Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: One Frame at a Time on March 28, 2017, 02:15:21 am
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Hi, Did a search and not finding anything definitive on this.
I just got a new system with Win 10 installed.
The win 10 photo viewer does not display my jpg exports out of LR properly. I am reading contadictory posts about it not picking up my calibration profile.
Initially I thought it was a color shift going from RAW to the sRGB color space but the shift is way too large and always too red.
I used the default V4 profile setting from i1. Will running it again as V2 fix the issue?
I use LR to export my images for web use but dont like to add them into the LR library - so I need a photoviewer or some means to accurately view them after export.
Thanks!
Paul
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No, it isn't colour-managed. It ignores embedded profiles and the monitor profile.
The previous Windows Photo Viewer (which is colour-managed) is still there in Windows 10, but for some bizarre reason known only to Microsoft it is not enabled except for tifs (which the new app doesn't handle).
You can enable the old Windows Photo Viewer for jpegs but it takes a registry patch, which is easier than it sounds. See for example https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/how-to-get-windows-photo-viewer-back-in-windows-10/ (https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/how-to-get-windows-photo-viewer-back-in-windows-10/) or Google for how to enable Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10.
PS - neither Edge nor Internet Explorer are properly colour-managed either, though work very approximately OK on standard gamut monitors.
Odd that Microsoft were instrumental in developing colour management for PCs and yet their software is pretty much the worst at implementing it!
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No, it isn't colour-managed. It ignores embedded profiles and the monitor profile.
I've 'always' used the free IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.net/) image viewer application. Once the file extensions are associated with Irfanview, double-clicking the file in the File Explorer will open it in IrfanView (which has an option to enable/disable colormanagement).
Cheers,
Bart
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This is insane! I read that going from the v4 profile back to a v2 one would fix the issue (like it did in Win 7) but to not have it managed at all is the stupidest thing I have heard in a while.
I looked at irfan but the site looks ancient. Also Im really paranoid that freeware has embedded viruses etc (I dont understand why this stuff is free I guess).
Doing the registry thing looks a little daunting. Copy and pasting so much code (that I dont understand) into the registry also makes me uneasy....
Sh_t! What to do??
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This is insane! I read that going from the v4 profile back to a v2 one would fix the issue (like it did in Win 7) but to not have it managed at all is the stupidest thing I have heard in a while.
I looked at irfan but the site looks ancient. Also Im really paranoid that freeware has embedded viruses etc (I dont understand why this stuff is free I guess).
Doing the registry thing looks a little daunting. Copy and pasting so much code (that I dont understand) into the registry also makes me uneasy....
Sh_t! What to do??
Seems to me that you have several options:
1. Bart's mention of IrfanView a well known and respected application with the added bonus of being free. Downloading from a known source as Bart's link should virtually guarantee a clean file and of course you will be running at least one malware catcher and anti virus and can scan the file first
2. Simon's mention of getting the previous version of Windows Photo viewer back. Editing the registry is not all that daunting and of course you will make a backup first and store it in a place where you will find it. Copying so much code manually is fraught however but you do not need to as the necessary files have been zipped and once downloaded and unzipped a simple click of the mouse and choose Merge will copy the necessary information into the registry.
https://www.howtogeek.com/225844/how-to-make-windows-photo-viewer-your-default-image-viewer-on-windows-10/
3. Also there is FastStone Image Viewer http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm another free option to home users. You will need to enable colour management as I do not think that it is enabled by default
Changing back to V2 from V4 will not IMO solve the issue here, however it may be a good idea to do this anyway as there does appear to be odd issues associated with V4
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Sh_t! What to do??
1) XnView / XnViewMP is color managed (make sure to go into setup menu) = http://www.xnview.com/en/ = free
2) fastrawviewer ( http://www.fastrawviewer.com/ ) is also a JPG viewer = low cost
3) Adobe Bridge... free
4) even firefox web browser (after a proper setup) to view a JPG image file (no browsing though) - free
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3. Also there is FastStone Image Viewer http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm another free option to home users. You will need to enable colour management as I do not think that it is enabled by default
Sadly FastStone color management does not work well... :(
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Thanks guys! I guess if going to v2 does not solve the issue I'll install Xnviewer....
Tony, if v2 is still creating problems for photographers, why does x rite default to v4?
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Thanks guys! I guess if going to v2 does not solve the issue I'll install Xnviewer....
Tony, if v2 is still creating problems for photographers, why does x rite default to v4?
