How to make photos look similar on AdobeRGB and sRGB devices?

Hi everybody,

somehow I have a knot in my thinking about color management, it seems there is something basic I do not understand... Sorry, if it gets a bit long...

I edit a photo on a calibrated AdobeRGB monitor using AdobeRGB as working space, saving with embedded AdobeRGB profile.

On an sRGB-Screen or on the phone, of course, it looks flat, lifeless. So I convert it to sRGB. On the AdobeRGB screen, in my color managed program it looks the same. In a simple photo viewer without color management, it looks over-saturated, which is, as I understand, what the conversion did.

When I look at that converted image on a sRGB-device without color management it looks nearly perfect and very similar to the original on the AdobeRGB screen, but when I look at it on an sRGB device using color managed software (or a modern browser), the image looks again flat and lifeless, as if the saturation enhancement achieved by the conversion would be reversed.

What I want to achieve is an image that looks very similar on an AdobeRGB screen with color-management, and on an sRGB screen with and without color managment.

I found a way to make it for sRGB screens, but I think my work-around isn't really correct and it solves only part of the problem. Probably there is simply something I don't understand.

What I do:

- edit in AdobeRGB
- convert to sRGB (getting the "oversaturated" version, that looks good on sRGB devices without color management, but dull with color management)
- assigning AdobeRGB profile to the converted file (not converting but replacing the embedded sRGB profile by the AdobeRGB profile)

Now my image looks "perfect" on sRGB devices, in non-color managed programs as well as in Chrome or Firefox browser or other color managed programs. But, of course, it looks over-saturated on AdobeRGB devices.

Ho can I achieve that the image

- looks good in non-color-managed programs like simple image viewers on sRGB devices and the gallery of mobile phones

- looks the same in color managed programs and browsers on sRGB devices

(until here achieved with the work around above, but)

- also looks very similar and not over-saturated in color managed software or browsers on an AdobeRGB screen.

Can somebody enlighten me a bit?

It all depends on whether the image contains also colors outside the sRGB gamut or not.

a. If all the image colors fall within sRGB, the sRGB color space will give you full color fidelity and the best color resolution (finest color steps) at any given bit-depth.

b. If some image colors fall beyond sRGB, then a wider color space will be necessary to record the image in full color fidelity, but pretty few monitors and printers will be able to render those colors properly.

c. For very wide color spaces, like ProPhoto, 16-bit files are required to prevent banding (i.e. to provide enough color resolution).

d. General rule: the smallest color space that contains all the picture colors will do the job best.

Thank you agedbriar, I am doing more tests now...

When working in sRGB color space and producing an image with embedded sRGB profile I can achieve the desired result.

But how can I achieve that my already edited images with embedded AdobeRGB profile look similar on sRGB devices?

As far as I know, you can’t. You need to save to sRGB and agedbriar said, watch for out of gamut color s.

I'm not sure what is going wrong.

I used to shoot with my cameras (Canon) set to RAW or jpeg Argb.

When i use photoshop on those images, I use the Argb working space, and any images saved for viewing on the net (vs. printing) are converted to Srgb.

I just tried it again on my work computer and can't reproduce your problem. In an app that can read the profiles, they look pretty much identical. I'm familr with the issue of the Argb image going flat and de-saturated, but that should be avoided with the conversion in PS.

The problem sits in front of my computer.

As so often... The truth is that it simply works in any case: edited in adobeRGB and saved with AdobeRGB, or edited in sRGB and saved with sRGB, or converted the AdobeRBG to sRGB - all perfect.

My problem was that, when I switched my monitor from AdobeRGB to sRGB, I used a wrong monitor profile in the system settings. Thus, of course, the browsers interpreted the colors wrongly and I had terrible results, while the un-managed image viewer showed it correct, because he doesn't care about the systems monitor color profile.

So, I feel ashamed with my typical beginners error and am sorry for the time I have stolen from you!

Thanks for your input!

DanielMalaga wrote in post #19406332
Hi everybody,

somehow I have a knot in my thinking about color management, it seems there is something basic I do not understand... Sorry, if it gets a bit long...

I edit a photo on a calibrated AdobeRGB monitor using AdobeRGB as working space, saving with embedded AdobeRGB profile.

When you say "calibrated" I am assuming that you use a colorimeter or spectrometer and calibrate and profile your display and create a custom display profile that your system uses. I am also assuming that your "AdobeRGB monitor" is a monitor that can display a significant portion of the AdobeRGB color space.

Embedding the AdobeRGB color profile tag in an image that has color data in the AdobeRGB color space will permit color-managed devices to display that image "correctly" within the limits of that display device.

On your AdobeRGB display, when you view an sRGB image in a viewer that is not color managed, the color can get overly saturated. Typically this is because the sRGB numbers for saturated colors are closer to the sRGB gamut limits when the image was converted into sRGB from a larger color space - because AdobeRGB's gamut is larger, these extreme sRGB numbers get interpreted as extreme AdobeRGB numbers and the overly saturated look can often occur.

When you converted to sRGB, presumably you embedded the sRGB color profile tag in the sRGB image - right? If so, the original AdobeRGB image numbers are now converted into sRGB numbers and the image also contains an sRGB color profile tag to tell color-aware applications what those numbers mean. When you view the image on an sRGB display without color management, the display assumes sRGB (here, correctly), the sRGB numbers get interpreted "correctly" because the image is in sRGB color numbers from the conversion, and the image looks "correct." When you view the image on an sRGB display in a color-managed environment, it should look identical. If it does not, then there is something up with the image - if the color numbers are actually in sRGB, then there may be something wrong with the embedded color profile tag.

Convert your image to sRGB and embedded the sRGB color profile in the image. That will give you correct color across all three of the above situations. There may be some color shifts during the conversion to sRGB if the colors in the original AdobeRGB image are significantly out of the sRGB color gamut.

>> AdobeRGB display w/ color-managed application: hey! This is an sRGB image (because the embedded color profile tag tells me so), so display the color numbers in the image as sRGB.

>> sRGB display w/ color-managed application: hey! This is an sRGB image (because the embedded color profile tag tells me so), so display the color numbers in the image as sRGB.

>> sRGB display w/o color-managed application: hey! I have no idea what these numbers represent, but assume they are sRGB and display the color numbers in the image as sRGB.

If you are getting an sRGB image to look oversaturated on an AdobeRGB display when the sRGB image has the proper (sRGB) color profile embedded in it and you are viewing it in a color-managed environment, you may want to confirm that the viewer is actually color managed or that there isn't a problem with a display profile somewhere.

Kirk