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Author Topic: OSX Colour Management Problems  (Read 99805 times)

Andrew Fee

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OSX Colour Management Problems
« Reply #20 on: February 26, 2007, 09:37:42 pm »

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Safari treats tagged images according to what they are tagged with. It treats untagged images depending on the version of Safari. There are articles about that. I think it used to be as sRGB and now it's like monitor RGB or something to that extent.
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Right, but even images that are tagged with sRGB are displaying like they're tagged with my monitor profile. (now that I've done more testing / reading, that seems to be what the issue is)

This does not appear to happen on my friend's G5, but does on his new MacBook (just like my Pro) all running 10.4.8 which leads me to believe it's an Intel bug. (there's still plenty of things that don't work properly on the Intel machines yet, but I did not think colorsync would be one of them)

It is not limited to safari though; it happens in all colour-managed programs, including Photoshop, even if I tell it what the correct profile is for an untagged image.
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #21 on: February 26, 2007, 09:40:42 pm »

What is MacBookPro sRGB? That's the profile embedded in the screenshot you supplied. Is this the custom name you gave when creating it with your calibration package?

If this is the "sRGB" you are converting to exporting out of Aperture, it's not a very good space to convert to. It's gamut is smaller than a cheap 15 year old generic Trinitron profile.

I'm on Mac OS 9.2.2 and I extracted this MacBookPro profile and it's numbers shown in PS's CustomRGB under Color Settings shows this to be true. I assigned it to the colour.png file and all the colors went chalky. An indication of a very narrow monitor profile miles away from sRGB. I loaded it as my system monitor (turned my gray desktop yellowish, darker and WP pinkish) and PS 7 shows everything blazingly oversaturated-another indication this profile is not a good space for anything.

If this IS your custom monitor profile you are using then you probably have a botched, corrupted profile. Just a caveat about the default LCD profile that loads as default. It can get easily corrupted and may cause problems if loaded when launching your hardware calibration software. I wouldn't load it in your system. Load anything else but this profile before calibrating.

In my browser (IE 5.1.7) everything shows up as you describe. The first image is a slight chalky orange-(natural looking), the second an intense orange and the third slightly hot red. When loading the screenshot in PS 7 honoring the MacBookPro sRGB embedded profile all the color bars are chalky and the blue is purplish/violet as described. My monitor according to EyeOne Display calibrates very close to sRGB and when assigning to sRGB images doesn't change the preview noticeably.

BTW how was the colour.png generated? The 255 purities next to the right border read 245 in PS. Is this intended?
« Last Edit: February 26, 2007, 09:45:54 pm by tlooknbill »
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #22 on: February 26, 2007, 09:58:37 pm »

Correction...

When I load the screenshot in PS all three look close together. They only have luminance differences between them. The one on the far right is darker with the blue looking more navy blue than the familiar electric blue of P22 phosphor sRGB.

If I assign my monitor profile to this image the blue's turn purplish but the colors get more saturated and brighter.
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #23 on: February 26, 2007, 10:10:58 pm »

I have had Colour.png sitting on my drive for a long time; it was a screenshot of a windows application that generates test patterns. (I just resized it)

As for the screenshot; I couldn't tell you, I just hit cmd-shift-3, resized it in photoshop and hit save. At that stage I had been changing all kinds of colour settings, so it is very possible that something went wrong there.

This is my current monitor profile: http://sr-388.net/images/misc/colourproble...Color%20LCD.zip

I'll use the trial of ColorEyes to see if I can create something better.


My problem is that images, even if they are tagged with sRGB, appear to be rendered as if they were tagged with my display profile in colour-managed applications. Once I have a new profile created, I'll take another shot of that box (it seemed to show off the problem quite well) and post up the source along with what Aperture exports.
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #24 on: February 26, 2007, 11:50:16 pm »

Ok, I have a new profile created with the ColorEyes Display trial - it's a much nicer profile with a far better greyscale: http://sr-388.net/images/misc/colourproble...003-30).icc.zip

However, the problems are still there.

I have taken another shot of the box with my camera set at the lowest resolution.

This is the image Aperture imported, taken directly out of the library:



Strangely, there is no colour profile attached, which means that it looks correct in both Firefox and Safari, but not inside Aperture itself.

This is the same image exported from Aperture using the "JPEG - Fit within 640x640" preset:



http://sr-388.net/images/misc/colourproble...570(export).jpg

It looks the same in Firefox as the one taken directly from the library, but in Safari, it turns red again, as it now has a profile attached.

