Using ICC Monitor Profiles

Hello,
I produce ICC RGB monitor profiles for use with Photoshop using an Eye One Photo. Can FCP, or other software, translate those profiles so I know my LCD monitor is displaying color and contrast accurately for editing with FCP? If not, is there a better way to set up a LCD monitor than using Apple's standard calibration?
Thanks,
Drew Harty

It will never have the accuracy that an external video monitor will have. The gammas don't match those that a TV set produces... if you really want accuracy you need an external Video monitor that includes a blue only button on it. Colorists would insist on a CRT.
Jerry

Similar Messages

Lightroom not using the Monitor Profile

I have recently set up a new computer with a new monitor. When I got PS and Lightroom set up on the new system I noticed that when viewing photos in both applications the colors are VERY different compared to how they look viewed online or in another photo viewer from my desktop (windows 8). I also noticed that when I opened PS I got a message saying that the Monitor Profile is "bad" and I could opt out to ignore the profile. When I did ignore it the color looks fine. Blacks are black, gray's are gray, etc . . . Anyway, I am wondering if there is a way I can have Lightroom ignore the profile as well. I have a monitor calibrator and I will try that, but I am wondering if it will do anything only because other applications look fine. Hope someone can shed some light on this!

First of all, Photoshop and Lightroom are fully color managed applications that will actually use the monitor profile to display the image.Many other applications (viewers/browsers) are not and will just ignore it. So there's a difference right there.
That said, when you get that message in Photoshop, it means exactly what it says. That profile is bad and should not be used.
The real solution is to use a calibrator to make a new custom profile for your monitor. Until you get that up and running, use sRGB IEC61966-22.1 as monitor profile. You set this up in Control Panel > Color Management > Devices:

Fully Color Managed Application (using calibrated monitor profiles)

Hi,
I'm new to JAVA 2D so I may be missing something obvious - apologies if I am, but I've been trawling the API and web to try and solve this for many hours - so any help would be much appreciated!
I'm trying to write an application to open a JPEG with an embedded colour profile (in this case AdobeRGB) and display it with correct colour on my monitor, for which I have an accurate custom hardware calibrated profile. In my efforts to do this several problems / queries have arisen.
So, JAVA aside, the concept is simple:
a) Open the image
b) Transform the pixels from AdobeRGB->Monitor Profile (via a PCS such as CIEXYZ).
c) Blit it out to the window.
(a) is fine. I've used the following code snip, and can query the resulting BufferedImage and see it has correctly extracted the AdobeRGB profile. I can even display it (non-color corrected) using the Graphics2D.drawImage() function in my components paint() method.
BufferedImage img = ImageIO.read(new File("my-adobe-rgb.jpg"));(b) Also seems OK (well at least no exceptions)...
ICC_Profile monitorProfile = ICC_Profile.getInstance("Monitor_Calibrated.icm");
    ColorConvertOp convert = new ColorConvertOp(new ICC_ColorSpace(monitorProfile ),null);
    BufferedImage imgColorAdjusted = convert.filter(img,null);[I was feeling hopeful at this point!]
QUESTION 1: Does this conversion go through the CIEXYZ (I hope) rather than sRGB, there seems to be no way to specify and the docs are not clear on this?
(c) Here is the major problem...
When I pass imgColorAdjusted to the Graphic2D.drawImage() in my components paint() method the JVM just hangs and consumes 100% CPU.
QUESTION 2: Any ideas why it hangs?
Pausing in the debugger I found the API was busy transforming by image to sRGB this leads to my third question...
QUESTION 3: If I pass an image with a color model to drawImage() does drawImage do any color conversion, e.g will it transform my adobe image to sRGB (not what I want in this case!)?
And if answer to Q3 is yes, which I suspect it is, then the next question is how to make the J2D understand that I have a calibrated monitor, and to tell it the profile, so that the Graphics2D it provides in paint() has the correct color model. Looking in the API I thought this was provided to J2D through the GraphicsEnviroment->GraphicsDevice->GraphicsConfiguration.getColorModel(). I tried looking at what these configurations were (code below). Result - 10 configurations, all with the JAVA 2D sRGB default, despite my monitor colour management (through the windows display properties dialog) being set to the calibrated profile.
QUESTION 4: Am I just off track here - does Java 2D support monitor profiles other than sRGB? Is what I am trying possible?
GraphicsConfiguration[] cfg = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment().getDefaultScreenDevice().getConfigurations();
    System.out.println(cfg.length);
    byte[] d;
    for (int j=0; j<cfg.length; j++) {
      System.out.println("CFG:"+j+cfg[j]);
      d = ((ICC_ColorSpace)cfg[j].getColorModel().getColorSpace()).getProfile().getData();
      for (int i=0; i<d.length && i<256; i++){
        if (d[i] != 10 && d[i] != 13){
          System.out.print((char)d);
System.out.println();
Any help much appreciated.
Thanks.

