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Image viewing software - Color space and monitor profile question
- Thread starter casdewrf
- Start date
We have opened a ticket for false alarm with Avast about 20 hours ago. No news so far.
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
The ticked has been closed as "Solved" by Avast support. Their very latest update does not trigger the alarm anymore.
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
Yep, tested with update and all good 
Just getting back on track about LUT's and Monitor profiles, from what I've read, the look up table loaded into the graphics card at bootup is responsible for the monitor color tweaking. So I'm still a bit confused as to why it's not possible to have programs like Faststone not look correctly when a monitor profile is loaded into windows. Does the gamma curve do everything needed to correct monitor output, or is there additional color tweaking going beyond the gamma curve? Is there more than one set of parameters loaded?
If anyone can elaborate in more detail about what actually takes place when calibration is written and info is loaded into the LUT at bootup etc, that would be great.
Cheers
Just getting back on track about LUT's and Monitor profiles, from what I've read, the look up table loaded into the graphics card at bootup is responsible for the monitor color tweaking. So I'm still a bit confused as to why it's not possible to have programs like Faststone not look correctly when a monitor profile is loaded into windows. Does the gamma curve do everything needed to correct monitor output, or is there additional color tweaking going beyond the gamma curve? Is there more than one set of parameters loaded?
If anyone can elaborate in more detail about what actually takes place when calibration is written and info is loaded into the LUT at bootup etc, that would be great.
Cheers
FPV doesn't seem to be able to view Pentax PEF RAW files in XP, partly Pentax's fault as their codec only installs into Vista. Therefore I'm sticking to FastStone, hopefully they'll eventually sort out the monitor profile problem.
The video hardware (or driver) performs the gamma correction but the application is responsible for "translating" the colors in the image.
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
BrianZ
Veteran Member
It doesn't open the CR2 raw files from my Canon camera either, not even if converted to DNG format. I wish FPV used the conventional "File -> Open" menu instead of having to figure out how to get to the folder you want to view. Also, I find that I'm often using the wrong monitor color profile, because I forget to go into the menu and update that options field with the new profile path everytime I recalibrate my display. It should use the default monitor profile installed in the operating system, like Firefox does, instead of having to specify one. Irfanview is still my default viewer due to the limited utility and unconventional interface of FPV, unless color accuracy becomes an issue and I can actually open the files in FPV.
-BrianZ
-BrianZ
You need to install the Canon CR2 codec for previewing CR2 files, and the Ardfry DNG codec for previewing DNG files. It is clearly documented that FPV relies on manufacturers codecs to open manufacturers files and users of contemporary operating systems should find very natural to install such codecs as they provide full platform support (e.g. preview, search, metadata view/edit in Explorer) for their favorite image formats.
Another advantage of this approach is that you don't have to wait months for the whole industry to catch up whenever a new camera comes out, most of the time the manufacturer's codec is available more or less at the same time.
Perhaps you could name your monitor profile something like "MyMonitor.icc" and overwrite it whenever you recalibrate, or, as you say, use IrfanView, which does not embarrass itself with monitor profile issues at all
For my part I actually designed and wrote FPV precisely because I could not stand the '90 looking interfaces of IrfanView and its clones, their lack of proper color management, overall slowness of operation (how do you quickly zoom to 100% and back, check the histogram and shooting data, something I need to do for practically every images? and why do they run like snails when you enable their partial icc profile support?). Culling 1000's of images with IV is like a bad joke.
I'm also completely turned off by their complete lack of support for established image rating standard (XMP and Microsoft), lack of support for international character sets, lack of support for my multi-core processor, lack of support for my 3D accelerator and their overall tendency to try to be everything to everybody.
On the other hand FPV does not even attempt to be "versatile", it will never create musical slideshows or screen savers, nor burn DVDs or create panoramas, but at least its users don't have to wait a unspecified number of years for such brain dead basic thing as proper color management and image rating, things every photo viewer worth its salt should have got on day one.
Of course, your mileage may vary. There is plenty of room out there for several flavors of culling tools and viewers. If FPV is a scalpel, then IV and IV-like viewers are Swiss army knives, versatile certainly but not very good at anything. German mag c't Magazin called FPV 'the Porsche of image viewers' (their own words!). Have you ever driven a Porsche? It's a rough ride, some models don't even have electric windows nor AC, but when it comes to go fast on twisty roads nothing comes close
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
BrianZ
Veteran Member
Well, having owned a BMW for a number of years, I am familiar with the high quality of german automotive engineering, and while it may not have been a Porsche, it was still great on those winding roads. But cars aside, I believe a decent image viewer should strive to not only display images quickly, but also display all of the images in your folder. This is what I mean by versatile. FPV seems to skip anything that's not a JPG file, as if there were no other type of image files there. It doesn't even display common file types such as TIF, PNG or PSD. (or is that also a "codec" issue?" I didn't find any FPV documentation about that, by the way.)