And here it is exported using my display profile, which should show how it looks on my system compared to how it is supposed to look (at least if you view it and the first image in Firefox to compare)

http://sr-388.net/images/misc/colourproble...0(onscreen).jpg
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orangekay

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« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2007, 12:23:10 am »

Once again, all of these images are virtually identical in appearance, and pasting one on top of the other in difference blending mode yields a nearly solid black field. Why don't you take some actual photos of your screen or something instead?
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #26 on: February 27, 2007, 12:46:12 am »

Well I had thought about doing that, but I wasn't too sure how well the differences would show up, and I can't trust the colour I'm getting from anything:

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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #27 on: February 27, 2007, 01:28:39 am »

Andrew,

Good capture of your display. That's the MacBookPro screen, right?

The one on the left shows the natural looking orange and the right shows a darker/richer hot red.

The numbers for the "1-LCD Color" profile are pretty close to the MacBookPro sRGB. I'm at a loss on this. I never realized LCD's calibrate with such numbers as seen in PS's CustomRGB under Color Settings. They seem to really take a hit in the red channel with a combo x=.60, y.35 giving very bright orangish 255 red that Photoshop has to comensate for in CM previews. sRGB is x=.64, y=.33 a more intense hot red. The data in the images reflects a darker orange with 218red, 45green!!? and 20blue. Your LCD's obviously quite bright. Now I know what SWOP certified really means with Apple LCD's.

What's loaded in Colorsync Utility as default color spaces for documents and devices? Maybe Aperture and Safari is referencing whatever profiles are loaded there giving wrong previews when editing in Aperture and viewing in Safari. Just guessing.
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #28 on: February 27, 2007, 09:52:12 am »

Quote
Andrew,

Good capture of your display. That's the MacBookPro screen, right?

The one on the left shows the natural looking orange and the right shows a darker/richer hot red.

The numbers for the "1-LCD Color" profile are pretty close to the MacBookPro sRGB. I'm at a loss on this. I never realized LCD's calibrate with such numbers as seen in PS's CustomRGB under Color Settings. They seem to really take a hit in the red channel with a combo x=.60, y.35 giving very bright orangish 255 red that Photoshop has to comensate for in CM previews. sRGB is x=.64, y=.33 a more intense hot red. The data in the images reflects a darker orange with 218red, 45green!!? and 20blue. Your LCD's obviously quite bright. Now I know what SWOP certified really means with Apple LCD's.

What's loaded in Colorsync Utility as default color spaces for documents and devices? Maybe Aperture and Safari is referencing whatever profiles are loaded there giving wrong previews when editing in Aperture and viewing in Safari. Just guessing.
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That is my MacBook Pro LCD, which is about 85cd/m2 after calbration according to CED Pro. (brightness at 10/16) While I understand that these displays don't match up to ones designed for critical colour work, they're a big improvement over the ones on the old Powerbooks (far better than my 17" G4 was) and it should at least be possible to do basic image editing on them. The capture does make both look a bit darker, as I exported using my display profile (which I know is wrong, but it's the only way I know the colour looks the same as what I am seeing) but you can at least see the differences quite clearly.


In ColorSync Utility, the MacBook LCD is set as the default display with my calibrated profile selected. My camera's selected profile is "sRGB Profile" which I believe is correct, as it's a P&S camera with no colour space options, so I would assume it's shooting in sRGB.

Where is the option for a default colour space for documents though? These are my only options:

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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #29 on: February 27, 2007, 11:45:25 am »

I'm not that familiar with OS X, but I soon will be when I get my refurbed 20" imac ordered last week online. It'll be a first for me using an LCD as I've been curious as to how they calibrate. The ones at Walmart and OfficeMax the only stores that carry LCD's in my town did not look so good several years ago on a VGA connection, but those were TN panels back then.

From your posted digicam capture of the MacBook Pro screen the images match very closely to the referenced images previously posted in regards to the look of the orange. Just from that I can tell Apple has made great strides in display quality for their notebooks. I have a 2000 Pismo Powerbook and doesn't even come close even after calibration to the quality shown in your digicam shot.

The Colorsync Utility isn't the problem. My Colorsync Control Panel in OS 9 has a selection for default profiles used for documents and is only used for automating the processing of images(documents) using Applescripts which Extract Profile is one of them. I've read in the past that Safari used the settings in the Colorsync Utility to create CM previews. Not sure how things are now or if that was even the case back then.

