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03/25/2013 03:29:38 PM · #1 |
Hi. Me again. Another riddle I cannot solve. Any help is greatly appreciated.
- Color Space in both LR and PS is ProPhoto RGB. -
When a photo is exported to PS for editing it looks the same, until I click "Proof Colors" (Proof Setup is Monitor RGB). Photos are then darker, duller, etc. This view is exactly what I will see when I save for Web, and exactly what I see when I upload an image to DPC, for example.
However, if I simply save the same file as a jpg, or run the jpg export script for that same file, the photo is then exactly the same (lighter and brighter) as it appears in LR and in PS before I click "Proof Colors."
In Windows Photo Viewer, the exact same photo displays very differently between a jpg that has been saved for Web and a jpg that has simply been saved/exported.
Ideally the colors should look the same from LR throughout (and I need to fix it), but this difference between jpgs of the same original PSD file has me especially perplexed.
I know color management is a vastly complex subject, so please don't waste too much of your time, but if you do have an answer for me I'd be very grateful. |
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03/25/2013 03:43:06 PM · #2 |
I think you need to have your entire workflow in the color space you expect to use. I'm not sure what prophoto RGB is. I shoot and edit in the sRBG color space and my images are fairly consistent.
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03/25/2013 03:48:13 PM · #3 |
That's far too simple, Spiff. If I'm going to spend thousands on camera gear and software I expect to be confused and for there to be a lot of troubleshooting.
ETA: Jokes aside, ProPhoto RGB is the native color space of LR and I wanted to maintain the same color space through PS. I shoot in Adobe RGB 1998, which I believe is the closest to that possible.
Regardless of the camera settings, I don't know what I really have until I get to my computer, and then if LR and PS have the same color space, I don't see why images should appear with different colors.
Message edited by author 2013-03-25 15:53:41. |
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03/25/2013 03:53:29 PM · #4 |
| Steve has the right idea. Edit in sRGB, unles you have a good, specific reason for doing otherwise and you understand the nuances of color management (it's a complicated topic). Set your Lr export color space to sRGB and set Ps to preserve embedded profiles. This ensures that when Ps opens an exported JPEG from Lr, it will be opened using the sRGB space in which it was saved. |
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03/25/2013 03:56:17 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
Steve has the right idea. Edit in sRGB, unles you have a good, specific reason for doing otherwise and you understand the nuances of color management (it's a complicated topic). Set your Lr export color space to sRGB and set Ps to preserve embedded profiles. This ensures that when Ps opens an exported JPEG from Lr, it will be opened using the sRGB space in which it was saved. |
Thanks, Fritz. I explained a bit in my edit why I wanted to go that route. I may just dumb it down and do what you're recommending, but I would still like to understand why the same exact PSD file in PS looks different depending on if I save for web as jpg or export it as a jpg. |
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03/25/2013 04:03:25 PM · #6 |
The proofing in PS can cause you to pull your hair out with how many things need to be set correctly for it to be accurate.
This is my workflow, give it a try and see if it works for you...
I also edit in both LR and PS using ProPhoto RGB. The very last step before saving is Edit->Convert_to_Profile and I convert it to sRGB. After that you should be able to do a save for web or a plain old save-as and it should look correct.
Another thing to check is if your monitor driver installed a crazy color space manager. In Control Panel -> Color Management it should list the ICC profile for the monitor. If it isn't sRBG you should change it to the stock sRGB. These custom monitor profiles can be useful if you are on an extremely controlled workstation, but they will mis-represent any image that doesn't have an embedded ICC profile. So unless you are a big studio with someone that can completely control the color workflow, set the monitor ICC profile back to sRGB.
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03/25/2013 04:03:52 PM · #7 |
the short and bastardized version is, ProphotoRGB is a very large color space it has more colors than are even visible. when you do all your editing in such a large color space and then save it down to a smaller color space, those color you used have nowhere to go and as a result the image looks different.
so like the others have suggested, unless you have really good reason to use prophoto (and just wanting to or thinking you should isn't a good reason) stick with sRGB and use it all the way through your workflow.
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03/25/2013 04:09:47 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by mike_311:
the short and bastardized version is, ProphotoRGB is a very large color space it has more colors than are even visible. when you do all your editing in such a large color space and then save it down to a smaller color space, those color you used have nowhere to go and as a result the image looks different.
so like the others have suggested, unless you have really good reason to use prophoto (and just wanting to or thinking you should isn't a good reason) stick with sRGB and use it all the way through your workflow. |
There are good reasons to use ProPhoto RGB, or at least AdobeRGB (compromise between the two). When doing hue shifts or sometimes even exposure changes, you end up using those colors that are not visible. If you are in sRGB that can end up causing banding in your gradients, or colors just being a little off. A full explanation would take many pages of writing, but that's the gist of it. That being said, these banding issues are still fairly rare, so it's by no means horrible to do everything in sRGB, but that doesn't mean there are no downsides to sRGB.
