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Author Topic: OSX Colour Management Problems  (Read 99778 times)

Andrew Fee

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« Reply #100 on: March 09, 2007, 04:22:57 am »

*sigh* Well just as I thought everything was working fine, a friend showed me some photos of his holiday in Japan.

Now this is a weird one. For some reason, this image looks the same in Firefox as it does in Safari and Preview. However if I load it into Aperture or Photoshop, the sky with a slight purple tint turns violet:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/147/4153901...56fc4b2d0_o.jpg
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #101 on: March 09, 2007, 06:14:22 am »

"...My concern now is this: how do I ensure that anyone viewing my photographs is seeing them as they are supposed to look? Is it even possible seeing as the majority of people use an unmanaged browser for the internet?"...

Post some images converted to sRGB you think look correct especially ones you edited to make them look as intended and I'll tell you what it looks like in my nonCM browser. Include an image or images that have colors you have concerns about.
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #102 on: March 10, 2007, 01:24:32 am »

I was a bit hesitant to post this, as it is not an interesting picture at all, and I'm just starting out with photography really (well, I have been trying to for a while) so I was just focusing on trying to get the exposure correct with this shot, which is tricky as this camera doesn't have a histogram. (so I'm trying to get an understanding of how it generally tries to expose and how I should adjust compensation for that) I do plan on getting an SLR at some point, but right now, I'm just experimenting really. It does show off the difference between managed/unmanaged quite well I think though.

http://sr-388.net/images/misc/colourproblems/DSCF2783.jpg

In unmanaged applications, this looks natural; it was a pretty dull day, and the weather is only just clearing up in Scotland, so the grass isn't all that green yet. The old swing is faded, and the sky is a pale blue.

In managed applications, the grass is bordering on garish, the tree on the left is very badly posterised, with large patches of very dark areas on it, and the sky is grey with a very slight purple tint, rather than blue. The old faded swing is also a rather deep blue.

I'm about ready to give up to be honest. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time and money trying to solve this problem, and it's just taking all the enjoyment out of photography for me. Some photographs look great as shot and others, like this one, look garish. If I'm exporting an image, I don't know how it's going to look on someone else's computer - if I boost the saturation in something so it looks good in unmanaged applications, am I going to end up with an oversaturated image, or not? If I leave it so that it's properly saturated in the managed ones, is it going to look very dull for everyone running Windows? (as there are no managed browsers for it)
« Last Edit: March 10, 2007, 01:27:12 am by Andrew Fee »
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sarangiman

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« Reply #103 on: March 10, 2007, 01:37:25 am »

Don't give up, Andrew.

I'm having the same problem as you, but I'm determined to find a solution.

In the worst case scenario, just pick up a cheap Sony CRT... and calibrate it. You won't have these problems.

However, here's a suggestion:

Try profiling your MacBook Pro LCD but, this time, instead of using 'Native White Point', set your white point in your profiling software to 6500.

Tell me if this changes anything.

-Rishi
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Andrew Fee

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« Reply #104 on: March 10, 2007, 02:21:53 am »

Quote
Try profiling your MacBook Pro LCD but, this time, instead of using 'Native White Point', set your white point in your profiling software to 6500.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105773\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I've actually been using D65 for most of my recent profiles, as it does look better, but still not right.

I simply don't have the room for a CRT (or a desktop computer) anymore, which is part of the reason I got a notebook. I had a 17" Powerbook, but it was just too bulky to use as a laptop, which is why I've got the 15" MacBook Pro now.

At best, I'd be able to wall-mount an LCD, but I can't really justify the money an LCD with that kind of colour reproduction costs.
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sarangiman

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« Reply #105 on: March 10, 2007, 03:55:56 pm »

Yeah, I just tried, and D65 didn't do anything for me either.

I just confirmed that even Apple's canned 'Color LCD' profile for the MacBook Pro LCD ends up converting pure blue (0,0,255) to (25,0,255)... it's just that the bump of 25 in red doesn't actually change the hue of blue much... the conversion our monitor profiles are doing for pure blue... that is, (0,0,255) --> (101,0,255)... however, causes the hue shift we see.

