scathew wrote
That is, lets say you have a JPEG that was scanned on an accurate
scanner that was outputting in the sRGB space. If you double click on
on the JPEG and just get the default, unmanaged "Windows Picture and
Fax Viewer" it will display this sRGB (which I assume "Windows
Picture and Fax Viewer" is keyed for sRGB right since it's the
"default"?)
First, sRGB is not the “default” for Windows. Windows has no default. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer does not “assume” sRGB and nor does any other unmanaged application. Unmanaged applications are not profile aware and they do not apply or assume any profile at all. Moreover, in a colour managed application, such as Photoshop, converting to Monitor working space is not the same as turning colour management off. It is important to distinguish between calibration (LUT) and profile (display profile held in the monitor profile).
When you use a Spyder, it first measures what the uncalibrated monitor does with colours. It then creates a LUT to attempt to alter those colours to be as close to target as possible, namely gamma 2.2 at 6500K, which is close to but not identical to sRGB.
It then loads the resulting LUT into the graphics card. The monitor should thus be calibrated close to gamma 2.2 6500K. It then measures what the calibrated monitor in fact displays. The result is the monitor display profile. The display profile represents what the monitor displays
after calibration, not before.
Let’s take your hypothetical nice scanned jpeg with an embedded sRGB profile. If you open it in a non-managed app, the pixel values get fed to the graphics card, to which the LUT has been applied. The LUT is applied by the LUT loader, not by Windows.
The embedded sRGB jpeg profile is neither seen nor used and the output display profile is not used either. The colours displayed are whatever the LUT calibrated monitor happens to show.
If you open the jpeg in Photoshop (PS), with working space set to monitor profile, PS converts the pixel values from those of the embedded sRGB to those required by a device whose calibrated LUT applied output is defined by your monitor display profile. It does this by assigning the embedded profile and then applying the inverse of the monitor display profile. (If you save the jpeg and embed the profile at this point, PS will embed the monitor display profile rather than sRGB because the pixel values have been converted to monitor space). In order that PS can display the image on your screen while you are doing this, it applies the inverse of the display profile (again) to the values held in working space and throws the result at the graphics card (which applies the LUT to everything it receives).
In fact, the working space is irrelevant to what PS displays provided the image has an embedded profile and you have set PS to convert images to working space. If you set working space to adobeRGB, for example, PS would convert the input jpeg to adobeRGB. Then, to display the image to you, it applies the inverse of the working space (adobeRGB) followed by the inverse of the monitor display profile and throws the result at the graphics card. Saving the file, however, would result in embedding adobeRGB. The working space should affect the display
only if you choose to discard the embedded profile when you open the image.
The upshot is this. If you display an image in PS, the LUT calibration is applied (as it always is, regardless of whether the application is colour managed or not) PS applies the image embedded profile and then applies the inverse of the display profile of the LUT calibrated monitor. If that latter profile is accurate, the result is a display that respects the image embedded profile (which is only sRGB if that is what was embedded). But note that nothing actually
applies the display profile.
If you display in an unmanaged application, the LUT calibration is applied as always, the embedded profile is ignored and the inverse of the monitor display profile is not applied. The monitor display profile is not applied either (and never is, regardless of whether the application is colour managed or not).
LUT is always applied. Display profile is never applied. Inverse of display profile is applied prior to display by a colour managed application. Embedded image profiles are applied only by colour managed applications. So sRGB is applied only if embedded and viewed in a colour managed application.
I guess if the LUTs weren't being loaded I would understand why
Photoshop would compensate based on the color profile to make it look
correct on the monitor, but if you have a program pre-loading the
LUTs, shouldn't essentially all the work be done already? Shouldn't
the graphics card have all the compensation needed already in it and
have no need for Photoshop or any other color managed app to do even
more compensation?
Should now be clear, I hope! The colour profile is the profile after LUT has been applied. It allows the (hopefully small) compensation that is needed for a colour managed application to correct for how the LUT calibrated display actually behaves, as defined by its display profile. LUT calibration is not precise, especially on LCD monitors. Display profiles should be more accurate, depending on how accurately the colorimeter (eg Spyder) measures.
Finally and not a major problem - but sRGB is not based on gamma 2.2 or 6500K. It is based on a power law curve that approximates to gamma 2.2 for most of its range except for the lowest brightnesses, where it is different. And the colour temp is for a D65 standard, which is similar to 6500K.
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