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03/25/2013 04:22:10 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by mike_311:
when you do all your editing in such a large color space and then save it down to a smaller color space, those color you used have nowhere to go and as a result the image looks different. |
Exactly what I have seen happen with color printing. I've seen very dark blues often print with a purplish hue because the actual color is within the color space of an RGB monitor (so it displays fine), but is outside the gamut of a CYMK laser printer, so it maps to a color that is visibly a bit off.
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03/25/2013 04:39:38 PM · #10 |
The issue of color shifts when printing is *the* reason for using the proofing checkbox. But when you do use it you had better understand how to set up everything so that the result is something that makes sense.
In the end, editing in a 16-bit-per-channel mode in the sRGB space is suually of much greater utility than editing in a larger space such as Adobe RGB.
Message edited by author 2013-03-25 16:39:51. |
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03/25/2013 04:41:44 PM · #11 |
Thanks for the feedback, guys.
Ben, your last-step convert to sRGB trick worked perfectly.
I'm still confused why I can take the same exact PSD file, reduce image size, and then "save as jpg" and get a bright photo, and then "save for web" and get a dark photo. Is one jpg in Adobe RGB and one in sRGB? |
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03/25/2013 04:53:26 PM · #12 |
when you save for web its probably changing the color what to sRGB since that the standard for web images. when you do a straight save my guess it that windows viewer is using the color space its being told to use.
i have a limited grasp of this, i can only speculate what is happening, i'm sure someone knows for sure. |
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03/25/2013 04:57:16 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by bohemka:
Thanks for the feedback, guys.
Ben, your last-step convert to sRGB trick worked perfectly.
I'm still confused why I can take the same exact PSD file, reduce image size, and then "save as jpg" and get a bright photo, and then "save for web" and get a dark photo. Is one jpg in Adobe RGB and one in sRGB? |
I ran into this same problem, and there are a few things that can mess it up. If you see it as a dark or flat colors, it was saved in a larger color space, in this case ProPhoto RGB. But the application that is viewing it thinks that it was saved as sRGB. So when it tries to figure out the color spread, it guesses wrong. Sometimes the image will look OK on some browsers and bad on others. This is the case when the image is ProPhoto RGB and also has a built in ICC profile to tell the browser what the color spread should look like. The problem occurs when 75% of the browsers out there ignore image ICC profile and always assume it's sRGB.
When you do a save-as it will always (I think) save in the current color profile, which is a recipe for disaster if your not already in sRGB. Doing so means you are rolling the dice on if the browser supports ICC profiles or not. There is also a checkbox on the save-as screen that allows you suppress the embedded ICC profile, if you do that they nothing will even know it's ProPhoto RGB, and your hosed.
Save for web is more forgiving but has it's own problems. It will do the color profile conversion for you, but that doesn't mean it will do it correctly. At work and don't have PS in front of me, but I remember various methods for converting the profile. One of them is either called "working space" or "monitor space" which will convert it to whatever your monitor ICC profile is. If this isn't sRGB, once again your hosed.
In the end, you want to always ensure you are in sRGB when saving (with the rare exception of sending to nice print companies). You can do this by either working 100% in sRGB like people here mentioned, or by doing the "convert to profile" before saving. In theory the save to web dialog is supposed to do this for you, but it has it's own issues.
Color space is also a religious war, so I'm sure you will find many other viewpoints that are completely different but toted as the only sane way to work :)
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03/25/2013 05:32:32 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by bohemka:
I'm still confused why I can take the same exact PSD file, reduce image size, and then "save as jpg" and get a bright photo, and then "save for web" and get a dark photo. Is one jpg in Adobe RGB and one in sRGB? |
"Save for web" includes a profile conversion to sRGB since that would be the appropriate color space for web. "Save as" does not since Photoshop can't assume the destination color space. |
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03/25/2013 05:53:10 PM · #15 |
Thanks for all the info. Ben, great explanation of it.
I think one of my main mental hurdles with this is why I can "Convert to Profile: sRGB" and it will maintain everything as it appears, but when I save for web the conversion to sRGB does not maintain the colors.
It's as though the conversion engine works properly in one action but not the other. What am I missing? |
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03/25/2013 05:58:36 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by bohemka:
Thanks for all the info. Ben, great explanation of it.
I think one of my main mental hurdles with this is why I can "Convert to Profile: sRGB" and it will maintain everything as it appears, but when I save for web the conversion to sRGB does not maintain the colors.
It's as though the conversion engine works properly in one action but not the other. What am I missing? |
When you save for web, it "should" be doing the same conversion. I'm not in front of the computer I have PS installed on, but I think there's a checkbox where you can enable/disable the conversion to srgb. Maybe you have that unchecked? |
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03/25/2013 06:04:02 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by Ann:
Originally posted by bohemka:
Thanks for all the info. Ben, great explanation of it.
I think one of my main mental hurdles with this is why I can "Convert to Profile: sRGB" and it will maintain everything as it appears, but when I save for web the conversion to sRGB does not maintain the colors.
