DPP and monitor profiles - confused

I'm running DPP 3.0 and Lightroom on a Vista laptop. My monitor is recently calibrated using Spyder2Pro. Due to a problem with the Colorvision startup software and Vista on this laptop I have to apply my monitor profile manually once the machine has finished booting. If I let the monitor profile be set from the startup folder during boot it immediately resets back to the unprofiled state. Anyway, that's not a big issue as applying the profile manually works just fine. I just wanted to explain that I apply my monitor profile after booting rather than during booting. My question is as follows....

If I boot my machine and don't apply the monitor profile straight away I can start Lightroom and DPP 3.0 and stack the windows side by side. I can open up the same raw photo in each app and view it in the design/edit window of each application respectively. If I then apply my monitor profile manually I can see the colour shift applied to Lightroom and DPP. The effect applies to the working spaces and the photos themselves. This is how I expect thing to work - the monitor is originally a bit off in colour and the profile fixes it for anything and everything displayed on the screen.

But...... DPP has a preference in Colour Management to view using sRGB or a seleced monitor profile. Lightroom has no such option, nor to my mind should it need one since the monitor is now calibrated. So what should I use in DPP - sRGB or my monitor ICC file? If I switch from one to the other I see a change in the displayed photo in DPP. So which one is "right"? Why is the option even there? If my display is calibrated why would I want the editing software to alter the display further? Since DPP is colour-space aware I just don't understand why it cares about a monitor/display profile. What am I missing?

In DPP you need to set your monitor profile manually.
DPP is programmed stupidly in that aspect...

Thanks for the reply. The question is - what do I set it to? I see the whole screen change colour when I apply the monitor profile to the system as a whole. That is without changing anything in DPP. If I then "add" the same monitor profile in DPP (rather than leaving it at the sRGB default) there is a further change to the colours but only within the photo itself. That does not seem right to me. If the monitor is profiled correctly I do not understand what function the monitor profile setting serves in DPP. There is no equivalent in Lightroom and I can understand why not. What I do not understand is why DPP has a monitor profile option at all.

You set the monitor profile created by the Spyder2Pro.
The reason you need to do that manually is, I think, a mystery to all but the designers.

I wrote a thread about CM, including the settings of DPP and PSCS2 here: Click

When you calibrate a monitor, 2 things happen.
First, the calibration will correct the colors/brightness/cont​rast using the settings of the monitor and video card. Those settings are applied to the video card hardware at the startup. The result of this operation is to have a "good" display. Since most applications like Explorer are not 'color managed', images in sRGB on a calibrated monitor should look pretty close to what they should be in a color managed app like Photoshop.

Secondly, the calibration will also build an "ICC profile" for your display (monitor/video card combo). This "ICC profile" is not managed by the hardware. It is only used by applications that are "color managed'. DPP and Photoshop will use this ICC profile to display images with greater accurary.

The reason why an sRGB image looks ok in Explorer is because the sRGB color space has been build to fit the average monitor/video card combo.

tdodd -
The monitor profile you created with your calibrator has two uses. First as your new system display profile it affects everything you see, from your wallpaper to your word processor to any image viewer, as you have seen. However, that's only half the story. The second purpose of the profile is that it is used by color managed programs. "Color Management" means that the application, as well as being aware of the image's color space, is also aware of the monitor space and changes the image data sent to the monitor in order to obtain a more accurate display. Obviously, being monitor space aware is an essential factor of CM. Photoshop and Lightroom inspect the system registry automatically and, as it were, inform themselves what profile is associated with the monitor. DPP does not do this. It requires that you inform it via the Preferences dialog.

Rene -
I've seen you "complain" many times about this characteristic of DPP, but I actually have two other applications - in daily use - that require the same thing, Breezebrowser Pro and Picture Window Pro. I don't think its a big deal, you set it once and forget it.

It's the difference between 'calibration' of the monitor, and the monitor profile. There are 2 parts to 'profiling' a monitor.

1 - The monitor is calibrated. This sets up things like the approximate white point and gamma of the screen, and is done by a combination of adjusting the monitor by hand and loading a LookUp Table (LUT) to the graphics card. This gets the monitor into a reasonable and, more importantly, known state for profiling.

2 - The monitor is profiled. This involves measuring the actual response of the calibrated monitor (RGB chromaticities, measured white point etc.). This info is stored in the ICC profile ('.icc' or '.icm' file), and is used by Photoshop, DPP (and some other apps, but not all) to correct the RGB values sent to the monitor.