I think I may have spoken incorrectly, I had thought that Windows Photo Viewer issue had been resolved. It appears it has not at least with the older version of WPV you needed to us V2. So you may actually get a better managed solution by changing to V4 - worth a try?
Here,s what Native Digital had to say 2013
http://nativedigital.co.uk/site/2013/02/icc-version-2-or-4/
Companies such as X-Rite and DataColor make the profiling software and then a myriad of companies such as Adobe, Apple and Microsoft make software that can use ICC profiles in colour transformations. So while the specification of v4 is theoretically better than v2 there are problems in implementing v4 profiles in the real world.
I guess only X-Rite can answer your question but some years ago an answer was given for the ColorMunki which equally applied to the i1 Display
ColorMunki Photo and ColorMunki Design v1.1 has added features which allow users to set preferences that pertain to which version of Display and Printer Profiles to create. This is extremely helpful when some third party applications are not compatible with v4 ICC profiles at this time and can create dark or unexpected results.
ColorMunki Photo and ColorMunki Design v1.1 software now allows the ability to choose between either v2 or v4 ICC profiles. This can be very useful when using an application such as Windows Photo Gallery that is not compatible yet with v4 ICC. To change these settings simply open the ColorMunki software.
Therefore it seems to be policy that as V4 seen to be better that it is up to the application provider to sort out compatibility issues which I think is a fair comment but it would be nice if some warning could be issued with the X-Rite software (perhaps it has but I have not seen it ?)
I also wonder if this is really a Windows only issue. In any case shame on MS it may be a free OS with 'free' applications but please try and update to accommodate newer profile versions
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Tony,
Last year, I replaced my i1 ( was still on my old win 7 system) and it made a v4 profile by default. I then noticed my win 7 photo viewer had issues.
It was suggested that the win 7 photo viewer did not play nice with the new v4 monitor profiles and that going back to v2 was the answer.
That did indeed fix my problem.
Now I am Win 10 and the new viewer does not play nice w v4. I can recalibrate right now but I will try it with v2 when I can.
Still getting the sense that it will not fix the problem. I will report back either way.
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....Now I am Win 10 and the new viewer does not play nice w v4. I can recalibrate right now but I will try it with v2 when I can.
Still getting the sense that it will not fix the problem. I will report back either way.
Have just had a quick play with WPV on my WIn 10 64 bit system. Monitor calibration i1 Display using V2 profile. Copying the 4 images (top left, right, bottom left, right) from ColorOrg (http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter) they display correctly in WVP. In Faststone they do not display correctly until CMS turned on in the Tabbed dialogue.
Good luck, I am fairly confident that you will get it right
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I had time to re calibrate today to a v2 profile. After creating and rebooting the image in the Win 10 Photo Viewer it still had the red color shift
as compared to looking at the adjusted image on Lightroom and a jpeg I exported and sent to my fb page (via chrome). The PV jpeg was way off.
Unless there is a switch that I cant find it seems that the included photo viewer in Win 10 does not support color management and hence...... sucks ass......
Thanks for all that took time to help me get this sorted. I guess I'll need to download and install a 3rd party viewer. And if your running win 10, you
may want to do the same.
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During startup the monitor profile gets loaded into the video card. The Spyder app takes care of this. After this every application is color managed, even Word and Excel.
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During startup the monitor profile gets loaded into the video card. The Spyder app takes care of this. After this every application is color managed, even Word and Excel.
Not quite, I'm afraid.
There are two parts to the information in a monitor profile. The main part, used by colour-management, is merely a measurement of the monitor characteristics. This is used by colour-managed programs (and only by colour-managed programs) to map colours from the image colour space (typically sRGB, Adobe RGB etc) to the unique colour space of the monitor, measured when the monitor is calibrated and profiled by Spyder, xrite, Agyll etc software.
The other part is calibration information, which as you say is loaded into the video card at boot time. This is not really about colour management.
When one runs the calibration/profiling software, it does two things:
- First, calibration: it attempts to adjust the white point and Tone Response Curve (TRC) of the monitor to the required state (e.g. 6500K and a 2.2 gamma curve). This adjustment is done by Look Up Tables that are, as you say, loaded into the Video Card Gamma Tables at boot time. This information is written into the vcgt field of the profile, although technically it isn't profile information.
- Then, profiling: it measures the resulting white point, TRC and colour space of the monitor, after calibration. This information - a measurement of the monitor - is also written into the profile.
