color managment enabling within software

OK, I've been working with color management for a while and I seem to think I have the thing down but I cannot find a good answer to one issue...

I have my display calibrated/profiled and that loads when Windows starts.
Things look fine as far as I can tell. The odd thing is that some software, such as SilkyPix, has a setting to Enable display color management.

If I load th same image into both PhotoShop and into SilkyPix the image looks consistent when I have Enable Color management turned on within SilkyPix.

The obvious answer is turn on the setting ,but WHY?
Shouldn't this be doubling the effect? Windows is modifying the output, then SilkyPix is modifying that again.

On the other hand, I also use ACDSee Pro. The images look consistent to PhotoShop when color management is DISABLED.

Is there any sense to the whole color management thing or is everyone just guessing?


For SilkyPix experts... is this setting to match specific output devices such as when printing? There is no color management setting from the Print options. That would make sense, but I don't understand why I have to enable the setting for standard display when Windows should already be taking care of the screen calibration.

Any ideas on what appears to be rather inconsistent behavior?

as a mac user I am baffled.
I use 3 different macs, a huey, pse, cs2, epson printers (3 different models), finalcut elements, imovie, a projector (optimus) and my colors match across all.
what i see is what i get on final output.

isn't that the way it is supposed to be?

I would certainly think so!
I would assume if I'm using sRGB (or AdobeRGB aware software), the images should appear the same. I would also assume with system wide color management, those same images would appear acceptably similar on another system.

It seems every application has a different look for the same image CS3, IrfanView, ACDSee, SilkyPix, MSIE, (not a simple sRGB v.s. AdobeRGB issue). Now it is compounded with these additional non-sense color management settings in some applications.

I keep telling myself my next computer will be a MAC. Maybe just for photo work, I will actually do that next time...

Windows colour management... well, is like a pain

The calibration is loaded at the start to get the monitor basically right for all non-colour managed applications. It won't necessarily be sRGB (unless you calibrated your monitor to the sRGB spec), but at least when the software asks for specific percentages of red, green, and blue that's what you'll get.

On the other hand, when you have colour managed software it will use a colour transformation to accurately display, or represent, the gamut. For example, your monitor may actually be somewhere between sRGB and AdobeRGB (sRGB is very limited in scope, and AdobeRGB is wider still). Only when the application is colour managed will it perform the transformation from the image colour space into the monitor colour space.

As a case in point, I have a tablet PC which monitor profile causes all kinds of oddities when you don't use colour management.

With Apple, the colour management is built into the operating system... and not bolted on

Might not be clearer, but hope it helps
Matt

Duh! that makes sense! (too simple perhaps? Argh... :blush
With system wide calibration (on Windows), the image viewed by various applications should be consistent between computers but maybe not accurately displayed.

When the software understands color management, the images should be displayed accurately. Even sRGB may not fit exactly into the monitor's color space so some adjustment will be made and may appear different between managed and unmanaged viewer software.

Now look more into to why I seem to be getting inconsistent display on the same machine between various managed software packages. Is it me? Or do I start sending nasty-grams to the software vendors?

Thanks

I think this is a case similar to certain graphic drivers, where you can select options to be fixed at your choice, or controlled by the application software. A typical example is the antialiasing and anisotropic filtering in Nvidia GeForce graphic cards.

So my simple answer is, if the application has colour management, use that, otherwise use the Windows calibration that loads at startup.

there was one little hicup in my apple/aperture/huey color management....
when exporting images from aperture, with a transparent gif overlay for copyright notices.... the gifs turn solid black.

if you set you monitor profile to adobe 1998 rgb then launch aperture, then reset the display to the huey profile, the transparencies work fine.

fortunately, this is one click easy, and my aperture library is almost always on. so I forget about it most of the time.

It is definately the huey, and aperture issue. when I upgrade my huey driver I'll have to remember to see if that got fixed.

Well, Idid some more playing around with this , er, um, "stuff"...

The following image shows four programs all with different color renditions.




Is there any way to determine which might be the closest to what someone else will see when viewing my images?
Any way to tell if color management of my machine is anywhere near "correct" to begin with??

The apps are ACDSee, IrfanView, SilkyPix and PhotoSHop CS3.
Those that have color management settings have them turned on.

ACDSee (far let) looks the worst. With color management turned OFF, the colors look closer to the others but still not consistent with any single comparison.
SilkyPix v.s. IrafnView are the closest match but the greens are still a tad bit off.

My two main photo processing programs, SilkyPix and CS3, are quite a bit off. Disabling the color management within SilkyPix makes the colors even more divergent.
If I "choose to trust" CS3 as my main post processing software, I certainly cannot process my RAW in SilkyPix and trust they are correct and send for prints without also running them through CS3 to further correct the images.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this just the way things are?
Is this just a MS Windows issue? How does one go about trusting their color management when no piece of software appears to work consistently with any other? For all the money one dumps into the hardware and software to calibrate, profile and otherwise manage the color, I am quite disappointed in the outcome.

ARGH!!

Firstly trust CS and secondly trust your calibration system so long as you've followed instructions and used default settings (assuming that you don't fully appreciate the implications of setting different options).

Well the sad fact is that most people will be viewing your images with non-colour manged applications and even those that have colour managed applications may not have their systems profiled or indeed accurately profiled. So the real answer is that it's near impossible to predict how your images will appear on other peoples systems. Fortunately web image viewing will be skewed a little more towards colour managed images when Firefox 3 eventually ships (as it offers colour management).