I have had some sucess with this, but it wasn't easy or obvious. The trick is converting the color to the monitor profile and then changing the color model to be sRGB without changing the pixel data. JAI's Format operation does this easily although I'm sure there are other ways to do it. The RGB data is then displayed without being converted to sRGB so that the monitor calibration is maintained. I will answer your questions since I had similar ones.
Q1. Yes the conversion is done using XYZ as it should be.
Q2. I believe paint is just very slow, not hanging. Any color model other than XYZ or sRGB requires conversion before it can be displayed (as sRGB). This is both slow and incorrect for a calibrated monitor.
Q3. Yes that is what I have found, a conversion to sRGB will always happen, unless it appears to be already done as when the color model is sRGB (even though the pixel data is not!).
Q4. It is possible but apparently only with this somewhat strange work around. If there is a way to change the Java display profile to be other than sRGB, I could not find it either. However, calibrated RGB display can be achieved.
Since I have seen many other posts asking for an example of color management, here is some code. This JAI conversion works for many pairs of source and destination profiles including CMYK to RGB. It does require using ICC profiles in external files rather than embedded in the image.
package calibratedrgb;
import com.sun.media.jai.widget.DisplayJAI;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.color.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.media.jai.*;
import javax.swing.*;
* @author keitht
public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        String filename = args[0];
        PlanarImage pi = JAI.create("fileload", filename);
        // create a source color model from the image ICC profile
        ICC_Profile sourceProfile = ICC_Profile.getInstance("AdobeRGB1998.icc");
        ICC_ColorSpace sourceCS = new ICC_ColorSpace(sourceProfile);
        ColorModel sourceCM = RasterFactory.createComponentColorModel(
                pi.getSampleModel().getDataType(), sourceCS, false, false,Transparency.OPAQUE);
        ImageLayout sourceIL = new ImageLayout();
        sourceIL.setColorModel(sourceCM);
        // tag the image with the source profile using format
        RenderingHints sourceHints = new RenderingHints(JAI.KEY_IMAGE_LAYOUT, sourceIL);
        ParameterBlockJAI ipb = new ParameterBlockJAI("format");
        ipb.addSource(pi);
        ipb.setParameter("datatype", pi.getSampleModel().getDataType());
        pi = JAI.create("format", ipb, sourceHints);
        // create a destination color model from the monitor ICC profile
        ICC_Profile destinationProfile = ICC_Profile.getInstance("Monitor Profile.icm");
        ICC_ColorSpace destinationCS = new ICC_ColorSpace(destinationProfile);
        ColorModel destinationCM = RasterFactory.createComponentColorModel(
                pi.getSampleModel().getDataType(), destinationCS, false, false, Transparency.OPAQUE);
        ImageLayout destinationIL = new ImageLayout();
        destinationIL.setColorModel(destinationCM);
        // convert from source to destination profile
        RenderingHints destinationHints = new RenderingHints(JAI.KEY_IMAGE_LAYOUT, destinationIL);
        ParameterBlockJAI cpb = new ParameterBlockJAI("colorconvert");
        cpb.addSource(pi);
        cpb.setParameter("colormodel", destinationCM);
        pi = JAI.create("colorconvert", cpb, destinationHints);
        // image is now the calibrated monitor RGB data ready to display, but
        // an unwanted conversion to sRGB will occur without the following...
        // first, create an sRGB color model
        ColorSpace sRGB = ColorSpace.getInstance(ColorSpace.CS_sRGB);
        ColorModel sRGBcm = RasterFactory.createComponentColorModel(
                pi.getSampleModel().getDataType(), sRGB, false, false, Transparency.OPAQUE);
        ImageLayout sRGBil = new ImageLayout();
        sRGBil.setColorModel(sRGBcm);
        // then avoid the incorrect conversion to sRGB on the way to the display
        // by using format to tag the image as sRGB without changing the data
        RenderingHints sRGBhints = new RenderingHints(JAI.KEY_IMAGE_LAYOUT, sRGBil);
        ParameterBlockJAI sRGBpb = new ParameterBlockJAI("format");
        sRGBpb.addSource(pi);
        sRGBpb.setParameter("datatype", pi.getSampleModel().getDataType());
        pi = JAI.create("format", sRGBpb, sRGBhints); // replace color model with sRGB
        // RGB numbers are unaffected and can now be sent without conversion to the display
        // disguised as sRGB data. The platform monitor calibration profile is bypassed
        // by the JRE because sRGB is the default graphics configuration color model profile
        JFrame frame = new JFrame();
        Container contentPane = frame.getContentPane();
        contentPane.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        DisplayJAI d = new DisplayJAI(pi); // Graphics2D could be used here
        contentPane.add(new JScrollPane(d),BorderLayout.CENTER);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.setSize(600,600);
        frame.setVisible(true);
}