Maybe one needs the "professional" version to handle other file types, but if that's the case, then you can't compare it to Irfanview, which is free, and which displays all of these plus many more. It is also quick, and you don't have to learn a new user interface to use it. FPV is nice looking, just not very intuitive, IMO, and doesn't seem to handle many common file types in the free version.
Good point about the codecs being installed at the OS level for all apps to use, but then the monitor profile is already installed in the OS, so using the same logic, why not have FPV retrieve the default profile from the OS? Good workaround idea to use the same name for every profile, but I prefer the way the Eye-One software names the files with the calibration date.
And what do you think is so important about an image rating? I don't see why an image viewer needs this feature to be a good image viewer. I doubt I would even use it if it had one. What exactly do you need that for?
And you said that "Culling 1000's of images with IV is like a bad joke." How so? I do like your "Keep/Copy" key approach to provide a way to copy selected images to another folder, something I routinely do with my keepers. That's a great idea! And perhaps that is what you were referring to by comparison, because it does improve FPV's usefulness for sorting through JPG files. However, the "culling" process also involves deleting files (out of focus images for example), and IV provides a way to do that, whereas FPV does not. So that's kind of a bad joke also, because you still have to find another way to delete files.
I commend you for including a way to fully color manage files, including use of a monitor profile, in your software! So you designed FPV to provide proper color management from the start and didn't add that afterwards as another poster stated?
-BrianZ
Maybe one needs the "professional" version to handle other file types, but if that's the case, then you can't compare it to Irfanview, which is free, and which displays all of these plus many more. It is also quick, and you don't have to learn a new user interface to use it. FPV is nice looking, just not very intuitive, IMO, and doesn't seem to handle many common file types in the free version.
Good point about the codecs being installed at the OS level for all apps to use, but then the monitor profile is already installed in the OS, so using the same logic, why not have FPV retrieve the default profile from the OS? Good workaround idea to use the same name for every profile, but I prefer the way the Eye-One software names the files with the calibration date.
And what do you think is so important about an image rating? I don't see why an image viewer needs this feature to be a good image viewer. I doubt I would even use it if it had one. What exactly do you need that for?
And you said that "Culling 1000's of images with IV is like a bad joke." How so? I do like your "Keep/Copy" key approach to provide a way to copy selected images to another folder, something I routinely do with my keepers. That's a great idea! And perhaps that is what you were referring to by comparison, because it does improve FPV's usefulness for sorting through JPG files. However, the "culling" process also involves deleting files (out of focus images for example), and IV provides a way to do that, whereas FPV does not. So that's kind of a bad joke also, because you still have to find another way to delete files.
I commend you for including a way to fully color manage files, including use of a monitor profile, in your software! So you designed FPV to provide proper color management from the start and didn't add that afterwards as another poster stated?
-BrianZ
You need to install the Canon CR2 codec for previewing CR2 files, and
the Ardfry DNG codec for previewing DNG files. It is clearly
documented that FPV relies on manufacturers codecs to open
manufacturers files and users of contemporary operating systems
should find very natural to install such codecs as they provide full
platform support (e.g. preview, search, metadata view/edit in
Explorer) for their favorite image formats.
Another advantage of this approach is that you don't have to wait
months for the whole industry to catch up whenever a new camera comes
out, most of the time the manufacturer's codec is available more or
less at the same time.
Perhaps you could name your monitor profile something like
"MyMonitor.icc" and overwrite it whenever you recalibrate, or, as you
say, use IrfanView, which does not embarrass itself with monitor
profile issues at all
For my part I actually designed and wrote FPV precisely because I
could not stand the '90 looking interfaces of IrfanView and its
clones, their lack of proper color management, overall slowness of
operation (how do you quickly zoom to 100% and back, check the
histogram and shooting data, something I need to do for practically
every images? and why do they run like snails when you enable their
partial icc profile support?). Culling 1000's of images with IV is
like a bad joke.
I'm also completely turned off by their complete lack of support for
established image rating standard (XMP and Microsoft), lack of
support for international character sets, lack of support for my
multi-core processor, lack of support for my 3D accelerator and their
overall tendency to try to be everything to everybody.
On the other hand FPV does not even attempt to be "versatile", it
will never create musical slideshows or screen savers, nor burn DVDs
or create panoramas, but at least its users don't have to wait a
unspecified number of years for such brain dead basic thing as proper
color management and image rating, things every photo viewer worth
its salt should have got on day one.
