Massive color/hue shift in greens and other colors in normal and 100% view

[Paul2660]

This may be a known about issue, however I just ran into it in a big way today.  It seems that with Capture One, there is not a 100% correlation between the normal screen view and the view at 100%, in that your colors in the normal screen view can become over saturated and for sure the hue is different.  If you zoom to 100%, the colors then agree to what would be viewed in Photoshop, but you can't really work on a file from a Phase One back at a 100% view unless you could put together 4 monitors and tile them.

The difference in the greens, I have to say, is way off and there is no way that I can think of to work around it. 

I have attached 2 screen shots.  The first one is a file in C1 at normal view, and same file outputed, and view in Photoshop at the same view.  The differences are seen immediate as the green hue in Photoshop is much more yellow.  The blues and yellows seem OK, but the bluff on the right side of the image is also much more orange in the 100% view.  If you look at the next screen shot, which has both images again side by side at 100%, you can see that the C1 preview now agrees with the Photoshop view. 

Not sure what others feel, but I find this an amazing oversight, and it makes it next to impossible to get exact color.

Edit: I am using a 30" and 27" NEC monitor both using Spectraview both calibrated, 2 different Win 10 PC's . But I can see the same problem with Mac on my 15" macbook pro, but not as bad since the screen size limits the viewing size. 

Paul C

[E.J. Peiker]

That certainly does not happen here on any of my computers which include Macs and Windows machines on Phase One, or any other type of file.  I also use Spectraview 30" monitors.  One thing I would check is to make sure you are generating your previews at the monitor resolution so that the software doesn't have to recalculate every time you change magnification levels.  This was covered in one of the Phase One webinars.  I don't know if this could cause what you are seeing but it's worth checking.  So for example for the 30" monitor your previews would have to be generated at 2560 pixels.  I don't know if that calculation could somehow bypass the color management.

Do note, you will have to restart the software and regenerate the preview for the change to take affect on any file.

[Paul2660]

That certainly does not happen here on any of my computers which include Macs and Windows machines on Phase One, or any other type of file.  I also use Spectraview 30" monitors.  One thing I would check is to make sure you are generating your previews at the monitor resolution so that the software doesn't have to recalculate every time you change magnification levels.  This was covered in one of the Phase One webinars.  I don't know if this could cause what you are seeing but it's worth checking.  So for example for the 30" monitor your previews would have to be generated at 2560 pixels.  I don't know if that calculation could somehow bypass the color management.

Do note, you will have to restart the software and regenerate the preview for the change to take affect on any file.

Thans EJ, I am trying to figure out how to check if the previews at the monitor resolution, can't find it under prefs.  I am also wondering if this is due to the increased resolution of the IQ100 files as I am seeing the problem more on these files. 

Screen shot below is from 15" macbook pro, retina display, IQ100 image.

Paul C

[Remko]

Paul,

To change the resolution of the previews, go to Preferences and click on the "Image" tab at the top of that window. There you will see as the very first item "Preview Image Size", where you can specify the resolution.

I do not have the issue you are facing with the difference between normal view and 100% view. If the only thing you are doing is double clicking on an image to see it at 100% view (or using the Viewer Toolbar for that), than it is weird for me you get those differences. I would raise a support ticket. I found the people at Phase One to be most helpful.

cheers,
Remko

[Paul2660]

Thanks, made the change and problem still exists.

Paul C

[sebbe]

what about the proof profile in C1 and PS? Did you accidently turned one on?

C1: Menu View --> Proof Profile
http://help.phaseone.com/en/CO8/Output/File-formats/Colors-in-Capture-One.aspx
PS: Menu View --> Proof colors checked

[Paul2660]

Hi, good points. 

I double checked CC, view was not for soft proofing. 

In C1, my input profile is the Phase One IQ100, output is the 16 bit tiff receipe using prophoto as the color space.  (I have also tried output to 8 bit prophoto and 8 bit Adobe 1998, same issue)

Paul C

[Paul2660]

What's even more frustrating is that I just looked at some shots from April and May, and these appear fine. 
Even popped up the green sat just to see what would happen. 

Really a bit strange.

Paul C

[E.J. Peiker]

Hi, good points. 

I double checked CC, view was not for soft proofing. 

