Color management bug?

Hi,
the following problem arised:
(1) Developed Canon raw file (.cr2) to BW then dual toned (in German: Teiltonung)
(2)exported to PS CS3 (with LR settings applied, I think the other options were greyed out)
The images in Lightroom and PS look significantly different. Developed to Adobe RGB (PS work color space). Color settings (preserve embedded profiles..., ask...)
I use Windows XP Home on a Dual Core 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, ATI X1300 Video (256 GB), EIZO L568. Windows installation si relatively fresh (6 weeks).
Within the last years I established a consistent color management:
Soft proofs in Photoshop match very well my prints on Epson R2400 (in part using self made profiles for other than Epson paper)or on Fuji Crystal Archive (images converted to the FF Frontier PD/no convert profile, sent to the lab which whas asked to processed the image in the PD/no convert mode). I was fully satisfied - until this Lightroom behavior confused me.
Nevertheless, accepting that something might be wrong with my workflow I checked the following:
As I realized the differences between PS and LR I used a v4 icc profile for the monitor (Eye One display 2, basiccolor display 3.1, loaded into monitor LUT). I then recalibrated the monitor, now with basiccolor display 4.1, v2 icc profile loaded in the video LUT. Same difference between Lightroom and Photoshop. In a next step I used the EIZO made monitor profile: Same difference. I then completely disabled colormanagement (removing all monitor profiles within the control panel) for the monitor: same difference. Of course, PC was shut down between the experiments, video LUT loader were enabled/disabled as required for the experiments.
My conclusion:
Lightroom's color management does not work on my machine while PS is OK !
Additionally: One can assume that this is not related to the operating !
Additional observations:
Images opened in a not color managed application like Firefox are more close to the appearance in Lightroom.
The difference seems to be dependent on the colors in the image. With more naturally looking images (flesh tones in portraits) it is not so obvious.
The difference in appearance is there for psd files already stored in the database, too.
What do you think?
Uli

Hi Uli,
I can reproduce the problem on my machine as well. It's a PC laptop running WinXP MCE, with a crappy, but calibrated, screen. Sorry, I have no access to a better screen right now. Calibration software is Monaco OptixXR, as a startup LUT loader I use Microsoft's new color applet.
I can see a difference in screen representation when viewing the same file side by side in Lightroom and Photoshop CS2. It's not always obvious with generic color photos, but with split toned B&Ws it shows up very clearly, mostly in the shadows. It seems to happen with all different file types. I tested raw files in Lightroom exported to 16-bit ProPhoto PSDs and 8-bit AdobeRGB files created in Photoshop.
I also have three comments on the earlier posts:
1) The fact that subtracting a Lightroom-converted file from a Photoshop converted file gives all zeros, indicates that there is nothing wrong with Lightroom's internal color space transformations. The problem seems to be restricted to the display transformation, and limited to Windows as well.
2) It is no surprise that the Lightroom histogram deviates from the one in Photoshop, as Lightroom's histogram is calculated in a hybrid space that uses the ProPhoto primaries and the sRGB tone response curve (similar to gamma 2.2)
3) Lightroom gives no options to select the rendering intent for export. That is not as strange as it seems, because the available color spaces ProPhoto, AdobeRGB and sRGB, are all 'display color spaces'. This implies that the only two possible rendering intents are relative colorimetric and absolute colorimetric. As Lightroom is not addressing proofing needs, I figure that the choice for relative colorimetric conversion has been made for us. Not a bad thing, IMO.
I do hope that this issue will be addressed. Uli, have you submitted an official bug report?? It certainly *would* be nice if someone from Adobe could leave a notice that this thread has been read.
Simon