Colorsync Utility crashes on Intel Macs using ICC v4 profiles

There is an apparently known bug whereby opening ICC v4 profiles on an Intel Mac in Colorsync Utility, and picking on a device-to-lab tag (A2Bx), the application crashes. This did not happen on my Powerbook, so apparently it's only on Intel Macs. It also doesn't crash when doing this with ICC v2 profiles on my Intel. So, the combination of Intel and ICC v4 is the problem.
Has anyone encountered this? Any help would be appreciated, since this bug is also disabling a color management application that I need to use.

Hi Jester,
Two things,
The Quicktime setting is going to need to be 1.5Mb as iChat dislike LAN/Intranet
iGlasses is not going to work with iChat unless you ask iChat to run with Rosetta.
Go to the File Menu and use the Open With Rosetta option.
This is because you may not have the iGlasses as a Unviversal coded Add-on. See the third bullet point.
Update it if required. Delete it for Trouble shooting (Crashed Thread 11)
The paths are in this bit
0x5c9000 - 0x5cafff com.ecamm.pluginloader Ecamm Plugin Loader v1.0.3 (1.0.3) /Library/InputManagers/Ecamm/Ecamm Plugin Loader.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Ecamm Plugin Loader
0x5cf000 - 0x5e4fff com.ecamm.iglasses v1.3.2 (1.3.2) /Library/InputManagers/Ecamm/Plugins/iGlasses.plugin/Contents/MacOS/iGlasses
0x5fd000 - 0x5fefff com.li.hao.saftloader 1.3.0 (423) /Library/InputManagers/Saft/SaftLoader.bundle/Contents/MacOS/SaftLoader
What is Saft or SaftLoader ??
3:27 PM Wednesday; March 15, 2006

Can't use another monitor profile for OD user

Good day to all! There is a problem: In the network 4 Mac Lion clients with tablets Wacom and Lion Server with OD. Customers get the server security policies that impose some restrictions on them. Limitations are associated mainly with access to the system configuration, control for external drives and flash drives. Currently, restrictions on access to configuration screens available. However, users without administrator privileges can not change the current profile displays all the time is reset to the default profile. It may be necessary to give access to the policy to change the profile to register it manually? Thanks in advance!

I have to say, I am in exactly the same place ppshr150 is. I have checked both Quicktime and Quicktime Player preferences and the option to choose a default screen for full-screen presentation of movies does not exist.
I can drag movies over to the second monitor and then press Command F and they will play there but from a presentation perspective, this is rather unprofessional.
It surprises me that Apple does not have this option. Or is it a bug they haven't/won't fix?

How do you use an outside Lab ICC Printer Profile in PSE 12?

I have an image that I scanned in from an old print then I edited it using PSE-12. Now that I've completed the editing and retouching I plan to have the image printed by an outside that has the ability to read ICC Printer Profiles designed for their printers embedded in the image. My proble is I don't know how to add a particular ICC Printer Profile to a image worked on in PSE-12. If I was using Lightroom or PS-CS5 or 6 there is a straight forward way to accomplish this goal.
Is there any way to accomplish the same objective when using PSE-12?

Thanks MichelBParis. I must be getting old (I'm 78) and I completely missed that when I was in Dry Creek Photo. In fact that is where I get all of my ICC Printer Profiles from when I'm using either Lightroom or Photoshop CS. What I'm doing is tutoring a friend on the use of PSE-12 (although I do own a copy for my own use) and I was trying to set him up to use ICC Printer Profiles and avoid letting the labs do "Automatic Color Adjust). I had many images ruined in the past just because the lab did an automatic color adjust until an operator schooled me on what was happening. I'm now a part time photographer and I never send an image to be printed without first making sure I have an applicable ICC Printer Profile embedded. and request the lab to turn off their automatic color adjustment.
Thanks again for the perfect solution.