In C1, my input profile is the Phase One IQ100, output is the 16 bit tiff receipe using prophoto as the color space.  (I have also tried output to 8 bit prophoto and 8 bit Adobe 1998, same issue)

Paul C

Man, that's pretty how my stuff is set and I just don't see this - something very strange is going on...  But since older shots are fine, I would check all of the image settings between ones that are fine and ones that are not.  Don't forget to look in the Base Characteristics in the Color tab for differences - that's an easy one to miss

[Paul2660]

Just a note,

Opened a case with Phase One, apparently it's a known issue and "standard by design".  Certain files with a lot of clarity, or saturation, or sharpening etc, may show this problem. Phase One's official statement to me was to only check color fidelity at a 100% view.  Sorry but that really won't work for me.  Views of 17% and 25% still show the effect full, but by 35% you start to see the colors change over and by 50% they are the same as the output colors to Photoshop.

This has been done to allow processing speed apparently, I replied I would sure like an option to have slower previews to keep 100% color fidelity.

Paul C

[E.J. Peiker]

Just a note,

Opened a case with Phase One, apparently it's a known issue and "standard by design".  Certain files with a lot of clarity, or saturation, or sharpening etc, may show this problem. Phase One's official statement to me was to only check color fidelity at a 100% view.  Sorry but that really won't work for me.  Views of 17% and 25% still show the effect full, but by 35% you start to see the colors change over and by 50% they are the same as the output colors to Photoshop.

This has been done to allow processing speed apparently, I replied I would sure like an option to have slower previews to keep 100% color fidelity.

Paul C

Hmm, that is really hard to believe unless they are doing something where they scale how much they do based on computer/graphics capability.  I just took an IQ3-100 file from Ireland with a lot of green and I maxed the saturation and clarity sliders and can not recreate the problem.  Both the full size and the 100% images have identical color and show them accurately.  I have a 32GB 4GHz i7 with GeForce 1080 graphics system driving an NEC Spectraview 30" monitor.  I'm guessing there had to be some level of misunderstanding or translation to native language issues in the communication.  I hope David Grover chimes in here as he often does because this doesn't make sense.

[TeeKay]

Hmm, that is really hard to believe unless they are doing something where they scale how much they do based on computer/graphics capability.

I think they are using an efficient downscaling algorithm that works well most of the time, but can fail with certain images.

The fact that you cannot replicate the issue with your images does not mean the same issue wouldn't appear on your machine if you processed the kind of image that triggers the failure.

I've seen this issue as well. Only with a few select images, though. In my cases they were all pretty noisy high-ISO images.

I too, would like to have the option between fast and "always accurate" previewing. It is impossible to make colour adjustment decisions while being zoomed in at 100% as one completely loses the context and the relationship to other colours in the image.

[Paul2660]

Yes, it's due to the downsampling, and the resolution of the IQ100 is also possibly creating a bit of trouble.

I also realized that on this shoot I was set to auto WB, (I have never really liked the WB of Phase One), mostly use daylight but situations like this shooting to the sun, Daylight makes everything yellow/green.  It can be fixed in post I realize, but I wanted to see what I got with Auto.  Auto gave me a closer hit, but in C1, it's creating an issue where I need to push the WB way way to the right.  This caused the greens of the trees to push way to green and thus has made this image a bit unstable.  You can easily see what is happening during the lag from fit view to around 35%, as the part of the image show below out of focus is still holding the wrong WB, over saturated greens. etc.  The right half is where it actually is. 

Interesting learning experience.

Also not trying to push any negatives, as the color from the IQ100, is next to amazing, the malleability of the files is just tremendous.



Paul C

[sebbe]

Sorry, I did not write it to the end. You should turn it in C1 off too. This has nothing to do with the input or output profile.
The input profile may have a color cast, but then you should see it in every size the same. The output profile does have no influence on what you see, but the RGB values will be different, depending on the used output-profile. If you want to check the output profile, you have to soft proof for example with "view --> proof profile --> sRGB". This may have an influence on the size you are looking at. But I'm not sure about that, because I hardly use it.

As your macbook pro has a smaller color space you should see the effect not as strong as on the NEC display.

Hi, good points. 

I double checked CC, view was not for soft proofing. 

In C1, my input profile is the Phase One IQ100, output is the 16 bit tiff receipe using prophoto as the color space.  (I have also tried output to 8 bit prophoto and 8 bit Adobe 1998, same issue)

Paul C

[E.J. Peiker]

Interesting, your comments on WB.  I also find the auto WB and even the daylight WB settings native to the XF-IQ series to be a little "weird".  Both have some complex shifts that are a bit difficult to neutralize perfectly unless you happen to have a true gray card in the frame.  So I have basically made a WB preset using a Gretag Macbeth gray color swatch taken under direct overhead noon sun and a second one taken under complete thick overcast at noon.  Those are the only ones I use for landscape photography.  In most cases, this renders the file fairly accurately and if I need to adjust WB in post, it is a fairly simple procedure, usually just with the Kelvin slider.