyes. If I have a film clip with a black background I find it difficult to distinguish between the end of the clip and the start of the workspace. Metrics hard to see

Gray text on the dark UI background does not provide enough contrast for easy reading. Sliders under Preferences --> Appearance do not help at all with providing more contrast. Please provide an option to increase/decrease the brightness/color of the UI text.

The lack of theme options is a little bit upsetting, especially from a company and product as prestigious as Adobe Premier Pro. This is 2021, you do not have to make any themes, just give the option for users to customize it themselves and it will sort itself out.

I cast my vote for solarized (light) theme as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarized

Just add a simple color choice like photoshop, ilustrator, and indesign.
The premiere pro color appearance slider is so poor and does nothing.
Delete it and change it like Photoshop, ilustrator, and indesign color appearance choice.
---
If you don't know how it looks like, just call photoshop developer and ask him what it looks like.

As a new user, this dark interface is horrible!!! How can this pass ADA standards???. I understand many video editors may like the darker feel, but it is not for everyone. Please provide options for those of all sight abilities.

The ability to change the UI's colour scheme, in a similar way to how you can with Photoshop CC, is a necessity. The current scheme's lack of contrast makes it difficult to read text and make out icons.

Increasing the interface's brightness is not a solution to the lack of contrast between light and dark colours in the interface's scheme.

This is also an issue for accessibility, as Premiere Pro's UI falls well below visual accessibility standards.

Make a LIGHT color like VEGAS Magix. I cannot stress how difficult it is to work in a dark layout especially when you have astigmatism. The lighter slider you have in brightness settings is terrible and makes everything look washed out. We need true white or a light grey. Or even better to change the COLOR of your choice under a color palette.

WHY am I PAYING for something I cant SEE ? I'm going to sue you because I can't use your product. I bet you have a handicap parking space up front in the parking lot at your work, but here you oppress us individuals who have vision problems, who PAY to use your software!
What kind of discrimination is this?
You obviously know about this as people have been complaining for over 12 months, yet you don't care about handicapped people.
Seriously, If this isn't fixed immediately, Your going to have a nice big lawsuit filed against you.

This is AWFUL. For visually impaired people, or those working in a bright environment there are areas of the screen (especially in Adobe Media Encoder 2021 that are nearly unreadable.

GIVE US A BRIGHTER INTERFACE OPTION! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Just look at how dark the dropdown arrows are in front of H.264 and YouTube and how dark the Stop and Play buttons are? WHY?

Just tell me if this slider has any reasonable though in it. In the brightest position, instead automatically making selected text dark to have some bearable contrast, the text remains the same, making selected items totally illegible. Please make the UI brightness behave like Ps, or Ai.

Please bring back option from really light to really dark UI slider.
If Photoshop and illustrator can have it why not premiere and after effects?
We do not always work in a bat cave. Many times we have to work in really bright environment. The current slider range is just too subtle.

Really, really struggling with my editing these days because of how dark the Premiere UI is. Throughout COVID, I have been forced to work in my CONSERVATORY, which is effectively a sun room. with windows on 3 of the 4 sides - plus a transparent roof.

It has been extremely tiring on my eyes and most of the time I just fully give up and push my editing back to do at night, when I can actually see what I'm doing in the Premiere UI.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the black and grey theme when I can work from my editing den / studio, but **** has it been an awful experience working in the daylight. Maybe if I had a ProDisplay XDR that was insanely bright, it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but with a regular iMac it's been horrible. Can't see my timeline, can't see my scopes, black on black on black just does NOT work in the daylight.

Adobe, PLEASE give us a light mode!!!

Please add a light background... some might like the dark background, but when working in daylight I find it extremely tiring and the gray on gray definitely doesn't help.

Ich nutze Adobe Premiere schon seit der ersten Pro Version 1.5 und war mit der Farbgebung der Programmfenster immer zufrieden, man konnte es schön hellgrau einstellen, konnte die Rollbalken und die Texte gut erkennen und gut damit arbeiten.
Weil mir auf HD Bildschirmen die Schriften in PProCS6 zu klein waren, habe ich mir ein Probe-Abo für PProCC 2020 geholt. Nun kann ich zwar die Schriftgröße ganz nach Wunsch einstellen, aber diese schwarzen/dunkelgrauen Programmhintergründe sind unerträglich, Rollbalken sind kaum zu erkennen, der Kontrast zu Systemtexten ist zu gering. Hier muss Adobe unbedingt nachbessern! Das kann doch nicht so schwierig sein, alternativ die Programmfenster heller machen zu können!!

There isn't even an option? Who decided everyone gets a dark theme? I'm really tired of Goth Adobe. If you insist on having a dark theme, fine, make it the default. But come on! At least give us an option to brighten it up. It's depressing.

I'm finally making the jump from FCP7 to a new editing program. As an occasional user (I'm a writer-filmmaker), I find the new app options daunting - Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Avid, FCPX etc. The flat price of FCPX would work best for me vs. a subscription. I expect a learning curve with any new program. More the point: And it's a deal breaker: Like 50% of the population, I have some astigmatism, which makes reading tiny white or gray text on a black background really difficult. Much to my disappointment, almost all of the new apps have this UI configuration, more or less. I hope that Apple, Adobe, others wake up to this reality, otherwise I'll keep searching for a better choice. I loved FCP7's dark gray text on a light gray background. I've attached a FCP7 screen shot. Any response would be appreciated.

A related link:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywyqxw/apple-dark-mode-eye-strain-battery-life?fbclid=IwAR0VVYxTPsidGQfU6J9KQwpfI0jgPKhr7XztG0AkmxuWPybkHKY57BEC3G0

Bought a subscription. The first thing I tried to do was to change to light mode. Guess what. There isn't one. What a catastrophic start!

The interface color is by far one of the worst things about Adobe Premiere Pro.

Premiere always used to be a nice light gray. Using it felt optimistic, happy, and wholesome. But all this black is SO depressing! It looks like some shady "application of the night". It might be fine for those up at 3am editing something seedy. But working during the daytime, Premiere's dark interface sends you to sleep. It's not in line with a professional application.

The current interface color options are a joke - you can either have black, or dark gray (which actually makes the text harder to read so there's no point).

Many Premiere Pro users are designers who have strong opinions about the way things look. It depresses us having to use something so dark and unattractive. Every good designer knows that dark text on light is far easier to read for prolonged periods, which is why most websites (including this one) use dark text on light. The text in Premiere Pro is hard to read, and I honestly can't see scrollbars at all!

PLEASE make Premiere Pro light again (along the lines of the colors of Premiere 5.0) or at least provide an option for it to be light. Ideally, give us more color options, perhaps even a few built-in preset themes? This would change the entire way I think about the application. Currently, I think of Premiere Pro as something dark, sinister, unwholesome, and unprofessional.

Also, the default colors are horrible. The interface uses various blue/green-blue colors that are garish, inconsistent, and too saturated to be paired with black. What you need for the program to look professional is a much softer blue, with a consistent hue throughout. And that turquoise color used for audio clips is a truly, truly horrible color! Totally harsh, unnatural and garish. It's a good job we can change that color, but it baffles me how such an ugly color could come out of the box as default.

Please add at least a white background option, grey on grey is so limiting, something with more contrast would be so much better... more options to switch it up from time to time.. when i'm staring at premiere pro for 40 hours + a week.. every once in a while.. i just want to switch up the view to make it feel fresh... a break from grey on grey is much needed.. please please please..