Lightroom/photoshop seem to use the default monitor profile when printing

I had my color workflow setup fine and I have no idea what happened. It's been working as long as I can remember. My monitor is calibrated with an eye-one display 2. When I print, the print colors no longer match the monitor colors. Trying to figure out what is going on, I noticed that if I switch the monitior profile to "Display" the print colors made match the "Display" monitor colors rather than the monitor colors present when its profile is set to the calibrated profile. I get the same behavoir in photoshop and lightroom.
To recap:
1. profile/calibrate the monitor with an eye-one display 2
2. set the monitor profile to the new calibrated profile.
2.5 take a look at the soft proof. everything looks good.
3. make a print using the correct paper profile, lightroom or photoshop managing the color,
4. the print colors don't match the monitor
5. fooling around, set the monitor profile to "Display". Those are the colors that show up on my print.
Any ideas as to what's going on?
The particulars: OSX 10.7.5, Photoshop CS6 13.0.4, Lightroom 4.4
Thanks.

There are lots of colour spaces here!
The image has a colour space. If it's a jpeg it's probably sRGB or Adobe RGB. If it's raw, then it's in the colour space of the camera sensor (which is proprietary, and no use to anyone until it's been rendered by LR, ACR or whatever).
The editing program (LR or Photoshop) has a "working colour space". This is the working space the program does it's image manipulation in. For Photoshop you can choose, for LR it's always ProPhoto RGB (there's no choice). LR and Photoshop internally convert the image from the image's colour space to the working space for editing.
Then the monitor has a colour space. Assuming it's been calibrated and profiled (measured) by a hardware device (Spyder, Colormunki or whatever) then the monitor's colour space is described in the monitor profile.
Assuming the display profile is correctly set (in Windows control panel, color management) to the monitor's profile (which should be done automatically when you calibrate/profile your monitor) then both LR and Photoshop will automatically use the monitor profile when sending image data to the monitor. Both will automatically map (convert) the image from the working color space of the program to the colour space of the monitor. It just happens.
Provided:
The monitor is correctly calibrated and profiled (with a v2 profile if there's a choice, avoid v4 like the plague)
The default profile hasn't subsequently been altered in control panel
then LR will automatically colour manage correctly. There aren't any controls or options in LR to make it not colour manage correctly.
It's much easier to screw up on Photoshop as there are lots of settings you can get wrong in the "Color Settings" panel. So if there's a difference in colour between Lightroom and Photoshop it's virtually always a wrong setting in Photoshop, unless the monitor profile is incorrect.

Manually set Monitor Profile

Instead of Photoshop, et al using my Win7 x64 ICC monitor profile, I would like to set it manually, as I'm able to do in other applications. Is this possible?
The reason why is that I have a Dell U3014 and using the software that comes with it, I want to use its sRGB mode (and an associated sRGB profile from my Spyder 4 set as my Windows default) for all of my regular apps, and AdobeRGB mode (and profile) for my CS and other color-aware apps. My other apps DxO, PhotoMechanic, Canon SLR apps, etc. let me choose the profile.

I would think that your calibration software would create a color profile for your display and set it into its device drivers color management configuration and set something up to load the Video Adapter LUT when the system boots up using the values stored in you displays color profile. I think the software changes your systems displays color management configuration default profile. If not I think you should.
When you edit images in Photoshop you should be editing them in a standard color space like sRGB, Adobe RGB or ProPhotoRGB. When ever Photoshop renders an image for you it will use the document color profile and your displays color profile to display the best colors you display is capable of displaying for the image. You don't set your displays profile for Photoshop. Photoshop retrieves your displays profile from your system configuration.

Possible to bypass monitor profile when displaying image?