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    In AE CS5 videos made in the formats Quicktime/PhotoJPEG, Quicktime/H264, H264 main concept, DVCPRO HD 1080p30, F4V  are always interpreted as color profile SDTV/HDTV (Rec. 709) Y'CbCr (even if I made them in other color profiles, such as Adobe RGB, Photo RGB, sRGB); and there is no possibility to change this interpretation rule.
    In contrast videos made in the formats Quicktime/JPEG2000, Quicktime/Motion JPEG A, Quicktime/Motion JPEG B, Quicktime/MPEG-4, Quicktime/Animation are always interpreted as sRGB (even if if I made them in other color profiles, such as Adobe RGB, Photo RGB, HDTV); only this time I can change the interpretation rule. Therefore if I know for example that if I had selected Photo RGB in the Output module I can change after the reimport the interpretation rule from sRGB to Photo RGB and only then I get again the original colors.
    The only exceptions are picture sequences, such as tiff-sequences, where the original color profile is automatically selected in the interpretation of the footage.
    Therefore, unfortunately for videos produced by After Effects your advice "If it says something like sRGB and you can change it, in most cases you shouldn't change it because the guess is probably right. If there is no color profile assigned then you should assume that is correct." is not so easy to be applied. You have to know how you did it originally in the Output module and hope that you can change it to the proper color profile, in case that the original color profile in the Output module was different from sRGB and HDTV/SDTV. But it is interesting to hear from you that with cameras there seem to be more possibilities.
    For this reason it would be nice if in future versions of After Effects one could change the color profile in the the color management tab of the "Interpret Footage" dialog box also for formats such as Quicktime/PhotoJPEG, Quicktime/H264, H264 main concept, DVCPRO HD 1080p30, F4V.
    Of course one can always circumvent shortcomings by using tiff-sequences, QT/jpeg2000, or QT/Animation as formats for storing, which is anyway better for lossless or nearly lossless storing, but the files are then too large and also cannot be played easily with a player.
    Volker

  • Dual-monitor color management?

    So I've got a dual-monitor setup running OS 10.7 on a Mac Pro, and color management in Bridge CS5.1 on my second screen is a mess. Both monitors have been individually calibrated with a Pantone Huey Pro (not perfect, but generally pretty consistent across screens).
    Viewing an image in Bridge on my first screen, I have no problem. But the same image, when viewed on my second screen, appears heavily oversaturated. When I open the image in Photoshop or Preview, the color is accurate and is consistent across both screens. The below image illustrates the problem: the colors shown correctly in Photoshop (foreground) and incorrectly in Bridge (background). The Creative Suite color settings in Bridge show the settings as "synchronized" with the "North American General Purpose 2" default.
    I'm sort of out of my depth here when it comes to color management. Do I have something set wrong? Is this a Lion-related bug? Any help would be appreciated.

    The way I have it set up is this: I have two synchronized windows, one on each of my two displays. In one I have a content panel, metadata, collections, etc. In the second window I just have a preview panel, supplying me with a full-screen (almost) preview of any thumbnail I select from the content panel in the other window.
    Content (assuming thumbnails as well) panel preview on one display and the Preview panel preview on the other display are both being generated by one application and that is Bridge. Like I said above, I don't think, in fact I'm almost certain this is impossible for Bridge to pull off because of the dual matrices (mathematical formulas) written into each custom display profile that occupy the same video chip to calculate and control hue/saturation appearance in color managed images. Think of the complexity involved. Now Adobe is known for creating workflow miracles with their programming but I doubt they'ld be able to pull that off with Bridge.
    Photoshop can pull this off having one image on one display and dragging to the other where it makes the adjustment on the fly. I've seen the quick shift that occurs doing this. But I don't think Bridge can do this because of it's caching structure. I hope an Adobe employee chimes in to correct me.
    Now this dovetails into your mentioning forcing a display into the sRGB space during calibration and profiling of each display. This is not what happens doing a hardware calibration. I'm assuming you pick your target Luminance (120 cd/m2 +/-), Gamma (2.2. gamma-usually native) and Color Temp (6500K). It doesn't matter if you did anyway, but what the hardware calibrator does is measure each display's RGB colorant and density range and write the data into the final profile that allows applications like Colorsync Utility to display a 3D gamut model and color managed applications like Photoshop to show colors as intended.
    Your display may be close to sRGB but never exact to it because sRGB is a synthetic (made up) color space. Your display has physical anomalies that must be measured and written into the profile to properly display the intended appearance of color referencing the CIELAB color space which is based on human vision. Everything about computerized color in a color managed workflow is based on mapping color to display properly according to gamut size. A computer is a dumb machine and has to be told everything using math. You actually do have to draw it a map to follow.
    Bridge's Preview pane looking different may be either referencing the other display profile or is stuck referencing the other and what's happening is the equivalent of Assigning one of the display profiles to the Preview like you can do to an image in Photoshop. Try it. Take your image and convert to one of your display profiles and assign the other display profile to it. Check if you see a slight shift. If Bridge's main Preview pane is stuck showing pixels mapped to (synthetic) sRGB then the same assigning of the display profile effect takes place.
    And/or the thumbnails aren't color managed and the Preview pane is and maybe a bit of the above is compounding things. If you aren't confused now can you imagine trying to mathematically write the thumbnail previews on one display and the main Preview on the other both controlled by one application on top of caching and managing a large image database?
    Keep the Preview pane and Content pane on one display. Edit your images in Photoshop/ACR/Lightroom on the primary display.
    The Color Settings where you select North American Prepress...Web...General Purpose...etc. only applies to how images are handled and previewed that don't have an embedded profile. Are your jpeg images embedded with a profile? If so then this is not the issue. This doesn't apply to Raw captures because their previews are generated by the default Adobe Camera Raw settings.
    Omke, no more Version Cue? That's welcome news!