The best we can do if we wish to share images with the broader public is to to provide the files in a format which will have the best chance of looking something like we intended to the broadest possible audience. The translation of which is that generally images should be mapped to the sRGB colour space prior to saving for web and preferably the sRGB tag should be embedded in the image rather than stripped to conserve a little file space. Then the people with true colour managed systems will be able to view the images as you intended them to be rendered and the remainder (read the vast majority) will see them to as well as their monitors are set up.

If you want to see how images should appear on an ideal sRGB compliant display system then simply preview them using the Proof Colors option in CS (with sRGB selected as the target space). The anomaly that appears to confuse many people is that in the save for web function window the image is rendered using the monitor profile. IOW it's not a colour managed display space so if your monitor is a wide gamut type with an associated wide gamut profile (assuming your target calibration profile was not sRGB) then an sRGB mapped image may look too saturated when saving for web as compared to the proof preview.

Cheers,

let's not forget there is no way to install icc profiles in your veiwers eyes/brains.
sure have a laugh...
but really, that is another variable....

To try and answer the specific question...

1. AFAIK Photoshop uses the profile that's registered as the default under the display settings of the monitor.
2. Silkypix can use either the default, or you can lock it to a specific profile
3. No idea about the other two.

So, having built a profile for your monitor (Huey/Spyder etc), you need to ensure that it's listed as the default profile in the video driver (Display / Settings/ Advanced/ Color Management). Not all profiling software loads the profile into the driver, and not all drivers accept it through programmatic means So you have to check

Then, to make doubly sure, I normally force Silkypix to use the specific profile I just made.

And as a final note, when you disable colour management within software there are two ways they may display the image:
a) as Windows would view it (ie slightly profiled)
b) without profiling at all (ie uncalibrated)

As a point in case, when you use Photoshop's Save-For-Web option it will display it with option (b) AFAICS - which means you can end up with a real skew of colours.

It's a large, gloopy mess with Windows applications, and I don't like it.... you can lose far too much sleep over it

Matt

And re the other comment about ACDSee looking worst until you turn colour management off.

I, too, have ACDSee Pro2 - a great programme BUT do agree with you! I leave colour mangament turned off, otherwise everything is rendered too saturated (toward red?). Perhaps a question on ACDSee forum is needed?

I don't claim to have sussed this arae at all, so was heartened to hear someone else thinking the same as me

Andy

So, my workflow should be perhaps...
Shoot in RAW (as I usually do),
Use Silky Pix to do my adjustments, but don't trust its display.
Save some halfway decent guess and load into CS3.
In CS3, play with color adjustments to taste to fix what SilkyPix did (the same case could be to use CS3 then use SilkyPix to adjust what CS3 did... just a matter of what is most often to be the final software product used prior to printing I guess..).
Finally, save and send for printing?

Seems like a silly waste of time, if the image is otherwise "good to go" from SilkyPix.

I have tried assigning the specific monitor profiles in ACDSee and in SilkyPix with very little if any display adjustment. So I assume they are properly picking up the default system profile. (or consistently disregarding it).

My alternative is to scrap SilkyPix and stay consistent with all Adobe products, but still what trust do I have that what I see in the end is actually "correct".



I am starting to think this whole color calibration issue is a hoax intended to suck the life and money out of end users.


I guess if everyone has the same issue I'll figure out a way to live with it.
I was just afraid I or my computer was doing something wrong.

Anyone have both SilkyPix and PhotoShop for the MAC??
Does Macintosh not suffer from these issues?

There's usually an answer to these things...

What I can say is that I have a dual-monitor setup that's calibrated with Spyder 2 Pro, and I have had no issues at all with colour management when using Silkypix DS3 and Photoshop CS2.
What I see is what I get, and when I print using a profile I have gotten exactly what I saw on screen.

So, it can work... but admittedly that doesn't help you

Additionally, I can say that with my Toshiba Tablet PC M200 that has been calibrated with the same Spyder 2 Pro I find that I cannot trust the display 100% because the LCD suffers too much from changes in colour when changing the viewing angle (even by a few degrees) All too often I have trusted that display and gone adrift. When viewed on the dual-monitor setup (Lacie 120 Laframe + Dell 19" Ultra 1703FP) I know I've got a good setup. Though, I will add that the Lacie and Dell do render differently - the Dell is brighter than the Lacie, but the Lacie is more accurate (when viewed in subdued lighting).

Even with Macs, not all displays are made the same
Matt

Not that it helps a great deal but just to confirm I too am running a dual monitor system (CRT + TFT) calibrated using a Spyder 2Pro under W2k and I get very consistent reults from screen to print using CS2 and ThumbsPlus (also colour managed).

The change in gamma with viewing angle and secondarily colour shift is the bane of older TFT monitors, you just have to try to view them as square on as possible and only use them as a reference when you really have to.

If you choose a fixed luminance value for your calibration target and use this value for both monitors you can get them to match WRT to luminance very precisely. My system is set such that the white luminance is 90Cd, my TFT can't reach the same target black as the CRT but since it's the secondary monitor I just use the same target value and let the blacks clip . It works quite well.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/BigVdub/IMGP8073.jpg

Cheers,