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Colour Profiles ... AGAIN


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I only ever seem to post here with colour issues.

 

Anyway, I've just switched to a new monitor. It's not calibrated. I've set the OSD to sRGB though.

 

In photoshop I'm setup as sRGB etc.

 

Just finished an image and emailed it to the client. I've then opened the image (from sent emails) on my iPhone 7. And it looks really saturated.

 

The only way I can get the image in photoshop to look the same as it does on my iphone is to switch the Proof to Monitor RGB?

 

Can anyone explain what's happening, and which is right wrong. I have no idea what the client is seeing so don't know whether I need to overcompensate the saturation or undercompensate. I thought I had this nailed until this.

 

And I've only noticed since switching to the new monitor.

 

I just want to make sure my client sees what I see, i.e. if they look at it on their phone like I did, i expect it to be pretty close to how it looks in PS

 

this is the monitor I'm using http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dell-u2715h?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

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A couple of thoughts...

 

Are you embedding your working profile in the image that you send to the client? If not, that could be the issue. If your working space is sRGB and the file isn't tagged the iPhone might be assuming it's a different RGB color space like Adobe RGB or Apple RGB.

 

Is there any chance Windows is still using the ICC profile from the old monitor and applying it to the new one? That would cause your colors to be off which you then correct for and subsequently your image looks wrong on other devices.

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Thanks for the response - the jpegs are being saved with the profile, and I made sure I cleared the old profile.

 

I actually linked to the wrong monitor - it's a UP2716D that I'm using. It's a Wide Gamut monitor - I think this is the start of my issue - but I'm not sure why?

 

I think I just need to calibrate it. I've probably wrongly assumed that setting it to sRGB on the OSD would be adequate although I still don't fully understand why it isn't.

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The built in sRGB mode in the monitor is, I believe, an emulation for non-colour managed apps. So could it be as simple as, having the monitor set to sRGB factory setting, whilst working on a document with sRGB colour profile, is actually applying the emulated sRGB curve over the top of my Photoshop image, thus what I'm seeing in PS is a document with sRGB applied twice - theoretically speaking.

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Just want to add to this for anyone reading who might have answers.

 

I've just done a factory reset on the monitor as I don't know what I've changed anymore.

 

So starting from scratch I'm now seeing the complete opposite.

 

Rest to Factory Default.

 

Set Monitor to sRGB in the OSD.

 

Photoshop set to sRGB.

 

Save image out with profile embedded - drag to Chrome - it goes desaturated.

 

Save image out without profile embedded - drag to Chrome - looks as it does it Photoshop.

 

I genuinely don't know what's happening anymore.

 

I could have sworn that before the reset, setting to sRGB emulation on the monitor was making things extra desaturated in PS yet oversaturated everywhere else.

 

I did update the firmware today though ...

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Another quick test I've been doing to see how things look on my phone is using Adobe Preview.

 

Yesterday when I first posted, the image in Photoshop was looking good, yet really saturated when sent live via Adobe Preview.

 

After doing the reset - it's now displaying the same as it does in Photoshop, which is what I want. It's just now when I drag to Chrome it desaturates - I appreciate Chrome isn't colour managed, but as my monitor is emulating sRGB, and Chrome ignores embedded tags and applies sRGB to images anyway, I'd have expected to see something pretty close. But the only time I get something close in Chrome is without embedding the tag.

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So I see some stuff that says Chrome is color managed, some stuff that says only Chrome for Mac is color managed and some stuff that says it isn't color managed. But all of it suggests either over or under saturated images when viewing JPGs on a wide gamut monitor.

 

here's link to test your chrome install

http://cameratico.com/tools/web-browser-color-management-test/

 

and here's link which tells you how to force chrome to assume sRGB it's a bit old, so I'd do the test above first.

http://cameratico.com/guides/google-chrome-color-management/

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I think if you scroll down on the page you should see that chrome is not properly renderings untagged content. See: "How does your browser interpret untagged images and page elements?"

 

And then if you follow the second link in the post above, you can force chrome to render untagged images and elements as sRGB like it is supposed to.

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Ok cool.

 

So why is it rendering the tagged sRGB image as incredibly desaturated?

 

Here's where I am at present.

 

Reset Display.

Changed to sRGB Emulation (Factory Calibration)

Photoshop (Settings as posted earlier, proofing off)

Photoshop looks how I want

Adobe Preview matches Photoshop when viewed on iPhone

Save with sRGB embedded, email it to myself and view attachment on iPhone - looks like PS

Windows Explorer Preview - looks like PS

Windows Photo Viewer - looks desaturated

Image viewed in Chrome - looks desaturated

 

What should it say in Control Panel > Colour Management?