All programs are affected by the calibration, including Word and Excel, and benefit from the calibrated white point and TRC. Only colour-managed programs use the colour space information in the profile.
For example, suppose you save an image in two copies (with embedded profiles): one in sRGB and one converted to in Adobe RGB. If you display them using a colour-managed program to a calibrated/profiled monitor then they will look the same, as one would expect (and want).
If you display them with a non colour-managed program (such as the Windows 10 Photos App), even if the monitor is calibrated and profiled, the Adobe RGB version will look undersaturated compared to the sRGB version.
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I had time to re calibrate today to a v2 profile. After creating and rebooting the image in the Win 10 Photo Viewer it still had the red color shift
as compared to looking at the adjusted image on Lightroom and a jpeg I exported and sent to my fb page (via chrome). The PV jpeg was way off.
Unless there is a switch that I cant find it seems that the included photo viewer in Win 10 does not support color management and hence...... sucks ass......
Thanks for all that took time to help me get this sorted. I guess I'll need to download and install a 3rd party viewer. And if your running win 10, you
may want to do the same.
Had to double check this as TBH I do not touch WPV, but it is as far as I can tell fully colour managed (at least the older version which was linked to earlier). Therefore I think that the problem lies elsewhere in your system.
To mimic what I think you did I took a raw image and output to TIFF (JPEG would be the same) and output as sRGB, Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB. Then leaving the image open in Lightroom I opened each one in WPV - all looked exactly the same as what was displayed in the LR window. Screen grab attached showing sRGB and ProPhoto in WPV.
As to the problem you are experiencing I suspect one of two potential issues
1. You have a faulty V2 profile
2. Windows is not applying the correct profile. Worth checking Windows colour management has correctly identified your monitor and the use my profile ticked and the correct profile is listed. Attached screenshot. If it is go to 1.
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Had to double check this as TBH I do not touch WPV, but it is as far as I can tell fully colour managed.
Just confirming: I assume by "WPV" you mean Windows Photo Viewer - the viewer that was in W7 and is also in W10 but won't open jpegs in W10 without a registry patch. That program shows "<file name> - Windows Photo Viewer" in the title bar of the window. I'm quite sure that is fully colour-managed; I've just checked.
On the other hand, the "Photos" app which is new to Windows 10: I'm quite sure that is not colour-managed; again, I've just checked. The Photos app shows "<file name> - Photos" in the title bar of the window, and the title bar is black.
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Just confirming: I assume by "WPV" you mean Windows Photo Viewer - the viewer that was in W7 and is also in W10 but won't open jpegs in W10 without a registry patch. I'm quite sure that is fully colour-managed; I've just checked.
On the other hand, the "Photos" app which is new to Windows 10: I'm quite sure that is not colour-managed; again, I've just checked.
Yes Simon Windows Photo Viewer.
It seems to be that if you have upgraded from Win 7 or 8 (my particular route) you can use WPV without issue but if you have a fresh install then you need the registry patch - which is just an easy merge from the links we supplied.
I too am sure that the Photo's app is not colour managed as I have also checked. Sometimes I wonder what MS are thinking when doing this sort of thing
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After reading all the information posted so far, I will chime in with what I see on my Win 10 system. I have both a sRGB monitor calibrated with a Spyder 5 and a NEC wide-gamut monitor calibrated with the X-Rite sensor and Spectraview.
I see no issues when viewing exported sRGB jpegs in the Win 10 'Photos' app on either monitor. The jpegs view identical, expect for the normal wide to small color space changes you would expect, to the ProPhoto PSD files the jpegs were exported from. For grins, I also just exported one of the PSD files I had previously exported with sRGB color space keeping the ProPhoto color space and it also displayed correctly in the Win 10 'Photos' app.
I should point out that I do not use Lightroom and export using ACDsee Ultimate from PSD files created with Photoshop CS6.
Like TonyW, I also do believe that with properly calibrated monitors and everything working correctly exported jpegs should display correctly in the Win 10 'Photos' app.
It does appear that something is not working correctly with the OP's system and this is not a inherit Win 10 problem.
Good luck to the OP for resolving your issues!
Roy
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I believe Photos does half the color management job, but doesn't correctly utilize the monitor profile.
I have a Windows 10 system with a wide gamut monitor, a BenQ SW2700PT, with a custom profile generated using an XRite Display 1 Pro and the BenQ software. The profile resides in Win10 as the default user and system monitor profile.