After importing a large photo library into Aperture I noticed that when viewing images, they would change color and in a little under a second the colors looked significantly less "colorful and rich" than before. Sounds "subjective" but it really is not. There is definitely a transformation going on and the colors consistently become duller on every image viewed. It is especially noticeable in a album of images taken in the fall using a circular polarizer where the colors looked really great to begin with and then extremely dull after the transformation. I deleted all of the preview images and set aperture to not regenerate them. Still, same issue occurred. The issue occurs with both RAW and jpg images.
In Canon Image Browser on the Mac colors look great. It's easy to do an A to B comparison of the same file and see that it looks better in every case.
But what I've discovered is that I can get the same "dulling" result to occur using Canon's Image Browser 6.x software just by setting one option.
There is an option checkbox in Preferences that is disabled by default to "Adjust Image Colors Using A Monitor Profile." Prior to setting that option, the colors looked great, just like they looked on the camera LCD, and they same as they look on my PC also using Canon Image Browser software and Irfan view. The rich colors seen when not using monitor profile also match what I see in Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer browsers.
In Canon Image Browser when I set the checkbox to "Adjust Image Colors Using A Monitor Profile" the colors become very muted. They look identical to what I see in Aperture. Also, I can get the same effect to occur on the PC version of Canon Image Browser. Microsoft's "Windows Photo Viewer" seems to be monitor profile aware as it shows the same dull colors. "Windows Photo Viewer" offers no option that I can find to improve the look of the color. Maybe this is what you want if you're trying to print your images and have them match exactly what is seen on screen.
I have found that with Photoshop CS5 I can export a jpg to tiff which strips out the color space information and then voila the image "pops" when I bring it into aperture and looks the way it does in Canon Image Browser without using monitor profile. In fact you can really then compare within Aperture how big the difference is between the two, and the only thing I did was resave the image to a new file format without doing anything else in photoshop. It's not feasible to resave evertthing as tiff though.
So my main question is, is there a way within Aperture to bypass the monitor profile so I can see the images with the same colors as they are rendered in the majority of the other tools I use.

I've done some additional testing on a jpeg image.
Test 1:
Canon Image Browser: "Preferences/Adjust Image Colors Using a Monitor Profile" is unhecked
Photoshop CS5: "View/Proof Setup" is set to "Monitor RGB"
Aperture: "Onscreen Proofing" enabled and set to "Generic RGB" Additionally I've tried every other color profile available
Result: The colors look identically rich on Photoshop and Canon Image Browser. Aperture is the only tool I can't get to align with the rich colors.
Test 2
Canon Image Browser: "Preferences/Adjust Image Colors Using a Monitor Profile" is checked. Restart the software to apply change.
Photoshop CS5: "View/Proof Setup" is set to "Internet standard sRGB"
Aperture: "Onscreen Proofing" enabled and set to "sRGB"
Result: The colors match on all 3 tools. The color are very noticeably less rich than in Test 1.
I went ahead and previewed the image in the browsers on the Mac. Chrome and Firefox showed the color the same as Photoshop and Canon Image Browser did in Test 1 which looks better in my opinion.
For Safari color looks the same as Test 2.
Also Apple Preview looks the same as Test 2 no matter which soft proofing setting is applied.
I believe Adobe and Canon have the correct behavior and show either richer or duller colors depending on which "proofing" mode they are in. Only aperture so far cannot be made to do the richer colors.

Roundtrip LR to PS using Xrite camera profile

If I use an Xrite Color Checker camera profile my LR images will not roundtrip to PS using the "edit in" menu option. If I turn the profile off they work fine. Advice appreciated. Anyone know a solution??
Ray

You've got this all wrong. A custom monitor profile is not to be used as document profile. That's not its purpose and not where it belongs.
Color management always requires two profiles, a source and a destination. Photoshop and Lightroom, as color managed applications, convert on the fly from the source color space and into the monitor color space.
Lightroom's internal working color space is linear ProPhoto (gamma 1.0). In Photoshop you use sRGB, Adobe RGB or ProPhoto (1.8). In both cases, this is converted into your monitor profile and this is what is sent to the monitor.
Both applications find and use the monitor profile set at system level, without any user intervention.

Huey Pro Monitor Profile and Lightroom

I have saved a monitor profile on my computer, but don't understand how Lightroom uses that profile. I am currently using Epson and Ilford Paper on my Epson Stylus Pro 1400 and I have the correct color profiles for those papers.
My question is, if Lightroom does not manage the printing, what settings should be entered in the Epson Printer Setup to ensure that the printer is using my monitor profile in addition to the correct paper profile?

