Different sRGB's in LightRoom/Photoshop?

Yes, I never thought I'd add to the 1,000's of color management posts but here goes...

Here's my workflow -

1) Shoot in RAW in camera. Have camera settings set to RGB.

2) Import to Lightroom, do bulk of editing

3) Open in CS4 (by right clicking on the photo in Lightroom and selecting the Edit In -> Edit in Adobe PhotoShop CS4)

FYI - In my Lightroom settings, on the External Editor tab, I have it set to send to PhotoShop as a PSD, sRGB, 8-bit

When it opens in CS4, it looks pretty much the same as it did in Lightroom. Possibly some very minor changes but from what I read that's because Lightroom processes internally in ProPhoto and "converts" to whatever you select when exporting or sending to an external editor. (don't want to go into that, it works fine and shouldn't be related to this). As I said I select to send as sRGB. I verify it does this correctly because at the top of the photo in CS4 it shows -

Filename @ 21.8% (RGB/8 )

Now, the part I don't understand. In CS4 if I go to View -> Proof Setup -> Custom ; and select sRGB IEC61966-2.1 it changes the colors.
Now at the top of the file it show -

Filename @ 21.8% (RGB/8/sRGB IEC61966-2.1)

If I toggle the View -> Proof Colors option and turn it off it goes back to how it looks at first.

I usually must prefer the initial sRGB look. It usually seems warmer and the IEC61966-2.1 appears to make everything a bit red.

So I guess my question is, which one is the "correct" sRGB? If I'm mostly worried about how they're going to look when posted to a website and mainly viewed in Internet Explorer, which is not color managed, which one should I be basing my adjustments on?

What's even more weird to me, if I go to Edit -> Convert to Profile ; and covert it to the IEC61966-2.1 profile. Then I save it. Close it. Open it back up. It still looks the same as the original (good) and it's like the "convert" didn't do anything. That is until I again go and turn on Proof Colors. Then it changes the look again.

That doesn't seem right...

This is the the standard way I proof things for printing and it works... I have printer profiles for MPIX and for Costco and that's how I proof those. I go in to View -> Proof Setup -> Custom and select the Printer Profile and turn View Proof on. Then adjust away to how I want it to look printed. Then convert to that printer profile and save. Next time I open it up it looks like the printer profile. I don't have to go and select "View Proof".

Any info you guys can provide is appreciated... I tought I had this all figured out and my printing color management workflow is fine... I thought that would be the hard part.

Thanks

P.S. - I am using a custom monitor profile (I have a Spyder 3 Elite) but don't think this should effect anything, as all this is within CS4...

A fast review (probably unneccessary) of what color management does: Using your monitor profile PS remaps the data sent to the monitor so that colors will be within your monitor's gamut and display correctly. Now, if you turn on proofing it stops using the monitor profile to do this and instead uses the profile you have pointed it at, usually a print profile, and this will give you a good approximation of how the print will look. Use sRGB for proofing and you will see what the image will look like on any device that by chance has a native output space that is identical to sRGB. However, since the variation in monitor spaces in the real world is pretty great, this won't give you much indication of how the average viewer will see that image. In fact, the fact that you see a lot of variation between proofing on and proofing off is an indication that your own monitor is quite different from sRGB. The best you can do is hope that since the image data is in sRGB space the majority of viewers will see it reasonably.

I think you are mixing up sRGB with RGB as displayed in Photoshop. 'RGB/8' displayed at the top of the image simply means that the image is in RGB format (as opposed to CMYK, Lab etc.) and uses 8 bits per colour. sRGB is a working colour space - an 'RGB/8' image could be in sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhoto etc.

You need to check what profile your image has in Photoshop - it's one of the options you can display in the info line at the bottom of the image (assuming it's the same as in CS2!). Depending on your Photoshop colour settings, the image may arrive as sRGB but Photoshop might silently convert it to your working profile when it is opened.