This issue has been recognized by other people in the past... I found posts dating back to 2004/2005. I can't find any *solutions* though. Perhaps it is time to contact customer service of the our colorimeter companies? Maybe they'll have some idea?

Rishi
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #106 on: March 10, 2007, 09:28:38 pm »

Andrew,

Your image looks normal in both CM and nonCM apps. The cloud on the right just above the swing is a powdery violet tint and the center top cloud shadow is more a tint of navy blue which is what cumulous rain clouds look like in my area. The swing set bars are a deep cobalt blue but not "glow in the dark". The grass is deep forest green with a slight blue cast from the dim overcast lighting. The colors in the photo look normal and realistic for that type of lighting.

You're not suppose to be getting two extremely different previews with an sRGB image in CM and nonCM apps because all current modern displays calibrate within sRGB specs. Examining your  your calibrated profile with Colorsync Utility suggests you have a display that's almost as small as CMYK. That's impossible. You have a corrupt or inaccurate profile.  

Download SuperCal, an eyeball calibrator for the Mac. Google it. It's a very straight forward, simple app that doesn't fight for the vLUT like other calibrators may do. Adjust only the MacBook's brightness and when you come to the phosphor colorant settings pick sRGB-(SuperCal doesn't have the Macbook colorants), pick any gamma you want. Name and save the profile.

The reason for SuperCaL over AppleCaL is that AppleCaL will not let you pick your color temp/P22colorant sets to build your XYZ formula for CM apps to adjust previews by. AppleCaL gets its colorant data from the EDID ROM chip all current DDC compliant display manufacturers include. The data on these ROM chips can become corrupt as I read happened on some expensive 10bit LUT Sharp LCD's in the past.

Not saying this is your issue, but you did attach a Toshiba TV and who knows what downloaded from its EDID chip through DDC or if it had one.

Stick with it, Andrew. I went through the same crap back in 1998 when I first taught myself digital imaging when CM technology was just developing. That chart I posted is the result of what I went through using AdobeGamma and AppleCaL calibrators that had bad color transform selects until SuperCal came along with the correct one for sRGB. It brought me very close to what I now get with the EyeOne Display.

There was no one to confirm for me back then what I was suppose to see, but the experts did indicate that I needed to buy almost $3000 worth of equipment to be sure. Fortunately, I didn't buy in to that advice.
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sarangiman

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« Reply #107 on: March 10, 2007, 09:45:21 pm »

tlooknbill,

Thanks for your advice.

Are we to then just accept that our colorimeter/software packages fail to calibrate our MacBook Pro LCDs, yet seem to do a fine job calibrating other CRTs, Apple Cinema Display, etc.?

You're right, my monitor profile generated by i1 also looks like Andrews... like a small 'square' in 3-D space, on par with the size of CMYK, certainly not sRGB. Yet my Sony CRT & Apple Cinema Display profiles generated by the exact same i1 colorimeter/software package generated monitor profiles that looked much more like sRGB in a 3-D plot (in ColorSync utility).

Also, Andrew Wee had this problem about a year & a half ago... don't know if it was ever resolved:

http://www.colorforums.com/viewtopic.php?p...aa5410d14125b59

Also, you mentioned the possibility of corrupt download from an EDID chip... could that result in a 'permanent' (well, until cleared) corruption of the LUTs on our video cards. Lord knows I've plugged in tons of crap to my DVI connector on my Mac... but why would that affect colors on our MacBook Pro LCD displays?

Thanks,
Rishi
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #108 on: March 10, 2007, 10:24:27 pm »

sarangiman,

It's hard to say. I have three old Mac systems that all had slight quirky behaviors but none that were permanent.

It may require that you reattach the other displays to get the system to rerecognize those devices it expects to be still attached, maybe get it to rebuild the EDID profile, then trash the hardware calibrator prefs, Colorsync prefs and disconnect the display and trash all profiles associated with the EDID and the hardware calibrator. Oh, and then do a dance.

