Color management is killing me (samples)

Curtis,

"......that it can display the entire AdobeRGB color gamut and beyond".

Could the clue be your statement here? The "....and beyond" bit concerns me.

Curtis N
I just received my HP Lp2475w yesterday. When I looked at this post yesterday, I could see a big difference in your two pictures. This morning I calibrated my monitor and I now see very little difference in your pictures. There is a little more saturation and as you say the hair color is a little more golden in the light areas to me. I also looked at my zenfolio site yesterday and the pictures were very over saturated. After calibrating I went back this morning and they looked as I thought I posted them. Will be watching this to see more answers. Color management is VERY hard to understand. The more I read the more confused I get. I will be printing today to see if I get the results I am hoping for!!

Duane,

Sounds as though you are sorted, but when you print, remember that you are now introducing another variable into the whole thing. Any difference you see in the print could be caused by printer/paper profiles so make sure you softproof using the paper profile before you print, let it dry before you compare, and make sure its in decent light.

Color manangement is confusing for sure. Question for Elie - If the color space of your monitor is larger than sRGB, wouldn't there be some loss when converting to sRGB? Wouldn't there potentially be some clipping of colors outside of sRGB? I think the Rendering Intent defines how to map out of gamut colors, but I don't know how that would work in reverse, when looking at the sRGB image in the monitors color space.

Thanks for any insight, I'm just trying to understand this, like a lot of others.

Ed

Curtis I'm using the same monitor, and don't get the same issue. 2 possibilities I can think of:

- Are you doing anything to the JPEG before it gets re-imported to Lightroom? The JPEG looks much how I'd expect (on this monitor) for an sRGB image that doesn't have the profile embedded. The issue would have been much smaller on a different monitor (i.e. one that's not wide gamut).

- You haven't accidentally set lightroom up to apply some automatic image settings on import, I suppose?

RandyMN wrote in post #7049061
Raw has no color space? I have my camera set to RAW and I'm pretty sure the color space is recognized by Adobe when I open it.

No. The color space in ACR is the one you've set there last time you used it.
Raw has no color space. (At least, not something like sRGB or AdobeRGB)

mai_lin wrote in post #7049092
I'm pretty sure you can set the in-camera color space - I've seen it in the menu before.

Then again I KNOW I have mine set to sRGB in camera and Adobe always asks to convert it to my working space in CS2 which is sRGB... odd huh?
Jen D.

See above. You probably have set ACR to "AdobeRGB" (at the bottom, below the image) here (below the "Show workflow options tickbox):

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

madddman wrote in post #7049142
Lightroom displays raw files in ProPhoto RGB. I don't think you can change that in the settings anywhere. ProPhoto RGB is very large. If you export to JPG with an sRGB or Adobe RGB colorspace, it may look different. See link.

http://www.oreillynet.​com …troom_color_spa​ces_1.html

Ed

Yeah, but different only in a way that *out of gamut* colors are clipped. In gamut colors (skintones) shouldn't be altered at all. (It's a relative colorimetric rendering)

tzalman wrote in post #7051094
Tim is (as always) right. The first step in LR's internal work flow is demosaicing, the second is assigning a generic device profile based on camera model and the third is converting the color space to a linear variation of ProPhotoRGB. However, LR is color managed and that means that what you see on your monitor is not ProPhoto or sRGB or AdobeRGB, it is always in your monitor's space. That's why we calibrate our monitors, so that any color managed application will know how to translate the image from its space (whatever that might be) to the display space. This means that if the CM is doing its job properly there should be no difference visible between versions of the same image in different spaces.

Curtis - I just tried doing the same thing you did, convert to sRGB jpg, import the jpg and compare, and I see no color shift. I did no output sharpening , but looking at your post the jpg looks sharper than the RAW. If you did output sharpening that may be the culprit. I will do another test with sharpening.

Your version looks like it should.

Curtis N wrote in post #7051443
Elie, thanks for your input.

Here's the thing - I've been using Lightroom for over a year now, and this is the first time I've seen such a noticeable difference.