It's as though the conversion engine works properly in one action but not the other. What am I missing? |
When you save for web, it "should" be doing the same conversion. I'm not in front of the computer I have PS installed on, but I think there's a checkbox where you can enable/disable the conversion to srgb. Maybe you have that unchecked? |
No matter what I check or uncheck in that dialog window, the "Proof Colors" always results in a darkening and muddying of the image when set to Proof sRGB. Odd.
It's as if I'm getting a peek at what a crappy conversion to sRGB will look like, but if I simply ask Ps to convert to sRGB it looks fine. |
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03/25/2013 06:22:35 PM · #18 |
Weirdest bit yet:
If I convert to sRGB the image's appearance remains as it should.
If I "Proof Colors" it then appears dim and dark, and then if I convert to sRGB I get the dim and dark colors, not the bright image I would have gotten if I had never clicked "Proof Colors."
What? |
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03/25/2013 06:33:05 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by bohemka:
Weirdest bit yet:
If I convert to sRGB the image's appearance remains as it should.
If I "Proof Colors" it then appears dim and dark, and then if I convert to sRGB I get the dim and dark colors, not the bright image I would have gotten if I had never clicked "Proof Colors."
What? |
I think save for web tries to be smart and save it "exactly as it looks to you currently". Which is usually sRGB because that's what 99% of monitors are set to (or something close to that). So when you are in proof mode, it better look correct because that is how save for web will make it look.
Part if this is just my guesswork, but I'll play around with it a bit when I get home.
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03/25/2013 10:34:54 PM · #20 |
Originally posted by bohemka:
If I "Proof Colors" it then appears dim and dark, and then if I convert to sRGB I get the dim and dark colors, not the bright image I would have gotten if I had never clicked "Proof Colors." |
Sounds like the color profile setting for your monitor is incorrect. |
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03/25/2013 10:47:06 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by bohemka:
If I "Proof Colors" it then appears dim and dark, and then if I convert to sRGB I get the dim and dark colors, not the bright image I would have gotten if I had never clicked "Proof Colors." |
Sounds like the color profile setting for your monitor is incorrect. |
I'm on a laptop so that's highly likely, but I would think a conversion to sRGB would be consistent, either all right or all wrong, but I'm getting one of each, with the simple click of "Proof Colors" making the difference. |
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03/25/2013 11:44:50 PM · #22 |
Why are you using proof color at all? I have only found it useful when trying to see how specific printers will print the image. It does an artificial color space conversion to simulate a color space of another device.
This is skirting the edge of my knowledge, so I can't promise I'm being 100% factual, but consider it this way...
Some printers (well almost all printers) don't do a perfect color representation in any of the standard color spaces. Because of this they all have custom ICC profiles to account for things such as small shifts in green hue and such. If you know the image will be sent to this printer, you don't want to have to guess how much the green channel will get shifted, but you also don't want to work in some weird printer color space. To account for this you work in ProPhoto but set the proof profile to the printers ICC. This shifts the green hue for you so you know what you will get when you save. The save will still be tagged as ProPhoto, or whatever color space your printer accepts as a source, but it will have accounted for the green hue shift. In a way the proof color is doing a second on-the-fly color conversion for you. Save for web appears to ignore this proof color conversion because it knows if you are saving for web, you want internet standard color space (sRGB). |
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03/25/2013 11:45:46 PM · #23 |
What are your settings for "Proof Colors?"
In PS CS6, the View menu item right above the "Proof Colors" item is "Proof Setup." What you select can make a big difference in what you see when using "Proof Colors." If you have selected "Working CMYK" (which may be the default), that is a much smaller color space than ProPhoto RGB and typically makes images look dimmer. Printing in CMYK can look dim compared to the monitor non-proof appearance, so that setting can help you prepare for what the print output would look like before you actually print, hence "Proof" term. Working CMYK may not be the best choice when proofing an image intended for the web rather than for a CMYK printing press.
I don't know whether the "Proof Setup" choice affects any other conversion processes. Might be a starting point for a more focused search for better information. |
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03/26/2013 12:04:35 AM · #24 |
Thanks, fellas.
I have the Proof Colors set to "Monitor RGB," as has been recommended, but perhaps for the purposes of DPC it should be "Internet Standard RGB (sRGB)." However, no matter how many monitors I have checked, images appear exactly the same between these two.
I have been using the Proof Colors option because whenever I save for web, that's what I get. It only took me a couple of times of editing a photo and then witnessing it completely change before I figured out the Proof Colors toggle would allow me to see exactly what I would see once I saved for web.
I've only just started working Lightroom into my editing workflow, so now I have more info to see that there's a problem with the system or how I've been working.
I now know the workaround, thanks to you, Ben, but it seems like a bug in the system to me. |
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03/26/2013 12:19:44 AM · #25 |
| I think if proofing for web you need to work in the web color space (sRGB). But if you are using ProPhoto you should proof in ProPhoto. In a way you are telling photoshop that you are working in ProPhoto, but display the image as if someone mis-interpreted the color space as sRGB. If you then edit the image to how you want it to look, it will only look that way to someone if it's in ProPhoto color space, and their browser mis-interprets it as sRGB instead. |
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