I've read in the past of quirky behaviors that were solved by a specific step of procedures that involved first shutting down the computer, disconnecting the display and then unplugging it from the wall or unplug first then disconnect (not sure), then unplugging the computer, let both set for about 15 minutes, then reconnect in reverse order along with zapping the PRAM and NVRAM, but this was all back in OS 9.

I'm not familiar enough with OS X to give reliable advice on this or what would work without causing more problems. I just found out about logging under another user account to sort of start from scratch, but that's as far as I got. David Pogue's OS X Tiger book is 2 inches thick.

I can show you what an OS 9.2.2 EDID profile did to my CM display in PS 7 about a year ago when I attached an Optiquest Q90 CRT I bought from a thrift store. See attached.
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #109 on: March 10, 2007, 10:52:23 pm »

One more thing I just remembered that everyone advises to do in this situation. Start with a known good profile selected in System Pref>Display such as sRGB, but not the EDID ones that have generic names like ColorLCD or the brand name of the display you don't remember installing.

Then recalibrate using your hardware calibrator. But I first trash my EyeOne Display prefs when I start a new calibration. The name of the files I trash in OS 9.2.2 are LogoCalibration and EyeOne and then launch i1Match.

In OS X I believe you'll have to do a search to find exactly where these prefs are. I'm still a bit confused with what's in the home folder and what's in system pref folders.
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sarangiman

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« Reply #110 on: March 10, 2007, 10:57:04 pm »

tlooknbill,

Thanks for generously trying to help, again.

Wow, so, let me make sure I understand you correctly:

Attaching the Optiquest CRT subsequently changed the colors on your *separate/different* color-managed monitor which had its own calibrated profile?

In other words, for example:

--> You initially have an Apple monitor. You calibrate it, and create the profile "Apple Monitor". You apply that profile, and all is well.

--> You pick up a Optiquest CRT, plug it in, and now the OS uses a 'canned' profile called 'Q90' for this monitor (that it downloaded from the EDID chip)

--> You disconnect your Optiquest CRT, and go back to the old Apple monitor. You check that the OS is using the calibrated "Apple Monitor" profile once again. AND YET, colors are now completely wrong, simply because you connected the Optiquest CRT once...

Is that what you're saying? Just wanted to make sure, because it sounds crazy to me

Thanks,
Rishi
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sarangiman

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« Reply #111 on: March 10, 2007, 11:55:37 pm »

tlooknbill,

I tried everything you just suggested:

Set sRGB as my monitor profile.
Clear vLUTs as suggested earlier in this forum.
Delete all Eye-One preferences.
Re-calibrate with i1.

I still pretty much got the same results/profiles.

Looking at my previous post where I compare all the ICC profiles (monitor vs. sRGB, etc.), just to confirm: you think that Andrew's and my monitor profiles look too small (compared against the sRGB color space)? Aren't small gamuts expected given that this is a laptop LCD?

Thanks,
Rishi
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #112 on: March 11, 2007, 12:02:34 am »

Not exactly.

The EDID Q90 profile only corrupts the CM preview when it's selected as my system profile in the Display select dialog box. I can choose the standard Apple sRGB or any other canned profile that is part of an OS 9.2.2 install with no corrupt CM previews.

I can reattach my previous CRT and its brand name-(PrincetonEO90) EDID profile will not be corrupt, but it creates oversaturated previews as demonstrated in the chart because it expects my display's color temp to be set at 9000K which is what's written into the EDID profile and can't be changed. 9000K is quite blue and blue desaturates thus I have oversaturated previews because my display is actually calibrated to a warmer 6500K.

Don't you just love circular logic?
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #113 on: March 11, 2007, 12:09:04 am »

Whoops, missed your last post.

I'm just saying I have a lot of canned profiles on my system some LCD's some CRT's and none are as small as yours and Andrews. I've never seen a profile as small as a CMYK space for any display. P22 phosphors combined with 2.2 gamma, 100-120cd/m2 luminance makes it impossible.

The posted digicam shots supports this as well.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2007, 12:10:31 am by tlooknbill »
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sarangiman

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« Reply #114 on: March 11, 2007, 12:16:07 am »

Yes, but even Apple's canned profile for the MacBook Pro was, as you've observed with most profiles, larger than what Andrew & I get after i1 calibration.