  • Invalid Color Management in Lightroom? (RAW)

    I've noticed the strange thing, how Adobe Camera RAW 4.1.1 displays the same image differently in Photoshop CS3 & Lightroom 1.4.1
    Here are the screenshots from both programs:
    What I've got in Lightroom/develop mode:
    http://www.imagebam.com/image/956c3d6537871
    What I've got in Photoshop:
    http://www.imagebam.com/image/17a67c6537874
    Notice the reds on the face and oranges on the trees on the background. 1) Face on second, photoshop variant is more reddish. 2) The contrast differs as well!
    3) There is more orange on the leaves on the second image.
    That's all happens in the preview in Lightroom - if I export image as a JPEG and open it in Photoshop - the images will be the same. But BEFORE the export they're DIFFERENT! What's wrong?
    (Image is shot on Sony Alpha 350, white balance and all the settings in Camera RAW are the same in two programs).

    >yes they are, but in practice PDF causes lot's of bugs.
    My experience is opposite in that pdf is usually the only thing that actually works for multipage documents and things containing vector graphics. For single page photos of course tiff always works, but there are lots of clueless operators that do not know their behind from a color profile.
    >In my experience colors will be different even for an eye of a consumer. On some printers red will be more reddish, on others green more greenish etc. The contrast will differ either. Maybe you and we use different printers. BTW I work on Windows, maybe that's the point.
    I have always had basically perfect results. There was a time when Lightroom interacted wrong with printer drivers when you used profiles inside of the program instead of having the printer driver manage for you. This has long been fixed. Of course there are subtle differences between printers and it would be good if Lightroom had some sort of soft proofing to judge this in advance. The differences are usually pretty minor though nowadays.
    >Well, Noritsu, as I know, for example, uses its own color management profile, which you cannot tune even in Photoshop. If you use sRGB, it will be ignored, and you'll get a very low contrast print with desaturated color and you have to be there when it's printed to tune it with the lab assistant. Usually they do it themselves ... well... good. I have SOME good experience with Costco. But for many cases I can't get my colors and contrast without being there when it's printed. And it depends on paper - is it metallic, for example, or matte. The picture will be different. The colors will be different. And you can't check it exactly on your monitor being at home, or in office.
    I tested this extensively. If you do this right, it is very hard to see the difference between a sRGB print and a print converted to the profile. With well-tuned Noritsus, you get a small difference in oranges, and a tiny difference in greens - independent of the paper you use. This is the whole point of these machines. If you feed them sRGB, they should give you great results. Maybe my local costcos is very good, but I doubt they are very different from other labs. I tried both Matte and Glossy and they both showed the same result. This is borne out by softproofing in Photoshop that shows exactly the same effect. Note that I wrote about using lab profiles with Lightroom extensively and always tell people to use the profile, but in reality it really is not that important.
    See for example: http://lagemaat.blogspot.com/2008/05/great-prints-from-labs.html
    If you see large differences in contrast and saturation, there really is something wrong with your calibration workflow or your lab. FOr good prints, the only thing they need to do is to turn off their auto color correction, which with most labs you can do automatically in the online submission pages. I should tell you that you do have to judge prints under good lighting. Often these differences are simply caused by one day being sunny and the other overcast when you walk out on the parkinglot and take out your prints. This is not a real difference. Use a good high color rendering index lamp of high color temperature and you will see that they were the same. My local costcos is calibrated by drycreek photos every month and the profile hardly changes at all over time.
    >I don't know, Jao, maybe your point in photography is different, and you don't pay so much attention on colors. These things are subjective! Maybe you pay more attention on other components of photo. In my experience it takes lots of time to prepare a 40"x30" photo for print and then it takes more time and money to colormatch it.
    Actually my work is almost always about color. Perhaps I don't sweat it as much. I'd really like Lightroom to have some kind of soft proofing though showing how anal I am about color. I don't use costcos for prints larger than 12x18 as they don't do it locally, but I usually use smugmug's lab (EZprints) for the really large prints. They color manage for you and supply a profile that you can soft proof to if you want. They also appear to scale and sharpen the prints somehow. I've always had outstanding results from them and you can send back the images that you don't like at no cost, although I have never had to do that. I also use smugmug for galleries that clients can order from directly. They have always been very happy with the prints.
    >And I work in Windows, maybe your Mac does it better, maybe that's the point of my sad story. But Windows is my karma for many reasons.
    The point maybe, also, you print every time on the same printing hardware in Costco - that can explain it all.
    I have been happy with my costcos and with EZprints, but I doubt that it is much of an issue. As said, I don't use inkjets very often as they are so darn expensive and annoying to operate but I have never had much issue with bad prints. There is no reason why you could not get windows to behave better. The only thing that you need is to calibrate regularly. I have seen on this forum that windows tends to corrupt monitor profiles over time. The issue is always fixed by recalibrating regularly. Once every month should be plenty.