Wil-
First, what Jao said :)
Second: In regards to printing, a calibrated monitor profile gives us the best shot at a print looking like what we see on the screen, as long as when we print we have LR manage the color using the correct printer/paper profile and we turn off color management in the printer's driver.
If you have the printer manage color make sure that you tell LR to not manage color. In this case, the answer to your Printer Setup question is you have to choose whatever paper option most closely matches the paper you are using. Then, you have to go through a series of test prints and adjust your print driver color settings until they match what you see on the screen. You may have to alter those settings for different prints, to adjust for different image color balances.
It's really preferred to let LR do the color management, since you have both a monitor profile and a printer/paper profile.
Tony

LR1.2 WinXP Monitor Profile Setting?

I've calibrated my monitor with the Spyder2Pro and am running LR1.2. Spyder comes with a loader which loads the display profile at Windows Startup and gives a successful completion message indicating that the profile has been loaded in the graphics card.
I'm wondering however if LR also manages the display like it does the printer? Is LR aware though Windows API or other that the monitor is calibrated and has the profile already loaded? Or will LR attempt to use the monitor profile itself with the result of the display being doubly managed?
I know that having both ICM in the printer driver as well as LR at the same time is a no-no. Just trying to figure out if I'm doing the same thing somehow in the display as well.
tnx
jim

I've calibrated my monitor with the Spyder2Pro and am running LR1.2. Spyder comes with a loader which loads the display profile at Windows Startup and gives a successful completion message indicating that the profile has been loaded in the graphics card.
I'm wondering however if LR also manages the display like it does the printer? Is LR aware though Windows API or other that the monitor is calibrated and has the profile already loaded? Or will LR attempt to use the monitor profile itself with the result of the display being doubly managed?
I know that having both ICM in the printer driver as well as LR at the same time is a no-no. Just trying to figure out if I'm doing the same thing somehow in the display as well.
tnx
jim

PS CS5 Image Display Differs From Used ICC Profile In Win 7

Hi,
on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine, I just calibrated my Dell SP2309W monitor using an i1DisplayPro and basICColor 5, creating a ICC v2 profile (I am aware of the problems under Windows with ICC v4 profiles).
It created the ICC profile and applied it to be used by Windows. I double checked under COLOR MANAGEMENT that the new ICC profile is being used. Although I can see that the new ICC is being used (desktop appearance changes), there are a few issues I am experiencing:
(1.) Windows Photo Viewer
The thumbnails in Windpows Explorer look fine (they DO use the new ICC profile), when I double click a jpeg and open the image it DOES NOT use the new ICC profile. When I click the PLAY SLIDESHOW button (starting the slideshow) in the opened image in Windows Photo Viewer, the images DO use the new ICC profile.
(2.) Internet Browsers
All current internet browser (Firefox, IE, Safari and Chrome) DO use the new ICC profile and display the image correctly.
(3.) Photoshop CS 5
When I open the same image - that Windows Photo Viewer does not correctly displays (according to the new ICC profile) - in Photoshop CS5, I get the same image display that Windows Photo Viewer gives me (when not thumbnail or not in slideshow mode) - it appears to be the sRGB display.
My color settings in PS CS5 are: North America General Purpose 2 > sRGB IEC 61966-2.1.
When I go to View > Proof Setup > Monitor RGB I get the image display using the new ICC profile.
Why does the image look different in PS than my calibrated monitor should output ?
I was under the impression (please correct me if I am wrong), that the sole purpose for calibrating my monitor was to get a uniform display across (ICC aware) applications. Even when one applies different color spaces to a document in PS, I thought the output on my calibrated screen done by the graphic card should always be according to my calibration and the settings in the ICC profile being used.
What Am I doing wrong or what am I misunderstanding ?
Any help or input is appreciated !
Thanks.
- M