Of course, your mileage may vary. There is plenty of room out there
for several flavors of culling tools and viewers. If FPV is a
scalpel, then IV and IV-like viewers are Swiss army knives, versatile
certainly but not very good at anything. German mag c't Magazin
called FPV 'the Porsche of image viewers' (their own words!). Have
you ever driven a Porsche? It's a rough ride, some models don't even
have electric windows nor AC, but when it comes to go fast on twisty
roads nothing comes close
--
Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
Hi Axel - When you say the application is responsible for translating the colors, are you referring to color space changes (like adobe RGB to sRGB) or the tweaks required to get the monitor's colors to look right? or both?
Ta
Then you did not look very hard (actually, you probably did not look at all as the relevant information is all over the website).
Indeed.
"Free" is not a feature and does not make a program useful or fast. Some free programs are so badly designed that they can not even be given away and some others (I won't name names) are just failed commercial products that are free because they did not stand a chance in the marketplace. Besides that IV is free "but only for private, non-commercial use (that means at home)" - copy/paste from their website.
I've yet to receive a single inquiry regarding how to use the program. It is still in its infancy but out of 220,000 downloads so far you are the first to complain about a lack of intuitiveness. Users typically find their way in a couple of minutes at most, while I doubt an app with 200 menu options (and as many configuration settings) could be learned in anything but weeks.
It's interesting to consider how conscious you seem to be about proper monitor profiling, yet use a viewer that ignores said profiles entirely... Why waste your money on the Eye-One (and your time re-profiling over and over) if your viewer does not care?
Are you kidding? Should I direct you to the Adobe website where you can learn about the benefits of industry-standard XMP rating and labelling and how digital asset managers like Lightroom, iView/Expression Media or IDImager can take advantage of it? Many pros use asset management software suites and image rating is one of the cornerstone of said management, right on par with keywording. Being able to rate and label images during the initial review phase is essential for many.
It's awfully slow, and enabling icc conversion makes it even slower. Moving to the next image is slow. Zooming in is slow, zooming out is slow, checking histogram is slow, requires two keystrokes and locks you in a modal dialog in between, checking shooting data is slow, the information is hard to find and also requires two keystrokes and a modal dialog (both being prime examples of a badly designed user-interface). That's 5 slow actions, several clicks and 4 keystrokes for every image, times 1000's = a joke. If you needed to go back and forth through thousands of images made of 9fps sequences to find the most critical shots you'd know it's a joke. FPV can demonstrably sustain culling rates of over 4000 raw images per hour with full color management on a decent computer, I do it routinely and did not find anything on the market that would comes even remotely close.
Did you notice that the program as a configuration dialog, and, in that dialog, a "File Operations - Keep/Copy & Delete Options" section? All it takes is three clicks: Menu, Options, File Operations. Intuitive enough I believe, or would you prefer Misc. 1, Misc. 2 and Misc. 3 buried in two rows of tabs?
While we are on this subject, how does IV (and its clones) handles JPEG+RAW? Do they show you all images twice, and forces you to delete, move or copy everything twice too? Not intuitive and not fast (this is also part of what I called a joke). If you don't shoot JPEG+RAW you are not aware of this problem, but FYI FPV Pro handles such image stacks as if they were a single file for viewing, moving, copying and deleting.
Proper color management is not something that you just "add afterwards" - ask Irfan or its cloners if you need any confirmation of that: users had been asking them for years and I'd not hold my breath as to when they will eventually implement it. Same thing with Unicode, it's probably much easier for them to add support for yet another obscure file format than to retrofit a core feature that basically amounts to a full rewrite.
On the other hand FPV had a wide internal pixel pipeline from the start, ready for 32, 64 and 128 bpp pixel formats with format conversion and color management, for hardware that does not even exists outside labs yet. What was added afterwards is the UI option to select the monitor profile, I think I did it in 10 minutes flat. Some people use CM software that loads with Windows and color-manages the entire desktop. For those users it is crucial to be able to actually not lookup the default profile, or CM might be performed twice.
I see that you didn't really spend much time with FPV despite the fact that you voice your (bad) opinion about it. That's okay, I never pretended it was for everyone but it fills a niche that was left empty by its predecessors.
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
But that's the thing, the software that is supposed to do the entire desktop management seems to be getting bypassed by programs like Irfanview and FastStone
Has anyone reading this with a wide gammut monitor and windows color managed desktop actually managed to get Irfanview or FastStone to correctly display an sRGB tagged file (when having Irfanview or FastStone's ICM mode enabled)?