 

Should the list of 'Profiles Associated with this Device' be empty or should it show a 'factory profile' that came with the monitor?

 

The biggest issue is what's right and what's wrong? On my previous screen, the opposite was happening to what I've listed above.

 

So attachments in Gmail were oversaturated (not much but a touch), Windows Explorer was accurate and Windows Photo Viewer was oversaturated

Edited by Dave Buckley
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I didn't realize the inconsistency still extended beyond chrome after your reset.

 

It looks to me like your Dell uses the monitor LUT for the color correction. I'm not sure if RGB profiles should be loaded up in Windows color management or not. The monitor I have at home works like your Dell so when I get home tonight I'll check and see how it is set.

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Ok cool - I think i'm back to 'how it should be' out of the box. Windows Photo Viewer is colour managed so that should display what I see in PS, and at present, it's pretty close. Dragging the tagged image into chrome shows the same as PS, and dragging the untagged image into Chrome shows a slightly saturated version (so I assume Chrome is applying it's interpretation of sRGB or Adobe RGB to that one - not sure what it applies by default).

 

I'm happy with how it currently works - this to me seems 'correct' in terms of which look the same and which don't when viewed in the different environments.

 

What I think is slightly out now, is the factory calibrated sRGB Emulation. It just feels like it's washing and taking just too much colour out than it should be. So I'll run a calibration in one of the on-board custom slots and compare the two.

 

Assuming that's the issue, my biggest problem now is the iPhone 7 - and this is probably the most important as it's where a lot of clients will first view the image - as it's still appearing oversaturated when viewed here. I'm not sure if it's anything to do with the iphone 7 being the first model to implement a wider gamut?

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Just opened an older image I created on my previous monitor, which looked great across the board. It now looks really desaturated in Photoshop on the new one.

 

Not sure what this tells me, but at least it's consistent :)

 

Something tells me the new monitor needs calibrating

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I think you're right about calibrating. I don't really understand the whole sRGB, Adobe RGB, etc. mode thing, my feeling is that if the display can handle the color range, you calibrate and then your color management aware applications display the colors correctly but I don't have a lot of experience with devices which have these modes.

 

Something I saw in the Dell manual suggests that you can set modes based on application. Maybe that is the purpose of the modes, so that you can run the raw calibrated mode when in color managed application and switch to a mode when not viewing in color managed applications.

 

I'm home now, my monitor which supports monitor based calibration (vs. video card based) still has an icc profile associated with it when viewed in Windows color management. The profile is dated based on my last calibration. I know that I didn't set that up, so the LG application which performs the calibration must have placed it there.

 

I hope that helps. I fear I've provided way too much speculation vs. answers and may not have been as helpful as I intended.

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It will make the colours more saturated as I'd expect it too, but that's not what I'm trying to achieve.

 

I'm trying to make sure that the image in sRGB is displaying as I intend and pretty close to what my client will see.

 

I'm also trying to understand what the built in monitor 'profiles' are doing and what happens to them if/when I calibrate.

 

I'd love to know how to check the accuracy of whatever my monitor is currently using

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After more digging, there is a lot of useful info on the Dell forums - multiple people asking the same questions.

 

The general consensus is that a Wide Gamut monitor without calibration using a i1 Display Pro or similar is effectively useless for colour critical work.

 

If anyone else is interested here's what I found. The user 'Yumichan' seems to know his stuff.

 

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/p/19679044/20922452#20922452

 

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/p/19676561/20895209#20895209

 

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/p/19974659/20912428#20912428

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The reason I mention this is regardless of your current colour profile on your monitor - the Adobe 1998 Color Profile will display your image as close to output as possible. If you viewed this image on a colour calibrated monitor it will appear exactly as it does on print. We use this profile on calibrated monitors and uncalibrated and it appears as it does on phone/computer/print 1:1. When working with "Monitor" profile - whatever monitor you are using will have an affect on the colour of the final image - unless i am misunderstanding what you are trying to achieve.

 

Ill have a read of these resources you posted later today, let me know if any of those provided a solution for you.

 

edit: when I say uncalibrated - I mean using the LUT from the calibrated monitor if you prefer. more info here;

 

https://mixinglight.com/color-tutorial/4-things-to-know-about-working-with-luts/

Edited by redvella
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