The Custom Proof Setup works in one of 2 ways.
- If you untick the 'Preserve RGB numbers' box, it displays the image as if it had been converted to the selected profile. This usually has a fairly small effect, although it can be significant with a printer profile. This, by the way, is the correct way to proof to a printer profile.
- If you tick the 'Preserve RGB numbers' box, it displays the image as if it the selected profile had been assigned to the image. This is rarely of interest and should only be used if you know what you're doing! (As an aside, the 'Monitor RGB' proof option does this by proofing to the monitor profile with 'Preserve RGB numbers' selected. That shows you how the image would look with no colour management).

What I don't understand is why the image looks redder when you proof to sRGB. If the image is already sRGB then there should be no change. If it is in, say, AdobeRGB then, with 'Preserve RGB numbers' ticked you should see a decrease in saturation and, with it unticked, you should see litle change - the same as when you converted to sRGB, closed and then re-opened the image. After converting to sRGB, there should certainly not be a change when you subsequently proof to it.

Something doesn't sound right - can you give us more info on how you are doing your proofing?

gcogger wrote in post #6842598
What I don't understand is why the image looks redder when you proof to sRGB. If the image is already sRGB then there should be no change. If it is in, say, AdobeRGB then, with 'Preserve RGB numbers' ticked you should see a decrease in saturation and, with it unticked, you should see litle change - the same as when you converted to sRGB, closed and then re-opened the image. After converting to sRGB, there should certainly not be a change when you subsequently proof to it.

Something doesn't sound right - can you give us more info on how you are doing your proofing?

That's exactly what I don't understand as well and is my actual question...
Basically I'm going sRGB -> sRGB and it changes...

I'd love to give more info on how I'm proofing, but I can't think of what else there is... I detailed it pretty much as well as I can...

When I get home from work I'll try to take some screen shots and maybe that'll help.

Thanks again...

On CS2, the Custom Proof dialog has 'Device To Simulate' as a drop down list. It also has a 'Preserve RGB Numbers' check box. If that is un-ticked, you get to choose the Rendering Intent and whether to use Black Point Compensation. What are your settings for all those things? Presumably you can see the image change when you tick and un-tick the Preview check box?

It might also be useful see what is in your Color Settings dialog - I'd suggest a screenshot for that (and maybe for the above mentioned dialog), making sure you've pressed the 'More Options' button to display everything.

gcogger wrote in post #6842598
'RGB/8' displayed at the top of the image simply means that the image is in RGB format (as opposed to CMYK, Lab etc.) and uses 8 bits per colour. sRGB is a working colour space - an 'RGB/8' image could be in sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhoto etc.

Almost, not quite. It tells more:
RGB/8 means default working space
RGB/8* means other working space
RGB/8# means no profile (bad!)

gcogger wrote in post #6842598
You need to check what profile your image has in Photoshop - it's one of the options you can display in the info line at the bottom of the image (assuming it's the same as in CS2!). Depending on your Photoshop colour settings, the image may arrive as sRGB but Photoshop might silently convert it to your working profile when it is opened.

Good point!

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'application/xml'

gcogger wrote in post #6842598
The Custom Proof Setup works in one of 2 ways.
- If you untick the 'Preserve RGB numbers' box, it displays the image as if it had been converted to the selected profile. This usually has a fairly small effect, although it can be significant with a printer profile. This, by the way, is the correct way to proof to a printer profile.
- If you tick the 'Preserve RGB numbers' box, it displays the image as if it the selected profile had been assigned to the image. This is rarely of interest and should only be used if you know what you're doing! (As an aside, the 'Monitor RGB' proof option does this by proofing to the monitor profile with 'Preserve RGB numbers' selected. That shows you how the image would look with no colour management).

What I don't understand is why the image looks redder when you proof to sRGB. If the image is already sRGB then there should be no change. If it is in, say, AdobeRGB then, with 'Preserve RGB numbers' ticked you should see a decrease in saturation and, with it unticked, you should see litle change - the same as when you converted to sRGB, closed and then re-opened the image. After converting to sRGB, there should certainly not be a change when you subsequently proof to it.

Agree on all points

René Damkot wrote in post #6844631
Almost, not quite. It tells more:

Ooh, you nit-picker! (Quite correct, of course)

Ok guys, here's what I mean...