I used the PDI printer test image, previously converted into the ProPhoto colorspace. First I brought it into Photos, did a Windows 10 screen print, and pasted the clipboard into a New untagged document in Photoshop CC. I assigned the monitor profile to the PS document, and next converted it to sRGB and saved it out as a jpg. The image is the first attachment.
Secondly, I opened the same PDI printer test image into Photoshop, and went thru the same screen print, etc. process, and saved it out as a jpg, second attachment.
I believe Photos properly converted the ProPhoto image into sRGB, but the displayed version is way too saturated, exactly as though Photos drove the monitor directly with the sRGB values, without first converting it using the system monitor profile.
Richard Southworth
Added by edit - Please note the Photoshop version shows ProPhoto as the embedded profile, but this is the original image, the screen print version is in sRGB. Also I have to use Firefox to properly view this post on my system, in Internet Explorer both attachments are incorrectly displayed.
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Thanks again for everyone's input. Richard, I'm running the BenQ also. However I'm not using the Ben Q software.
I'm a little surprised your seeing differences as I thought the BenqSW builds an internal Lut that resides in the monitor itself.
The generated profile installed in Windows is only a placeholder. Not sure of that but seem to remember reading that somewhere.
The differences in your images are similar to what I'm seeing on the photo viewer but Chrome or Lightroom look accurate and match.
I'm using the profile generated by, and installed by the Xrite software.
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I don't think the W10 Photos app is colour managed, not even part colour managed.
- The Windows 10 "Photos" program is not colour managed. It doesn't use either the monitor profile or the image profile.
- The Windows Photo Viewer program, present on Windows 10 and earlier Windows (since Vista AFAIK) is colour managed.
Here's how to test, and what I think the test shows. To demonstrate that the Photos app ignores both image and monitor profile, you need two calibrated and profiled monitors, one wide-gamut and one standard-gamut (but the latter at least as wide as sRGB).
Here are two images. The first version is an sRGB version (so no colours outside sRGB gamut), the second is the same image, but converted from sRGB to Adobe RGB (so it still won't have any colours outside sRGB gamut).
sRGB version of image (http://simongarrett.uk/MatrixLarge-conv-to-sRGB.jpg)
Adobe RGB version of identical image (http://simongarrett.uk/MatrixLarge-conv-to-sRGB-then-conv-to-Adobe-RGB.jpg)
Note: I've included these as images to download, as viewing images in browsers is misleading. Some browsers don't colour manage properly, and AFAIK all browsers use only the main monitor profile, so you can't usefully compare images on multiple monitors in a browser.
What should happen in a colour-managed viewer: these two images should look identical on any calibrated/profiled monitor that has sRGB gamut or larger (i.e. virtually all monitors except laptops, which are often narrower than sRGB).
Note: identical. Not "identical, expect [except?] for the normal wide to small color space changes you would expect". In this case, there are no colours outside sRGB gamut so no colour space changes are expected between different monitors (provided they are calibrated/profiled to the same white point, gamma curve and brightness). There should be no colour difference. That is what colour management does: get the same colour on any monitor, provided the colours are within monitor gamut.
This is what happens on my computer with Windows Photo Viewer: these two images look identical both on wide-gamut and standard-gamut monitors.
But with the Windows 10 "Photos" app, they don't display correctly:
- On any monitor, the Adobe RGB version is displayed less saturated than the sRGB version, showing that the Photos app is ignoring the image profiles.
- Both images are displayed less saturated on standard gamut monitors than wide-gamut monitors, showing that the Photos app is ignoring the monitor profiles.
If I've misunderstood what's going on here then someone please enlighten me, but I'm pretty sure the "Photos" app isn't colour managed at all.
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If I've misunderstood what's going on here then someone please enlighten me, but I'm pretty sure the "Photos" app isn't colour managed at all.
I also need enlightenment as I too may have misunderstood. To try and clarify to see that we are all on the same page:
There are two photo viewing apps in Windows one called Windows Photo Viewer, the other just called Photo.
Windows Photo Viewer that featured in 8 and 7 was colour managed and if you upgraded from these colour management maintained. If you did a clean install of Windows 10 colour management was no longer available without the registry tweak linked to in this thread.
The new for Windows 10 app called Photos is not colour managed in any way, other than expecting an sRGB image tagged or otherwise.
Any other tag e.g. Adobe RGB will be ignored and the image treated as though sRGB with unfortunate results.