What model of camera did you use to take the shot of your MacBook Pro? I'm just so taken aback by its accuracy. Other current digicam shots of a Samsung and BenQ LCD I've seen on the web shot with a high dollar Nikon and Canon 5D aren't as accurate as yours.
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #30 on: February 27, 2007, 11:48:32 am »

Oh, never mind.

It's an F30. I should've reread the first post.
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #31 on: February 27, 2007, 01:04:53 pm »

With regards to photographing an LCD, it's mostly down to technique rather than how good the camera is.

I actually started writing a guide on how to do this the other day, with part 1 up on my site now: http://sr-388.net/2007/02/23/how-to-photog...el-display-pt1/

This was using videogames for its examples (another hobby of mine) but it applies to anything. Other than what I have written so far, the most important thing is to avoid over-exposing the image.

Out of interest, is this iMac a PowerPC (G4, G5) or Intel machine? I don't remember having this problem on my old G4 Powerbook (though I didn't have Aperture back then) which is why I believe the problem is with ColorSync on Intel (or at least Core2Duo) machines.

It was my understanding that if you have an image, do all your editing etc, and then convert to sRGB and export it, tagged with sRGB, it would look the same in both managed and unmanaged applications. (as unmanaged treats everything as sRGB) Doing that on this laptop doesn't work. I'm quite sure that it did on the Powerbook. (but it has been a long time since I used it now)
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tale

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« Reply #32 on: February 27, 2007, 05:44:13 pm »

I have *exactly* the same problem! I am using a Macbook Core 2 Duo and mostly Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and also the Spyder 2 device: Wrong colors in Lightroom, Photoshop, Preview and correct colors when using Save for web in Photoshop or viewing with a web browser.

So what can we try to fix this? Contact Apple / Adobe? We can't be the only ones having these problems... And I thought, color management with Apple/Mac OS is an easy topic.
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Serge Cashman

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« Reply #33 on: February 27, 2007, 05:51:59 pm »

Any of you guys has Windows installed on the same powerbook?  Profiles are cross-platform, you could load it in Windows.  So you can see if it's a profile or the  color conversion  engine issue. (in Windows you need to make sure you load LUTs on startup).

Maybe a certain version of Colorvision software screws up on lowend LCDs in mac OS.

[edit] Probably not, cause you've tried Basiccolor as well...
« Last Edit: February 27, 2007, 05:57:56 pm by Serge Cashman »
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Serge Cashman

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« Reply #34 on: February 27, 2007, 06:08:20 pm »

Wait... Did you say that in Safari colors look correct?

That probably means that just Adobe applications have a problem. Maybe there's some issue with Adobe's engine, ACE or whatever they call it. Do you have other color managed applications installed, other RAW converters, image viewers etc?


related discussion
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00K7v2&tag=

[edit]

I'm not in front of a Mac now, so can't double-check how exactly it looks over there...

In Photoshop in Edit / Color settings if you look into More options there are Conversion Options on the bottom. See if you can replace ACE with something else. On a PC you have at least ICM as an alternative. You can also add a standalone version of Adobe CMM:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cmm/
« Last Edit: February 27, 2007, 06:25:43 pm by Serge Cashman »
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tale

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« Reply #35 on: February 27, 2007, 06:10:56 pm »

I opened the thread at photo.net, and no, I don't have any other color managed applications installed. I could try the trial of lightroom, though.
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Serge Cashman

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« Reply #36 on: February 27, 2007, 06:18:09 pm »

Quote
I opened the thread at photo.net, ...

I thought you did. Let's see if somebody comes up with a solution. See my post about ACE above.

[edit]
 Lightroom won't help cause it is also from Adobe, and probably standalone CMM won't help for the same reason. See if you can get something 3rd party. Bibble or something.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2007, 06:22:03 pm by Serge Cashman »
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tale

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« Reply #37 on: February 27, 2007, 06:30:51 pm »

I tried the Apple CMM. Unfortunately, results are the same. I also downloaded, installed and activated the Adobe CMM - still the same.
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orangekay

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« Reply #38 on: February 27, 2007, 06:34:49 pm »

Well a quick way to test out whether or not it's the result of a rounding error in Rosetta would be to try viewing the images in the CS3 beta on the Intel machine.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2007, 06:35:31 pm by orangekay »
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Serge Cashman

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« Reply #39 on: February 27, 2007, 06:35:37 pm »

Just to make sure - you do not have the same issue with Safari?

You know, "save for web" is not colormanaged, "proof to monitor" is not color managed. Safari is color managed, but it's not an Adobe product.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2007, 06:37:19 pm by Serge Cashman »
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