Here are my color settings and what it looks like when I first open in in CS4 (it should already be in standard RGB format) -

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png' | Redirected to error image by ZENFOLIO PROTECTED

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Sorry to keep asking questions but, as you've already said, something is not right here!

Do you see the image change as you toggle the 'Preview' check box in the 'Customize Proof Condition' dialog?

The only explanation I can think of at the moment is that, when you show the first image above, you are already proofing to something else (probably the monitor profile). Opening the 'Customize Proof Condition' dialog would turn off whatever you were previously proofing to. If so, the 'Proof Colours' item on the View menu will be ticked when you are looking at the first image (or at least I think it's called 'Proof Colours' - I don't have access to Photoshop at the moment). Can you check if that is the case?

gcogger wrote in post #6863133
Sorry to keep asking questions but, as you've already said, something is not right here!

Do you see the image change as you toggle the 'Preview' check box in the 'Customize Proof Condition' dialog?

The only explanation I can think of at the moment is that, when you show the first image above, you are already proofing to something else (probably the monitor profile). Opening the 'Customize Proof Condition' dialog would turn off whatever you were previously proofing to. If so, the 'Proof Colours' item on the View menu will be ticked when you are looking at the first image (or at least I think it's called 'Proof Colours' - I don't have access to Photoshop at the moment). Can you check if that is the case?

When I first open the image and it looks ok, it's NOT checked...

Once I go into View -> Proof Setup -> Custom ; and select sRGB and hit OK, then it IS checked and looks red...

If I then just uncheck the Preview option it goes back to normal... So yes, it does toggle back to "normal" when I take preview off...

So basically it's doing what doesn't make any sense...

Doing the preview doesn't turn off my monitor calibration profile, does it? Even if it did and it's basically showing it uncalibrated, I still don't think it would be red like that...

BigDaveE wrote in post #6864134
Doing the preview doesn't turn off my monitor calibration profile, does it?

Nope. If you have an sRGB image and proof to sRGB, it should not do anything. I'm a bit stumped at the moment! I'm only using Photoshop CS2, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'll keep thinking, but I'm hoping someone else has an idea?

try this cheap fix, sometimes it works for similar problems...

convert the image to lab and then back to sRGB.

See if that fixes it. If so then it is usually a color space issue with how you are shooting it in the camera versus how you are processing it.

Weird... This should not be happening.
What happens if you tick the box "preserve RGB numbers" or assign sRGB?

On a side note, I'd tick the "Mismatch" tickboxes. As it is, you won't get a warning if the image you open is not sRGB. (Nothing to do with the issue at hand however, since the "(RGB/8)" shows that the image is in default working space, and no softproofing is happening.

Maybe the sRGB profile is corrupted somehow? What happens if you proof for "monitor color" or "windows" (which is the same as proofing for sRGB with "preserve RGB numbers" ticked)

Installing the CS4 trial as I type, so I'll be back

Edit: Trial CS4 here works as expected. No change when proofing an sRGB image for either "Windows", or sRGB ("preserve numbers" box ticked or unticked)...
Any chance you can post the original image, so we can see what's happening on our system? That way we can see if it's your image or your system.

It seems like you are double profiling. When you go into Proof Setup, what rendering intent are you using?

Using Perceptual vs Relative Isometric are two very different ways of formulating the new colors. From the looks of the red it seems like you are using perceptual with black point compensation on.

As has been said earlier, i would go into Color Settings and tick all 3 boxes about profiles, so any warnings will pop up. Then I would try a different image and try using a different monitor if possible.

If you are using a custom calibrated profile, try using the default instead.

Well, since he's proofing sRGB as sRGB, rendering intent shouldn't matter, since not one bit should be changed... Same goes for monitor profile.
I cannot understand how a corrupt monitor profile could cause this. (But it's good to check anyway)

Additional question for the OP: If you convert the image to sRGB, do the pixel values change?

RonUSMC wrote in post #6871236
From the looks of the red it seems like you are using perceptual with black point compensation on.

Care to elaborate?