You cannot change Photos to be colour managed. Either use Windows Photo Viewer with the registry hack or choose another colour managed app.
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I also need enlightenment as I too may have misunderstood. To try and clarify to see that we are all on the same page:
There are two photo viewing apps in Windows one called Windows Photo Viewer, the other just called Photo.
Windows Photo Viewer that featured in 8 and 7 was colour managed and if you upgraded from these colour management maintained. If you did a clean install of Windows 10 colour management was no longer available without the registry tweak linked to in this thread.
Agreed.
The new for Windows 10 app called Photos is not colour managed in any way, other than expecting an sRGB image tagged or otherwise.
Any other tag e.g. Adobe RGB will be ignored and the image treated as though sRGB with unfortunate results.
I'd express it slightly differently.
Non colour-managed programs like the W10 Photos program don't assume images to be sRGB or anything else in particular - they don't assume anything. It just happens that sRGB images will be display approximately correctly on standard-gamut monitors, because standard-gamut monitors have approximately sRGB colour space (by design).
If a program is colour-managed, then this is what happens:
- The image profile (sRGB, Adobe RGB or whatever) describes the colour space of the image - it says how the R, G and B numbers should be interpreted.
- The monitor profile describes the unique colour space of that monitor - it says how R, G and B values are displayed on the screen.
- A colour-managed program reads both profiles, and uses them to map RGB values from the image into the the monitor's colour space.
If a program isn't colour managed, then it doesn't do anything to RGB values - it just sends them straight to the monitor. If the image colour space and monitor colour space are different, then clearly the wrong colours are displayed. However, most standard-gamut monitors have a colour space very roughly equal to sRGB. That means that even without colour management, sRGB images will display on a standard-gamut monitor with very roughly the right colours.
You cannot change Photos to be colour managed. Either use Windows Photo Viewer with the registry hack or choose another colour managed app.
AFAIK that's right. It appears that Photos ignores both monitor profiles and any profile embedded in an image. There is also a "Color space" metadata tag in jpegs (called "Color representation" in Windows file properties), and this tag is sometimes used to indicate the colour space in image files without embedding a profile. I've just checked, and Photos ignores that too. It appears that it just doesn't do colour management.
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I have to disagree, from my experiments Photos does do a conversion from ProPhoto to sRGB, but does not use the monitor profile thereafter.
I set my BenQ to sRGB mode, i.e. it's native response is sRGB with no monitor profile involved. I then used an image rendered in ProPhoto, with a ProPhoto profile embedded, and viewed in Photos, it was displayed correctly. I took the same image and viewed in Paint, there was obviously no profile conversion since the image came out in that dull almost colorless state that is characteristic of viewing a ProPhoto image on a standard (sRGB ) monitor with no conversion.
I believe it you google the subject you will find numerous posts supporting my conclusion wrt to Windows 10 semi-color management.
Richard Southworth
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I have to disagree, from my experiments Photos does do a conversion from ProPhoto to sRGB, but does not use the monitor profile thereafter.
I set my BenQ to sRGB mode, i.e. it's native response is sRGB with no monitor profile involved. I then used an image rendered in ProPhoto, with a ProPhoto profile embedded, and viewed in Photos, it was displayed correctly. I took the same image and viewed in Paint, there was obviously no profile conversion since the image came out in that dull almost colorless state that is characteristic of viewing a ProPhoto image on a standard (sRGB ) monitor with no conversion.
I believe it you google the subject you will find numerous posts supporting my conclusion wrt to Windows 10 semi-color management.
Richard Southworth
When you say "it's native response is sRGB with no monitor profile involved", what do you mean? Did you have your monitor set to sRGB mode, and have a monitor profile set that corresponds to sRGB mode? If there's no monitor profile (or a monitor profile that doesn't correspond to the monitor's current state), then colour managed isn't going to work anyway, and colours are likely to be wrong in most circumstances.
In my tests, using a monitor with sRGB gamut correctly calibrated/profiled (i.e. with a profile that reflects the monitor's sRGB gamut), the Photos app certainly did not display a ProPhoto RGB image correctly.
In addition to the images I linked above (in sRGB and Adobe RGB), here is the same image but converted to ProPhoto RGB and saved with an embedded ProPhoto RGB profile, in order to replicate what you described:
ProPhoto RGB version (http://simongarrett.uk/MatrixLarge-conv-to-sRGB-then-conv-to-ProPhoto-RGB.jpg)
When I view this in Windows Photo Viewer (or any other colour-managed viewer, such as Photoshop) it looks the same on a wide-gamut monitor and on a standard-gamut monitor (both calibrated/profiled).