Yes the applications performs the color space changes and writes pixels "living" in the monitor color space to the graphic device interface (GDI, GDI+, DirectX...) if they support monitor profiles (or sRGB pixels if they only support image profiles like most free viewers do). Further down the road the display driver (or display hardware) performs the gamma correction and the final pixels are then sent to the monitor. Those two actions, combined, are the tweaks that make colors "look right" on the monitor.
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
I've finally managed to find some info on another site that might help explain things. Does the following info sound correct?
I wish someone mentioned the existence of white point and primaries earlier, would have saved me from going on like a broken record.
Thanks again Axel
Cas
- that when a calibrated icc monitor profile is created, 3 items are stored in the profile - white point, primaries (corrected color information for the monitor?) and gamma curve
- on bootup of windows, only the gamma curve information is taken from the loaded monitor icc profile, but primaries and white point info is not. The gamma curve info is then loaded into the LUT of the video card. This is why we see a change in the windows desktop at bootup, but only a portion of the necessary tweaking is being performed
- the primaries and white point are required for the final tweaking of the colours so that the image is not over saturated (im my case with a wide gamut display). Only apps that choose to make use of these extra two items will produce a correct output on the monitor. Windows desktop and most other applications disregard the white point and primaries information
I wish someone mentioned the existence of white point and primaries earlier, would have saved me from going on like a broken record.
Thanks again Axel
Cas
Ok. Some more stuff to try.
To get the rest of windows operating system and applications to display correctly on your wide gamut display: you need to force windows into adobe RGB so it broadens the gamut of apps and images
1. Boot into safe mode
2. Browse to windows/system32/spool/drivers/color make a backup copy of "AdobeRGB1998.icc" and "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm"
3. delete the original "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm" file and rename the original "AdobeRGB1998.icc" to "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm"
it appears there is no way to tell windows to switch from it's default sRGB colorspace, so renaming the icm files to fool it is the only way
files loaded into windows picture and fax viewer, office, and other stuff that doesn't rely on all the monitor profile into, should now be converted into the adobe rgb space and output fairly well on the wide gamut monitors
Any app that does its own colourspace checking and also checks and loads complete monitor profile info, like photoshop and fastpicviewer, shouldl not be affected by this and will perform as per normal
you may have to recalibrate your monitor after all this
Hope this helps, it works well for me
To get the rest of windows operating system and applications to display correctly on your wide gamut display: you need to force windows into adobe RGB so it broadens the gamut of apps and images
1. Boot into safe mode
2. Browse to windows/system32/spool/drivers/color make a backup copy of "AdobeRGB1998.icc" and "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm"
3. delete the original "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm" file and rename the original "AdobeRGB1998.icc" to "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm"
it appears there is no way to tell windows to switch from it's default sRGB colorspace, so renaming the icm files to fool it is the only way
files loaded into windows picture and fax viewer, office, and other stuff that doesn't rely on all the monitor profile into, should now be converted into the adobe rgb space and output fairly well on the wide gamut monitors
Any app that does its own colourspace checking and also checks and loads complete monitor profile info, like photoshop and fastpicviewer, shouldl not be affected by this and will perform as per normal
you may have to recalibrate your monitor after all this
Hope this helps, it works well for me
BrianZ
Veteran Member
Sorry, Axel, that you didn't appreciate my compliments or criticisms of your program. I think you might see increased potential benefit to your program development (and sales) though, if you listened more to potential customers' comments without disparaging their opinions. You may be right that I didn't spend enough time to explore all the features of your program, though that may be due to the fact that I stopped using it when I discovered that the Keep/Copy feature didn't work as expected. For me, this would have been one of the most useful features of the program, but it would not allow me to select a sub-folder as the location to keep a copy. I hope you take this in the spirit it was intended - as a helpful comment.
Sorry, I must have missed the positive/constructive part of your comments. All I see is a string of negative and mildly insulting remarks, some of them unfounded and others strictly subjectives, starting from three months ago in a different forum.
Are you chasing forum discussions and posting negative follow-up comments, for months, about every free apps that you casually tried and eventually uninstalled because they did not match your needs?
Oh, some new criticism, after poor monitor profile support, lack of delete function, absence of raw support, bad UI design, inutile rating functions, clumsiness and slowness, incompleteness of EXIF info and overall uselessness
The reason why one cannot select a descendant of the current image folder is because the program monitors the entire subtree in real-time to catch new additions. Copying files in a descendant folder would cause the program to re-ingest them as they are copied, clearly an unwanted side effect. For this reason the destination folder must be either a sibling or a folder in a different part of the folder hierarchy, or on a different drive. You'll find similar restrictions in all programs featuring live folder monitoring.
Can't wait for the next one...
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Axel
http://www.fastpictureviewer.com
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