As can be seen here:
http://web.mac.com/rishisanyal/iWeb/Homepa...Comparisons.jpg

And given that the i1 did a fine job calibrating the Sony CRT & Apple Cinema Display (again, if you look at the above link, the i1-generated Sony CRT profile looks quite reasonable against the sRGB backdrop), I'm inclined to believe that the i1 isn't completely out-of-whack...

Does it bother you at all that in Andrew's and my i1-generated profiles of the MacBook Pro LCD, the blues at the bottom of the 3-D plot always fall *outside* the gamut of sRGB?

Thanks,
Rishi
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #115 on: March 11, 2007, 12:51:06 am »

You're right.

I transferred my custom i1 2000 Pismo Powerbook profile and the canned Powerbook G3 Series profile to compared with the iMac factory profile which is in wireframe and I get the same small shape gamut by the i1 for the Pismo but the canned Pismo is almost as large as the iMac which is a bit bigger than sRGB. See attached at the bottom.

Beats me. The custom pismo profile I don't use because I use my CRT, but I remember the Pismo laptop was crap to do editing on. How the canned Pismo profile says otherwise is beyond me.
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #116 on: March 11, 2007, 12:59:29 am »

conclusion...

Don't trust the color on the laptop because they still put crap displays on them as someone already indicated about 100 posts back.
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sarangiman

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« Reply #117 on: March 11, 2007, 01:08:21 am »

Yeah, I must say, it's laughable that advertisement states that the MacBook Pros are great for on-the-go digital photography... they should add the tag line: "just don't do any color editing on them".

So, the larger assumed gamut of our canned profiles meant that certain colors that our monitors *are* deficient at reproducing (e.g. yellow) were NOT being pumped out at higher values/saturations by color-managed software. However, after calibration with the i1, the limited gamut monitor profile instructed CM applications to heighten yellows before sending to my MBP LCD screen... hence the more reasonable colors (less over-blown saturation in the oranges/reds) after calibration with the i1. This is also obvious when I drag the LR window from my MBP LCD display to my Sony CRT: Initially, on the Sony CRT, the image in the incoming LR window (as I'm dragging it over) appears intensely yellow (i.e. the image that was being pumped to my MBP LCD was oversaturated in yellow, since my MBP LCD was inefficient at displaying yellow)... then as CM kicks in for my Sony CRT, oranges are restored as yellows are brought back down.

So, I still prefer my i1 profile over the canned profile.

But only for pictures without blues, I guess, since it turns blues violet. *SIGH*.

tlooknbill, don't you think it's funny, though, that your Pismo PowerBook monitor profile generated by the i1 says that your dinky laptop screen has a larger gamut in the blues than your iMac screen?

HIGHLY unlikely, and I still stand my ground that this overextension in the gamut of blues in these i1-generated profiles is more-than-likely what is causing the blue-to-violet hue shift for Andrew F., Andrew W., and me (& probably others who just haven't noticed it yet!).

Any theories? Contact i1 tech support? This problem has *got* to be fixable.
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Tim Lookingbill

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« Reply #118 on: March 11, 2007, 03:04:03 am »

No, what I think is funny is relying on the accuracy of gamut plots which I never saw any use for as indicated here in over 100 posts. This isn't the first troubleshooting session on this same subject and it won't be the last. I was assuming Apple would've improved their laptop display's by now, but from the looks of the gamut plots, it's not to be. D'oh! I just contradicted myself.

Now you know why I didn't plunk down the $3000 for the calibration package back in '98. And this is one of the reasons I don't troubleshoot computers for a living. Too many unknowns and no way of finding out for sure.
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sarangiman

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« Reply #119 on: March 11, 2007, 03:22:29 am »

Haha, yes you did just contradict yourself.

Yet, you make some excellent points.

Better to just stick with what works (i.e. my Sony CRT + Apple Cinema Display), and spend more time on, say, matters that concern my own career... being as that is virology, I'm pretty far off here in this forum

Cheers,
Rishi
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