However, if I view it with the Photos app, it looks grossly under-saturated on a (calibrated and profiled) sRGB monitor. It also looked somewhat undersaturated on a wide-gamut monitor, which is again what one would expect.
Unless we're somehow talking at cross purposes, I don't understand what you have found.
PS - "I believe it you google the subject you will find numerous posts supporting my conclusion wrt to Windows 10 semi-color management."
Can you find me any links that say that? I'm not disputing what you say, but I've googled, and all those I've found with a view on the matter suggest that it is not even partly colour managed!
Are you thinking of Edge and IE? They are both partly colour managed: they ignore the monitor profile, and always convert the image to sRGB.
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Photos does what it does, but what it does not do is any form of colour management.
Regardless of whether it uses the monitor profile or not the colour display is incorrect and does not represent a true picture of the image data in Photo.
The monitor profile stored in Windows from our calibration devices is not just a placeholder but rather a description of our monitor behaviour against the known standards we have set which enables colour savvy applications to display images correctly. These include LR, PS, Windows Photo Viewer (upgraded or reg hack). But does not apply to Windows application called Photo. If it did the screen grab below (LR, Windows Photo Viewer and Photo) would show all images equal, whereas viewing even on an sRGB limited screen the difference should be obvious i.e. the only one that is out is the Photo app. showing oversaturated Red Green and Blue
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Here's one link, refers to Internet Explorer, but Photos is same, google search field was [ "windows 10" photos color management ].
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/d83b3379-39ed-44e1-a37a-83dc790d8d5e/windows-10-color-management?forum=WinPreview2014General
I opened my reference image, rendered in ProPhoto and with an embedded ProPhoto profile, in Photos and Paint side by side on my monitor when in sRGB mode. The attached screenshot demonstrates that Photos is doing half of the job, i.e. taking the image from ProPhoto to sRGB.
I am a color management professional, several years experience calibrating/profiling displays and printers, so I do understand the basics.
Richard Southworth
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I should modify my assertion, Photos is doing some sort of conversion out of ProPhoto to something resembling sRGB, not necessarily correctly. And of course it completely ignores the monitor profile. Paint on the other hand is more "honest", sends the pixel RGB values directly to the monitor with no modification.
I believe we all agree Photos is not handling color management correctly in almost any sense, but I do detect it's "trying" to do something.
Richard Southworth
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Here's one link, refers to Internet Explorer, but Photos is same, google search field was [ "windows 10" photos color management ].
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/d83b3379-39ed-44e1-a37a-83dc790d8d5e/windows-10-color-management?forum=WinPreview2014General
I opened my reference image, rendered in ProPhoto and with an embedded ProPhoto profile, in Photos and Paint side by side on my monitor when in sRGB mode. The attached screenshot demonstrates that Photos is doing half of the job, i.e. taking the image from ProPhoto to sRGB.
I am a color management professional, several years experience calibrating/profiling displays and printers, so I do understand the basics.
Richard Southworth
I'm not sure what to make of that. I repeated what I understand to be your exercise, but get different results.
I displayed an image in ProPhoto RGB colour space (with an embedded ProPhoto RGB profile) on an sRGB calibrated/profiled monitor in the Photos app (left), Paint (centre) and Windows Photo Viewer (right). See the a screen snip below.
The colours are correct in Windows Photo Viewer, but in my case wrong (identically) in both the Photos app and Paint.
There must be something different either in our configurations or in what we are doing.
However, we're agreed that the Photos app isn't properly colour managed to some extent, so the details probably don't matter!
(http://simongarrett.uk/Photos-Paint-WPV.JPG)
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It's curious that your Photos and Paint renditions match, and mine don't. Here are my system color management settings, devices and advanced:
Richard Southworth
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Allowing for the difference in profile name, my settings are the same. Very odd!
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Windows 10 version?
I converted the same image into three color spaces, sRGB - Adobe1998 - ProPhoto. Photos rendered each identically, Paint all three differently as expected. I don't believe Photos rendered the image correctly, even taking into account the wide gamut monitor, but at least they were all visually identical. And of course Photoshop rendered all three identically and correctly, ignoring any clipping that may have occurred in sRGB.