Hello,
A note on monitor calibration: calibrating your monitor will not guarentee that every application will display color correctly, it's more of a step along the pipeline, and for the preview part of a color workflow it's the last step. Here's how color translation follows for an ICC workflow when previewing to a monitor:
Image Color Numbers > Document Tag or Workspace Profile > Monitor Profile
For non-color managed applications, if the original document is or isn't tagged with a color profile it will be translated directly to the monitor profile anyway. This is the equivalent in Photoshop of selecting "Monitor" in soft proofing. Selecting monitor in softproofing will bypass the tagged or workspace profile to translate colors directly through the monitor profile.
For most automatic color managed applications (like Firefox), the image will be translated through the tagged profile and then sent through the monitor profile. If the image is untagged or the profile is unrecognized, the colors get sent directly to the monitor profile.
For Photoshop, a tagged document will have its profile respected and then sent to the monitor. An untagged document will be assigned the workspace profile, which acts like a temporary document profile, and then gets sent to the monitor. This is often why users will notice Photoshop behaves differently from other applications. It's usually a case of the workspace coming into play. By default the workspace profile is set to sRGB. You can change this in Edit > Color Settings.
The purpose of the workspace is originally for printing workflows, as a way of keeping consistant color translations when dealing with both tagged and untagged documents. For web output workflows it can be useful for viewing everything through sRGB, which is typical of the average monitor output (not so with newer wide-gamut monitors, another source of confusion...) combined with the fact that originally most web browsers were not color managed. Hence viewing everything through sRGB is pretty close to what most monitors see and what untagged/unmanaged docs will look like.
Monitor calibration is useful only because it brings your monitor output to a "known state". In traditional workflows the monitor was always a middle-man, a preview device which was useful for getting an idea of what the printed output would look like before you print it. Since print colorspaces are often smaller than display spaces, it's feasible and useful to narrow down the monitor/display space and calibrate it to a known state, so that even if it doesn't totally match the print, you'll get used to its differences/limitations and they'll be consistent so long as the calibration is maintained.
For web output, your final output is often another user's computer monitor, which can have any form of behavior (most standard monitors are pretty close to sRGB, or use sRGB as an operating system workspace (default monitor profile). Wide gamuts behave differently, but I'm not sure if there's a particular ICC space that they closely match, or if different wide-gamuts are even that close to each other in their display color spaces.
Hope this helps!

Monitor profiling & ICC profile management in VMware virtual machines?

Greetings,
I'm successfully running Photoshop CC in Windows 7 on bare metal PCs. To support that, I profile/calibrate my monitors with Datacolor Spyder4Elite and print with Qimage. Photoshop, Spyder4, and Qimage all create and/or install ICC profiles. Does any/all of that function correctly within virtual machines hosted by VMware Workstation (v9.0.2, specifically)? Datacolor's Spyder4Elite, for example, relies upon periodic reloading of the LUT (Look-Up Table) of the graphics adapter. The other apps I mention ask Windows to use ICC profiles. Can I successfully move all of these workflow elements into virtual machines?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.

No, actually the System Default stayed the same, but the ACER profile showed up in the Devices panel. However, [ ] Use My Settings was NOT checked, implying they found some way to install the profile that's outside the normal configuration settings somewhere between the Advanced and Devices level configuration.
The fix is to check the [ ] Use My Settings box, add the profile one wants to use in the Devices panel, and [Set as Default Profile]. This overrides the setting above.
-Noel

Which sRGB Profile to use (HP sRGB Profile, ICC BPC, ICCnoBPC, or no profile)?

Hi everyone,
May I ask something of you guys? I have a question that no one can seem to answer.
I don't know which is the best profile to use--the HP sRGB Profile, the ICC sRGB BPC, the ICC sRGB with no BPC, or no profile (just colorspace tagged as sRGB).
They are all sRGB_IEC61966-2, but the HP sRGB one that is native to older versions of CS (and possibly newer ones?) does not state whether it is BPC or nonBPC.
I have noted several things (and I know little of color profiles, so please excuse my ignorance):
1) Firefox displays all the profiles the same way, except noBPC is shown with lighter blacks
2) Adobe seems to represent the sRGB BPC and the HP sRGB similarly?
3) Some people suggest using no profile, merely tagging the metadata to say sRGB
4) The ICC website says that most V2 color profiles on the www are black scaled; other sites seem to say its the opposite: that BPC is a new thing to most people who save sRGB V2.....
5) BPC = Black scaling.
Help ! I'm completely at a loss for what is the most future-proofed means to do this. Each road seems to have a disadvantage.
Any help would be great
Tod