When Windows starts (or manually afterwards, in your case), your software will load the appropriate calibration LUT to the graphics card that works with the ICC profile selected. This will change the appearance of the screen in all applications. For accurate colour, however, an application still needs to use the profile to adjust the colours correctly. With DPP, that means you must select the monitor profile in order to be colour managed. Photoshop, Elements and, I assume, Lightroom will automatically use the profile without being told to.

(Just to confuse the issue, the ICC profile specification allows people to store additional information in the '.icm/icc' file. While it is not strictly part of the profile itself, most vendors use this facility to store the LUT data in the '.icm/icc' file. This is sensible, since it means you can't lose the calibration data - the profile is only valid after the LUT is applied).

tzalman wrote in post #3023307
Rene -
I've seen you "complain" many times about this characteristic of DPP, but I actually have two other applications - in daily use - that require the same thing, Breezebrowser Pro and Picture Window Pro. I don't think its a big deal, you set it once and forget it.

Well, no. I have to set it each time I recalibrate my monitor. (Since I use a new name for my monitor profile).
I don't think it's a 'big deal', but I do think it's rather silly...
I could understand if there were an option to not color manage *at all*, but that's not what this does AFAICS: DPP still uses the work space you've set....

Thanks for the replies guys. I guess I'll tell DPP to use the Spyder2Pro generated ICC monitor profile. At least I don't rename my profile from one calibration to the next

I also am perplexed by this issue. I'm forced to asking what's the point of calibrating my monitor if DPP is going to throw my colors off when I print from the lab anyway? To me, it seems counterproductive to color manage when the rest of the world doesn't.

I used to set my viewing profile in DPP as my monitor's display profile created by Colormunki (in my case, "Dell U2711 D65.icm". For RAW files, this makes the images look "just right" on my monitor.

When I Batch Process the images using the sRGB option, the images look over-saturated with red in Windows Explorer (I understand Explorer does not color manage).

When I open up said image in Picassa 3 (color management enabled), it looks "just right" again.

When I print from Costco, Sam's Club, and Target (tested these labs for reference purposes), the image goes back that over-saturated red look (leading me to believe these labs don't color manage at all).

So from now on, I just set my viewing profile in DPP to sRGB because I know the colors will look the way they print. They will also look the way the rest of the real world sees them.

My take: Color management is counterproductive when 95% of the world doesn't do it. Or am I being too cynically fed up for no good reason?

Thanks, all!

derxia wrote in post #12370092
I used to set my viewing profile in DPP as my monitor's display profile created by Colormunki (in my case, "Dell U2711 D65.icm". For RAW files, this makes the images look "just right" on my monitor.
[...]
When I open up said image in Picassa 3 (color management enabled), it looks "just right" again.

This bit is good.

derxia wrote in post #12370092
When I print from Costco, Sam's Club, and Target (tested these labs for reference purposes), the image goes back that over-saturated red look (leading me to believe these labs don't color manage at all).

Use a different lab.

derxia wrote in post #12370092
So from now on, I just set my viewing profile in DPP to sRGB because I know the colors will look the way they print.

No, they will not. Unless by coincidence.

derxia wrote in post #12370092
They will also look the way the rest of the real world sees them.

No, unless the "rest of the real world" comes to your house, to view the images on your screen.

derxia wrote in post #12370092
My take: Color management is counterproductive when 95% of the world doesn't do it. Or am I being too cynically fed up for no good reason?

Maybe you are too cynical, or you don't understand the purpose.
You cannot fix other peoples errors, but you can make sure you don't make any...

Please elaborate, Rene. Do you know where the problem lies? Is it my monitor, my eyes, my images, or my settings?

Like I said, I get better colors when set to sRGB. The images are dull and less saturated when I set viewing profile to my monitor's. Also, I know the labs don't print them this dull. So why do I want to color manage and make it harder on me?

There's gotta be a fix somehow...I just have to find it.

Lemme see if this works:

This image is tagged with sRGB:
http://img.photobucket​.com …uckattack/Image​s/sRGB.jpg

This is the monitor's profile:
http://img.photobucket​.com …attack/Images/M​onitor.jpg

When I make prints, the sRGB look is how they come out.

HELP?!

To me, the one using the monitor profile looks "better" -- in the top one the skin looks too reddish/saturated.

tonylong wrote in post #12370474
To me, the one using the monitor profile looks "better" -- in the top one the skin looks too reddish/saturated.

Agreed. Saturated may look impressive on a striped shirt, but not on a girls face.