Richard Southworth
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And lastly the Photos version: 17.313.10010.0
Richard Southworth
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That's interesting.
Similar Windows info except that I use Win 10 Home, same processor except that I have the K version, I have 32G memory - none of that should make a difference.
But: you're version of Photos is 17.313.10010.0, mine is 16.511.8780.0. I don't know if there might be some relevant difference between these versions.
I'm not sure why we have different versions of Photos unless the Pro version distributes a different version. My W10 is up to date (I just checked).
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Set up for Apps automatic update?
http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-check-app-updates
Richard Southworth
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Nope. I don't use any of the new-style apps (except Settings), so I have updates set to manual. Odd, as apps often seem to get updated automatically anyway.
I updated it manually, and I now have v 17.214.10010.0 - still not the same as you. And on my machine it behaves as before, as in the clip I pasted a few posts ago.
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Maybe the differences are due to something I mentioned earlier. The Ben Q has an internal lut. If your using palette master to calibrate, your profile is operating in a way that's different than a system level profile created in the X rite SW?
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Maybe the differences are due to something I mentioned earlier. The Ben Q has an internal lut. If your using palette master to calibrate, your profile is operating in a way that's different than a system level profile created in the X rite SW?
Well, I tried with an Eizo wide-gamut that has an internal LUT, and set it to sRGB mode (calibrated/profiled), and got the same results (that is, Photos appearing to do no colour management). There could be some difference in the way the Eizo and Benq use internal LUTs to emulate a smaller colour space, I suppose.
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Hmmm. A new version of Palette Master just got released. I'll install and see what happens on my system when I use the monitor based lut.
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Hmmm. A new version of Palette Master just got released. I'll install and see what happens on my system when I use the monitor based lut.
Questions:
R U using the Photos app?
If you are why waste your time it is Not colour managed. Your monitor profile will make no difference to seeing an accurate representation of your data in this case
Or
R U using Windows PHoto Viewer instead?
If yes then have you either upgraded to Win 10 or got a completely clean install?
A completely clean install is going to need the registry hack the upgrade from 7 or 8 will carry over colour management.
Unless you want to play and see what happens use V2 profiles not V4
IMO hardware based calibration using the internal 10, 12 or 14 bit LUT is the way to go and guarantee your monitor can be set to the best state against your reference standard. Hardware calibration is not new it has been around for many years with the likes of Eizo and NEC monitors
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thanks Tony. Yea, I've had a NEC Spectrview for a while 26WUXI. But even though I've read much on the subject I am by no means an expert. Especially as things change. Im using the new photo viewer on a brand new machine. I tried v2 and v4 profiles and see no difference. As you say, its not color managed.
But I dont understand the application of the internal lut settings. If they reside inside the monitor, why does the system need to be color managed to make the profile corrections appear on the screen? Probably a dumb question but why isnt all output to the monitor adjusted by the internal LUT?
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But I dont understand the application of the internal lut settings. If they reside inside the monitor, why does the system need to be color managed to make the profile corrections appear on the screen? Probably a dumb question but why isnt all output to the monitor adjusted by the internal LUT?
With monitors with internal three-dimension LUTs, they can be calibrated to a specific colour space (provided that colour space is smaller than, and entirely within the native colour space of the monitor, determined by the dyes, phosphors etc on the screen). For example, I can calibrate my wide-gamut Eizo to sRGB. That means that I don't need colour management in the program provided I am sending an sRGB image to the screen.
However, that's a rather special case. The point of colour management is to provide any-to-any colour mapping. I want colour to be right on the screen whatever the colour space of the image, and whatever the colour space of the monitor. Simply calibrating the colour space to a known setting solves only part of the problem.
With most monitors without internal 3D LUTs, you can't alter the colour space. It is what it is. But the issue of colour management is the same whether the colour space of the monitor can be calibrated or not. In general, you need colour management to map colours from image colour space to monitor colour space, and that has to be done by the program (not the monitor or monitor driver) because only the program knows both image colour space and monitor colour space.
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thanks Tony. Yea, I've had a NEC Spectrview for a while 26WUXI. But even though I've read much on the subject I am by no means an expert. Especially as things change. Im using the new photo viewer on a brand new machine. I tried v2 and v4 profiles and see no difference. As you say, its not color managed.
