Colour Difference in PS CS5 and Canon DPP / FastStone Image Viewer

I am currently using 7D and shots in RAW 99.9% of the time.

However, I discover that when I open my raw files using PS CS5, the colour is very different with what I saw when I open in Canon DPP and FastStone Image Viewer.
The colour of Canon DPP and FastStone Image Viewer are almost same but PS CS5 will actually alter my colours

I am very sure this is not the white balance's problem as I have tried to applied same WB to all 3 programs, and only CS5 looks different

Example....red become yellowish

(left is converted via CS5, right is converted via Canon DPP)

When you shoot a Raw the camera also makes a jpg version which it embeds into the Raw file. This is because a Raw is not a color image file and therefore cannot be displayed. The jpg is processed according to the settings in the camera and is used for the LCD display. When you "open" a Raw file in the Faststone viewer it also actually uses that jpg, that is what you are seeing. When you open the file in DPP it reads the list of camera settings that is also embedded in the file (the metadata) and processes a preview display that is very close to that jpg. That's why DPP and Faststone look alike. The PSCS5 Raw converter, ACR, doesn't read the metadata, other than the WB, and uses its own default processing instead. The defaults are supposed to be only a starting point and you are free to make any changes that you think will improve the image.

Thank you so much for your reply!!
been searching in google for answer but failed.

so, do you mean if I use PS CS5 to open the RAW file, I can never get what I see in the camera's LCD/FastStone Image Viewer/Canon DPP as a "starting point"?

yytellmey wrote in post #14230588
Thank you so much for your reply!!
been searching in google for answer but failed.

so, do you mean if I use PS CS5 to open the RAW file, I can never get what I see in the camera's LCD/FastStone Image Viewer/Canon DPP as a "starting point"?

Adobe will just give an "approximation". In your Raw processor/converter, you can set the White Balance to please yourself.

FastStone will use the "embedded jpeg" to view the file, so that it will match what you see in DPP. Adobe will use its own process to render the file from the Raw data.

You might also want to check out your Color Space setting in Camera Raw. If you look at the little link below your preview, you will see a Color Space setting as well as either 8 bits or 16 bits -- these can be changed by clicking on the link. For example, if you want only sRGB images, Camera Raw could be converting to aRGB -- check the link and change if needed!

yytellmey wrote in post #14230588
Thank you so much for your reply!!
been searching in google for answer but failed.

so, do you mean if I use PS CS5 to open the RAW file, I can never get what I see in the camera's LCD/FastStone Image Viewer/Canon DPP as a "starting point"?

In a sense it's a difference in the philosophy of what a starting point should be. For creating a jpg the camera needs to use a level of processing that produces a finished product. By using that same processing as its default, DPP also starts with something that is pretty highly edited. At Adobe they think that if someone has decided to use Raw it is because they want to make all the decisions (or at least most of them), so they default to a more neutral, half-way sort of processing which doesn't point as much in a particular direction.

But Adobe also recognizes that some people will want to save time by having defaults that have already done most of the work, so they made it very easy to change the defaults. Set the Camera Profile with the same name as the Picture Style you have set in the camera, experiment with increased Contrast, Saturation or Vibrance and Sharpening, maybe some Brightness, add in Clarity - experiment until you have found the level of editing that looks like DPP and then make that your new default. From then on all your photos will start with that editing.

I think you have CS5 RAW setting to ProPhotoRGB

400dabuser wrote in post #14231605
I think you have CS5 RAW setting to ProPhotoRGB

If the PSCS color management is set up correctly there should be almost no discernible difference in the display no matter what color space is set as the working space or the ACR output space, except for perhaps very small differences in the few colors that are right at the edge of the monitor's gamut.

In ACR go to the "Camera Calibration" tab and make sure you are NOT using ACR 4.6 or Adobe Standard as your camera profile. The ones that start with the word "Camera" such as "Camera Standard" should be used as these are specific to the camera the Raw file is coming from and are meant to emulate the profiles by Canon, Nikon and the other manufacturers.

Also, the image you posted is aRGB not sRGB ... so if you believe you are set up for sRGB something is wrong. You set up the conversion from CR2 to sRGB in ACR.

Yours will be different than what I show in the following image since these are for my Nikon D700:

Here's what is available for my Canon 20D and G9:

tzalman wrote in post #14231720
If the PSCS color management is set up correctly there should be almost no discernible difference in the display no matter what color space is set as the working space or the ACR output space, except for perhaps very small differences in the few colors that are right at the edge of the monitor's gamut.

I do respect what you have said, but when I have imported anything with ProPhotoRGB, the colors haven't looked right when I have uploaded to the internet, perhaps I am not doing something right, maybe you could tell me as well

And also, Anita Mui, make sure you set the DPP monitor profile if you have not already done so. Check out this post: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=296149

400dabuser wrote in post #14235459
I do respect what you have said, but when I have imported anything with ProPhotoRGB, the colors haven't looked right when I have uploaded to the internet, perhaps I am not doing something right, maybe you could tell me as well

ProPhotoRGB is a really wide-gamut color space, and things can get pretty crazy if you don't handle it properly! It should be fine if you convert it to sRGB, but don't "Assign" it to sRGB.

tonylong wrote in post #14236033
ProPhotoRGB is a really wide-gamut color space, and things can get pretty crazy if you don't handle it properly! It should be fine if you convert it to sRGB, but don't "Assign" it to sRGB.

I know that ProPhotoRGB is a wide gamut, I keep getting crap colors using it, did you say that I have to convert it to sRGB after importing from Lightroom?

Oh, I've just imported using ProPhotoRgb saved it so I can actually see its lack of colour, then converted the same file to sRGB....I get it now

400dabuser wrote in post #14235459
I do respect what you have said, but when I have imported anything with ProPhotoRGB, the colors haven't looked right when I have uploaded to the internet, perhaps I am not doing something right, maybe you could tell me as well

The OP was talking about displaying an image in PSCS. You're talking about the internet, which is a whole 'nother ballgame. PS is color managed, so is DPP if set up for it (as cfcRebel pointed out). The internet depends on the browser you use. If it is Firefox or Safari, they are color managed like PS and any color space will look good. But IE 8 is not color managed and only sRGB will look right on most monitors. IE 9 has a sort of halfway color management (if an image is identified as being other than sRGB it converts it to sRGB, but true color management would convert it to your monitor's space.)