What changed? My monitor. It's a new HP LP2475w, which I chose because of the great reviews it got, including the fact that it can display the entire AdobeRGB color gamut and beyond. Also, it's calibrated with my new Spyder3Pro. My previous monitor was never calibrated.

I will do more experimenting, but the difference is more than just output sharpening. There are definite color differences, most noticeable in the girl's skin and hair.

If there were a difference between LR and another color managed application, I'd suspect the monitor profile.
I know LR uses the monitor profile different then PS does. It tries to do a perceptual rendering if the profile is a LUT profile instead of a matrix profile. (Rather silly IMO)
If the Spyder software has a setting to create a LUT profile (v4.) disable that.

However, in this case it's a difference within LR. How does it look in Photoshop for instance?

If you have PS, try opening the image in ACR, and then PS. Export as sRGB jpg and compare. Also open the image exported from LR. All should be identical.

I see a "+/-" icon in the lower right of the jpg ("photo has development adjustments"). What was changed?

D.C. wrote in post #7051608
Curtis N
I just received my HP Lp2475w yesterday. When I looked at this post yesterday, I could see a big difference in your two pictures. This morning I calibrated my monitor and I now see very little difference in your pictures. There is a little more saturation and as you say the hair color is a little more golden in the light areas to me. I also looked at my zenfolio site yesterday and the pictures were very over saturated. After calibrating I went back this morning and they looked as I thought I posted them. Will be watching this to see more answers. Color management is VERY hard to understand. The more I read the more confused I get. I will be printing today to see if I get the results I am hoping for!!

A wide gamut screen will display sRGB image (very) over saturated if you use a non color managed application.

Calibrating the screen should not alter the difference between two images in one screenshot.


Only solution to oversaturated images on the web, is to use a color managed browser. Safari is okay, Firefox3 is better.

madddman wrote in post #7052042
Color manangement is confusing for sure. Question for Elie - If the color space of your monitor is larger than sRGB, wouldn't there be some loss when converting to sRGB? Wouldn't there potentially be some clipping of colors outside of sRGB? I think the Rendering Intent defines how to map out of gamut colors, but I don't know how that would work in reverse, when looking at the sRGB image in the monitors color space.

Thanks for any insight, I'm just trying to understand this, like a lot of others.

Ed

You'd loose exactly the same colors when converting to sRGB when your monitors colorspace is smaller.
Color management doesn't change the colors for displaying. All that's changed are the numbers that get send to the monitor.
The monitor can display a range of 0 to 255 for RGB in it's color space.
Lets say that, on a wide gamut screen, sRGB red (250;0;0) is less vivid red then the monitors max red. (255,0,0 in monitor rgb). Color management makes sure that the displayed color is correct by sending (for instance) (242,0,0) to the display...

gcogger wrote in post #7052253
Curtis I'm using the same monitor, and don't get the same issue. 2 possibilities I can think of:

- Are you doing anything to the JPEG before it gets re-imported to Lightroom? The JPEG looks much how I'd expect (on this monitor) for an sRGB image that doesn't have the profile embedded. The issue would have been much smaller on a different monitor (i.e. one that's not wide gamut).

- You haven't accidentally set lightroom up to apply some automatic image settings on import, I suppose?

Two good questions.
However, I don't think it's possible to save an image without embedded profile from LR.
I say the second option is the solution.

Thanks, everyone, for your input. It turns out to be a simple case of user error.

Gcogger had the answer, though I glossed over it:

gcogger wrote in post #7052253
You haven't accidentally set lightroom up to apply some automatic image settings on import, I suppose?

Normally I have Lightroom apply a set of develop settings on import of RAW files. These settings include some moderate bumps in vibrance and saturation, among other things. I totally forgot about this when I re-imported the JPEG and forgot to change that setting on the import box. So it added more saturation to the file by default.

Then, Rene' saw the evidence:

René Damkot wrote in post #7052631
I see a "+/-" icon in the lower right of the jpg ("photo has development adjustments"). What was changed?

I converted the RAW file again three times, using sRGB, AdobeRGB and ProphotoRGB colorspaces. Then I imported all three back into Lightroom without applying any develop settings on import, and they all look the same.

Thanks again, everyone.