New Apple's Night Shift Effect

[adias]

Apple introduced today a color temp control - Night Shift - for their iOS products. I bet the same will show up in OS X soon.

Will this be an issue for photo editing or a benefit?

I hope the 'Digital Dog' (Andrew Rodney) comment on this.

[digitaldog]

In a color managed environment, I can't see how it could be good. Outside, could be very cool!

[adias]

In a color managed environment, I can't see how it could be good. Outside, could be very cool!

It could still be color managed. One can color manage at D65 or D50. If the OS setting changes from D65 (during the day) to D50 (at night) and one has screen profiles for those 2 temps it could work. No?

[howardm]

What about the 'True Tone' technology that seems to alter the display WP based on ambient color temp?

[digitaldog]

It could still be color managed.

A color managed environment is stable/consistent for a number of obvious reasons and needs.

[MarkM]

There were two different things announced:

Night shift
Designed to address the fact that blue light can cause sleep issues. They've implemented some control a very simple interface with a slider that goes from "Less Warm" to "More Warm." It's not very precise and can't be intended to be used for color management. It's there to address issues a cool display can cause like these: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/q-a-why-is-blue-light-before-bedtime-bad-for-sleep/ It's available now in the new OS and doesn't require additional hardware.

True Tone
The new devices will have some sort of color meter to read ambient light and adjust the display to compensate for different ambient light environments.

A color managed environment is stable/consistent for a number of obvious reasons and needs.

Right! The problem, of course, is that mobile devices are rarely used in a stable viewing environment which is a significant part of the color management equation. If done well, this could help with that. I'm a little skeptical. On the other hand it seems that iOS finally reads icc profiles embedded in images, so maybe they are getting serious.

[tcphoto1]

It's strange how warm the screen becomes in Night Shift and I'm not going to worry about it. What are you going to do, try to set up an alternative website to accommodate the temperature shift?

[MarkM]

It's strange how warm the screen becomes in Night Shift and I'm not going to worry about it. What are you going to do, try to set up an alternative website to accommodate the temperature shift?

I thought the same thing. I turned it on and thought, yuck, I can't look at this. I turned it down to a much cooler setting in the prefs, but will probably just turn it off after I try to give it a chance.

[Telecaster]

IMO this should be helpful in its intended purpose: to combat the trouble some folks (me included) have had falling asleep when using bright daylight-balanced light sources at night. Over the past six months I've switched my home lighting back to incandescent color temps because of this, and have mostly stopped using computing gizmos and watching TV after ~11pm (for me, a life-long night owl, this is fairly early). The improvement in ease of falling asleep has not been subtle. I'll give Night Shift a spin at its default value for awhile and see how it goes. Won't be doing any photo editing once it switches on…not a problem.

-Dave-

[digitaldog]

Right! The problem, of course, is that mobile devices are rarely used in a stable viewing environment which is a significant part of the color management equation.

Or even color managed. 

[luxborealis]

Apple introduced today a color temp control - Night Shift - for their iOS products. I bet the same will show up in OS X soon.

Will this be an issue for photo editing or a benefit?

I hope the 'Digital Dog' (Andrew Rodney) comment on this.

This is an odd discussion. Night Shift and True Tone only exist on mobile devices to date which cannot be colour managed.

If and when these features move to OS X, it's a no brainer: TURN THEM OFF when you are editing - they will be an issue! Why would anyone try to circumnavigate a feature intended to distort the colour when colour counts!?!? 

[adias]

This is an odd discussion. Night Shift and True Tone only exist on mobile devices to date which cannot be colour managed.

If and when these features move to OS X, it's a no brainer: TURN THEM OFF when you are editing - they will be an issue! Why would anyone try to circumnavigate a feature intended to distort the colour when colour counts!?!? 

Just a discussion and a good one. It's good that the effect can be turned off.

[hjulenissen]

Given that we adapt to room illumination, would not a color managed phone that attempted to adjust its brightness and white point to that of the room it is in actually be more "accurate" as a photography tool?

[digitaldog]

Given that we adapt to room illumination, would not a color managed phone that attempted to adjust its brightness and white point to that of the room it is in actually be more "accurate" as a photography tool?

Well as a user of this feature on my iPhone, no. Not 'accurate' or pleasing. I can easily see when on, that my iPhone has a warm color cast (which I believe is the point of the functionality). And since my iPhone isn't color managed,  that's fine; I don't edit images on it anyway! 

[happypuppy]

It would be pretty cool if Apple , Samsung Etc let us set the white balance of an environment and if we wish apply it to the mobile device if we wish.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ZOG]

Has any of you used XRITE ColorTRUE app? Only a small quantity of app seem to support it. It seems very promising...

https://www.xrite.com/colortrue

[digitaldog]

Has any of you used XRITE ColorTRUE app? Only a small quantity of app seem to support it. It seems very promising...

Yes, mostly worthless for me. That is, if the goal was to have the iPad previews match my desktop, a mile off. Why? Well X-rite forces two or three presets for white balance. A simple WB slider would have allowed me to tweak it's settings to match the desktop much better. Does the "calibration" look better on than off? Kind of. Is it right, does it match what I consider right? Not even close. But for what it cost (nothing), it's better than a poke in the eye. 

[hjulenissen]

Well as a user of this feature on my iPhone, no. Not 'accurate' or pleasing. ...

Fair enough. But would you agree that tracking ambient white point and incorporating it into the display rendering _could_ have been more "accurate"*) than having a static white point?

-h
*)As in "predicting the subjective response that the viewer would have had if they viewed the edited print in some other lighting condition"

[digitaldog]

Fair enough. But would you agree that tracking ambient white point and incorporating it into the display rendering _could_ have been more "accurate"*) than having a static white point?

No, I don't.
Further, Night Shift Effect has nothing to do with color management. It's supposed to overcome a supposed sleep issue. I don't have any intentions, I'd hope other's wouldn't either, to be editing images on an iPhone!
http://www.livescience.com/54167-apple-night-shift-sleep.html

[jwstl]

If and when these features move to OS X, it's a no brainer: TURN THEM OFF when you are editing

The capabilities of Night Shift have been available for OS X (and Windows I believe) via a third party app for some time. It's called f.lux and I install it on all my Macs. I'm sensitive to sleep issues and have found it very helpful. It could be a placebo, but it seems to actually make me sleepy. I set the hours I want it in effect and if I'm editing in those hours , I turn it off. Simple. Until Night Shift I used blue blocking reading glasses to get the same effect with my mobile devices....also with excellent results.