I'm dropping in kind of late, here, and I haven't read the thread thoroughly, but I thought I would add a few cents worth about why you might want to choose certain profiles.
It's important to start with this:
Your choices of color profiles to use for the various functions in your system and for publishing images MUST be made individually, based on how you want to work, and what you anticipate the recipients of your images need.
Understand that there is no "one size fits all" answer, which is why you're given configuration choices. It's important to actually understand color-management to make the proper choices, and many people fail to take the time to do so.
Document Color Profiles
For general web publishing, many folks think it's a good idea to publish images in the sRGB color space and with an embedded sRGB profile. This is because many browsers didn't used to do color management, and Windows in general assumes sRGB. Even today, not all browsers do proper color management, and sRGB is just assumed in some cases. If you are serious about web publishing, you probably want to learn just what Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Chrome, and a number of others (and in all their various versions) actually DO regarding color-management, and knowing your intended audience make your own intelligent choices.
I'll add that as the browser landscape changes (and it is always changing), any "rule of thumb" about which profile to use for web publishing probably needs to be re-evaluated again at intervals in the future.
For sending images to family or friends electronically, pretty much the same thing applies as with web publishing. Assuming a user is looking at the image you just sent him/her in Outlook or another mail client, the app may or may not be doing color management, and sRGB image data is probably most likely to be interpreted without problems. However, you may know something about your recipient's color capabilities and make a different choice.
For sending images to print houses, quite often they want "standard" sRGB images as well. However, if they DO offer wide gamut printing, limiting your images to sRGB will mean you won't get all the advantages of their full color depth and your prints may look a bit dull compared to what they could look like. Don't assume; find out from them what their recommendations are for document color profile. Again, details matter, and the more you know the better choices you can make.
Working Color Profiles
What color spaces you choose to work in in Photoshop have something to do with the results you want to make, and also something to do with the workflow you're willing to adopt. It may be that you prefer to work on color images in sRGB so that he RGB values you manipulate all through your processing will be the very same ones you provide in your published output images. Or you may prefer to work with images of the widest possible gamut because you have need to print or otherwise publish your images with a wider gamut than sRGB. You could even start work with a wide gamut profile (e.g., ProPhoto RGB) for the advantages in maintaining all your images' fidelity, then ultimately publish sRGB - you just have to be sure and make the proper conversion at some point in the workflow.
It's important to note that Photoshop's Color Settings define your preferences - i.e., how you want Photoshop to handle things (or set defaults or just let you know) when there are choices. Personally, I like to check all the boxes so that I will be asked if an image isn't in my preferred color space.
Also note that the Camera Raw plug-in offers a choice of output color space that's separate from the main Photoshop settings.
Device Color Profiles
Your display system can be calibrated and profiled. Calibration generally describes the process of manipulating the output signals so that they are generally the right brightnesses - the response of your display is its Gamma, which should be close to 2.2 on a PC. Once calibration is achieved, profiling a monitor is generally a matter of sending a bunch of different RGB values to it, seeing what it displays, measuring the difference between that and the ideal color, and setting up to make the proper corrections for future image displays.
You associate a monitor profile with your monitor using the operating system, even though the operating system only helps with color-management when applications request it. You may wish to create a monitor profile that matches your monitor's display characteristics - there are devices that come with software and procedures to help you do this, and there are even ways you can do a rough job visually without a device. This allows Photoshop and other color-managed applications to perform conversions to accurately represent colors from a document with its own profile on your monitor.
However, you have to understand that not every application on your system is color-managed, and you might actually be looking at RGB values expressed in a document color space and displayed on your monitor without transformation. Also some transformations are done with shallow data and can introduce noise. Perhaps you want to minimize the difference because there are tools you like that don't do color-management, or because you know that Internet Explorer 9 assumes your monitor displays sRGB. It's normal that color-managed and non-color-managed applications can show the very same images differently on a calibrated and profiled system. This confuses many folks
Note that the Windows default monitor profile is sRGB IEC61966-2.1. Depending on your monitor, there can be advantages to making your display respond similarly to sRGB and just using sRGB for your monitor profile.
Many local printers can be profiled as well. There are devices to allow you to do this. However, some printers are "factory calibrated" and expect you to deliver the data in a particular profile - e.g., sRGB.
Moreover, there are configuration options to allow you to choose where to do color management during printing. Photoshop, for example, provides a Color Management section in their Print dialog, and if you drill down to the printer driver's dialogs you may find that there are settings there as well. You'll need to discover the best combination of these settings for your particular print needs. Some combinations may work equally well, while you may find some have subtle advantages. Not long ago I did a whole series of prints in which I manipulated the settings to go through all the different combinations with my HP printer, then critically compared the results. I found that instructing Photoshop to do a conversion to the print driver's standard sRGB input profile, and disabling color management in the print drivers entirely gave me the best results.
Summary
At the end of the day we're doing all this because: You'd like to be able to work on a document, print it and have the colors look as you expect, publish it online and have most people see it as you intended, and send it to others and have them see it as you did.
No conclusions or direct advice here; I'm just giving you some things to think about when making your color-management choices.
-Noel

Using ICC Monitor Profiles

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