  • Indesign CS5 Color Management Policies

    Hello All,
    I have just been having a look at Indesign CS5 Color Management Policies...
    Can anyone clarify the following for me?
    From my testing it looks like
    1.) When placing an image into an indesign page the embedded icc profile is ignored and the "document profile" is used unless it is manually selected by the user in either (show import options) or (object > Image color Settings). This is despite the fact that the color settings are set to preserve embedded profiles.
    2.) When placing an image into an indesign page greyscale profiles are also ignored and and all mono images are simply lumped into a "greyscale" colour space with no way to assign a particular profile or keep an embedded profile etc. This is despite the fact that the color settings are set to preserve embedded profiles.
    3.) When placing an image into an indesign page there is also no way to manage the color of illustrator files. Embedded profiles are ignored in ai files. This is despite the fact that the color settings are set to preserve embedded profiles.
    looks like a bug to me...
    I am currently running indesign 7.0 on Mac OS 10.6.7

    can you point me to any information on what is managed by the documents policy and what is managed by the application's policy?
    Also, any idea what the reasoning behind having a document policy is? why not just let the application policy determine how to interpret everything?
    Color Settings is a preference—there's no setting that would work for any condition (that includes Emulate Adobe Indesign 2.0 CMS Off).
    The Color Management Policies setting is your global preference for how newly created documents will handle document and link profiles. Having the policy preference set at creation prevents unexpected profile changes as a document is passed from one user to another. The Ask When Opening check boxes give you the option to change existing document policies, which I described in post 7.
    The policies let you control if existing CMYK color is allowed to be converted to a different CMYK space or not.
    If the CMYK policy is set to Off then the newly created doc is not assigned a CMYK profile and all link profiles are ignored. In this case the document colors and the links are all color managed by the current Color Settings CMYK Working Space. The preview of all CMYK color in the document will change depending on current working space, but the output numbers will not.
    Preserve Numbers (Ignore Linked Profiles) assigns the current CMYK Working Space to the new document and any placed links have their profiles ignored—the document profile is used instead. In this case the preview of all CMYK color (including links) comes from the assigned document profile, which travels with the document. After creation changing the Color Settings CMYK Working Space has no effect on the doc, its assigned profile is always used.
    Preserve Embedded Profiles assigns the current CMYK working space to the new document and any placed links have their profiles honored. In this case the assigned doc profile drives the preview of the document color and links with out profiles, while links with embedded profiles are previewed via their profile. If the link's profile conflicts with the document profile, it will be converted to new CMYK numbers on export or print.
    If the policy is Convert to Working Space the document colors are converted to the current CMYK Working Space and that profile is assigned to the document every time the document is opened when the working space conflicts with the assignment. Links are not converted but their profiles are honored.
    Also would changing my color settings to "Emulate Adobe Indesign 2.0 CMS off" be considered to be a change of "application policy" or would this also effect my "document policy"?
    There's never a good reason to use this setting. It would be the same as a CMYK and RGB Off policy except the Working Space profiles are some unknown—you don't have the option of choosing them.