Yes if you want to stay with Windows software you will need to reinstate the older Windows Photo Viewer as stated earlier and you would also need to use V2 profiles not the default X-Rite V4. You may also want to investigate the other free offers by third parties and see which you prefer. In that case I do not know what flavour of ICC supported but perhaps the safe route is V2
But I dont understand the application of the internal lut settings. If they reside inside the monitor, why does the system need to be color managed to make the profile corrections appear on the screen? Probably a dumb question but why isnt all output to the monitor adjusted by the internal LUT?
Certainly not a dumb question. Colour aware applications such as Lightroom and Photoshop rely on an accurate description of the monitors state at any given time to allow the display of 'correct' colour. An accurate monitor profile describes the monitors condition and allows LR and PS to alter the image display to account for irregularities described in the profile against our required standards. Therefore should the monitor display be a little too yellow the application (PS) can correct for this to display the image with adjusted colour to reflect the image data with more accuracy.
The advantages of hardware calibration are really high precision and good gradation. For a little more in depth explanation of LUT's and colour depth
http://nativedigital.co.uk/site/2015/02/luts-and-luts-of-bits-look-up-tables-and-monitor-colour-depth-explained/
Since the hardware/software combination is dealing directly with the internals of the monitor you do not have the loss of gradations that you would have with a software only method. Further the calibration being fully automatic the precision remains higher than variations introduced by each adjustment in software calibration. The bottom line being that hardware calibration should allow us to achieve more accurate profiles by adjusting the monitors electronics internally to our required standards than the software only method.
You cannot calibrate your device to sRGB, Adobe RGB etc. these are synthetic spaces that do not describe real world devices such as monitors and printers. sRGB perhaps comes the closest to describing a device but that device based on a theoretical CRT display using a particular phosphor, therefore still a synthetic space. Adobe RGB being a fortunate error in transcribing SMPTE information incorrectly, but having realised this the colour space found to be worthwhile
Our monitors have their own colour space with their own gamut limitations usually described by the manufacturer as 97% sRGB, 99.8% Adobe RGB, etc.
What we are aiming at with the calibration and profiling steps is to set our monitor to a known condition and characterise how closely our monitor matches those conditions. This characterisation is our monitor profile and will accurately describe how our monitor really displays colour vs the required conditions. Having this information a colour savvy application such as LR or PS is able to alter the image appearance to match the true values of our image data. That is if the display is say a little too yellow from the White point aims the application will adjust the image display internally to get as close as possible.
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Wow, thanks for your replies! Learned a lot more than I expected. It's amazing how our Hobby / profession combines so many fields of science in such complex ways. Cheers!
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I needed to preview some jpeg exports yesterday and went ahead and installed Xn viewer. The images aren't color managed in this app either!
I read that I need to point the program to the monitor profile. So I tried. For 2 hours. For some reason the Windows/system 32/Spool folder does not show up in the directory selector within the program. It's not hidden since I can see it and navigate to the Spool/Color folder in Explorer.
Any ideas???
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I have only ever briefly looked at XnView but I do believe that it is a colour aware app. As you say you do need to turn on colour management as I think it is not switched by default.
Below is a screenshot demonstrating the settings. Make sure you have ticked the Use ICC Embedded Profile. If you cannot select the monitor profile (in this case C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color\CS240 Custom 6500K G2.2.icc) then it could be a corrupt install. In this case I can only suggest download again, making sure you select the correct one 32/64 bit for your OS and after uninstalling the current try installing the new.
Other than that you may want to try another just in case there is a system error elsewhere - perhaps give IrfanView a try? Note Colour management will need to be turned on in this app.
http://www.irfanview.com/
EDIT:Scratch the above about XnVIew. I thought I would give it another try to see if it is useful. I can see the problem you are having (at least I think I can!). When trying to point to the 'spool' folder in C:\Windows\System32\, it is just not shown - everything else appears to be normal (Windows 10 64 bit). Not experienced this behaviour before in any application.
You can get around this by copying the location e.g. C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color\ into the File name box and then selecting your monitor profile - as in attached 2nd image
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:) :) :)
That worked Tony! Thanks so much! Dont understand why you cant navigate to it with the Program dialog. Guessing it may need to have some additional permissions??
Cutting and pasting the path, then manually typing in the specific icm file makes the viewer display jpeg files properly.
A real PIA! - because I move back and forth from running my laptop with a wide gammut BenQ and its built in screen.
Windows will automatically select the proper calibration profile but I am guessing Fn Viewer will need manual intervention each time.
There has to be a better way......
Thanks again,
Paul