  • Color-managed printing to Epson 870

    I have never succeeded in getting a color-managed print workflow to my Epson Stylus Photo 870 printer using PSE5 (or 4 or 3). The prints are consistently darker than what I see on screen, though the colors otherwise seem about right.
    I'm pretty familiar with color management generally, and I have read the tutorials in the Missing Manual and at computer-darkroom.com. I will describe my recent experiments.
    Perhaps someone who uses this printer (or a similar Epson printer) can offer some insight. What is noteworthy about these Epson printers is that they come with only a single ICC profile, rather than one profile per media type. The processing to compensate for media differences occurs within the driver. This complicates the color management story.
    1. Computer setup: Windows XP SP2, Samsung SyncMaster 193P LCD display.
    2. Monitor calibration: This monitor has programmable internal color conversion. I used the MagicTune utility to tune the monitor to sRGB. I then used Adobe Gamma to confirm that this is essentially an sRGB monitor; that is, the profile produced by Adobe Gamma yields an appearance that is indistinguishable from the standard sRGB profile.
    3. Photos are JPEGs tagged as sRGB by the camera. I am printing them from PSE5 Organizer. Color management set to "Print" (AdobeRGB). Paper is Epson Glossy Photo Paper. Media type selected in the driver is Photo Paper.
    In the following experiments, I varied the Print Space setting in PSE's Print Options and the Custom > Advanced color settings in the Epson driver.
    Experiment 1: Print Space: "Same as Source". Driver: "ICM". Result: somewhat dark prints.
    Experiment 2: Print Space: "Epson Stylus Photo 870". Driver: "No Color Adjust". Result: even darker prints, with a slight color cast.
    Experiment 3: Print Space: "Epson Stylus Photo 870". Driver: "ICM". Result: same as experiment 3.
    Experiment 4: Print Space: "Same as Source". Driver: "PhotoEnhance". Result: by far the closest to what I see on the screen, and (subjectively) the best rendition of the original scene.
    Of course, experiment 4 is depending on some magic processing in the Epson driver, rather than being a true ICC color-managed workflow. I'd like to figure out why my attempts at a color-managed workflow aren't working right.

    "So it seems that Organizer and Editor do color management differently when
    printing.... I would not have expected this; it seems like a bug."
    My Epson 870 finally died. But, while it was working I did manage to get it
    to work very well in a fully color managed workflow. I calibrated my
    monitor with a hardware calibration device. The generic 870 ICC profile
    that came with the printer gave me prints that were too dark compared to my
    calibrated monitor. I had a custom profile made for the printer for each
    specific paper I use and that made all the difference. For PSE 3, I always
    printed only from the editor and used a fully color managed work flow
    specifying the custom printer profile as the print space. The Epson printer
    driver was set to custom and in the advanced tab, the "No Color Adjustment"
    setting for color management was selected.
    I didn't like to print from Organizer because I didn't care for the way it
    handled things. The creations portion of Organizer didn't pick up all the
    organizer color settings either if I recall correctly. The different
    behavior is not so much a bug as it is two different programs that are
    packaged together and loosely interact -- Organizer began life as Adobe
    Album.
    I don't know about PSE 4 and 5 as I went to Photoshop CS2 instead of
    upgrading PSE. I still have PSE 3 installed, but I seldom use it anymore.
    I would have thought that the newer versions would have done something about
    the Organizer printing issues but it sounds like that hasn't happened yet.

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