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Help please with Photoshop vs. Windows colours

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Thanks Chandra. I'll ask you then. Can you give me a link, to any article or book, or other reference - where this is explained? I just cannot recall ever hearing of using soft proofing for anything other than checking print destination output. I am not question whether or not what you guys are saying is correct... just wondering why I haven't heard of this before - and where I can go for more information on the process. Appreciate the help.

OTOH --

If you are talking about selecting one of these values



then... you are indeed going to be looking at the variance on monitors.

The next set of commands—Macintosh RGB, Windows RGB, and Monitor RGB—is available only for RGB, grayscale, and indexed color images, not for CMYK or Lab. They show you how your image would appear on a "typical" Mac monitor (as defined by the Apple RGB profile), on a "typical" Windows monitor (as defined by the sRGB profile), and on your personal monitor (as defined by your monitor profile) if you displayed it on these monitors with no color management (from Adobe's help)
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Joe

Old Acct: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/postersprofile.asp?poster=hjigihivhdif
 
Soft proofing to Windows RGB is to give you a preview of how the image will look in a non-aware application with a display that has a tone response gamma of 2.2 (whereas Macintosh RGB is for a TRC of 1.8). While sRGB has a gamma of 2.2, monitors will not have a native space that will equal sRGB, they might be close but they won't be exact. Therefore soft proofing to Windows RGB is not any exact preview of how all the Windows users with non-aware apps will see your image.

If you're not on a wide gamut monitor, I'd expect soft proofing to Monitor space or Windows RGB to look very close.

Since I don't use a wide gamut monitor and I've always had some slight confusion with regard to monitor compensation and soft proofing to Mac/Windows RGB or monitor RGB, I'm not 100% sure how things should work when Andrew (with his wide gamut monitor and sRGB file) soft proofs it to Window's RGB. I can understand that it would look bad when proofing to monitor space. I also understand that soft proofing to Mac/Windows is done outside Photoshop's color management and is not using monitor compensation, therefore I'm uncertain how soft proofing the sRGB file to Windows RGB from a wide gamut monitor will look (although I'd like to hope it would look fine). I also understand that soft proofing to Monitor RGB will use the display's profile but I assume that if any conversion was to take place it would be a null conversion which would be similar to no conversion taking place.

Andrew Rodney could really clear things up.

Patrick
 
I haven't got any specific links on soft proofing Joe, but I undersatnd your questioning, for me, I find myself soft proofing to printer spaces much more than Monitor, Windows or Mac RGB.

I had a small PDF on my Mac that Andrew wrote a good while back, it was on the ppmag.com site, it was titled "200409_rodneycm.pdf", you might try typing that in Google and see what it comes up with. It is a bit old but you still might be able to get something out of it.

If you goto Andrew Rodney's site:

http://www.digitaldog.net/

He usually has some PDF's on various color management topics.

Patrick
 
Thx Patrick. I fully get soft-proofing with printer profiles, and use that function quite a bit. In fact - it's one of the shortcomings of Lightroom, and reasons I go back to CS4 for important print output. To be clearer -- what is a mystery to me.. is why anyone would plug a monitor profile into the custom proof dialogue. I understand the three monitor color space options in the proof setup dialogue (image I posted above). If plugging a monitor profile into the custom proof dialogue does the same thing - than I guess it (that) makes a little sense (but is still a mystery why anyone would load a monitor profile into the custom proof Condition dialogue box --- when the three monitor profile options appear right on the proof menu). THAT was the source of my question. I have never heard of plugging a monitor profile into the custom proof dialogue...

--
Joe

Old Acct: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/postersprofile.asp?poster=hjigihivhdif
 
Yep. I posted an image of those options a few minutes before your post. Those I understand. The rest of this discussion (specifically . . . why anyone would plug a monitor profile into the custom proof condition dialogue) is unclear. In any case... I don't fiddle with monitor profiles in the proof dialogue... never had an issue.
--
Joe

Old Acct: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/postersprofile.asp?poster=hjigihivhdif
 
jdoo said:
Yep. I posted an image of those options a few minutes before your post. Those I understand. The rest of this discussion (specifically . . . why anyone would plug a monitor profile into the custom proof condition dialogue) is unclear. In any case... I don't fiddle with monitor profiles in the proof dialogue... never had an issue.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I didn't see your posting earlier.

Besides using the MonitorRGB shortcut I sometimes use my monitor profile in the custom proof condition dialog box in order to determine the out-of-gamut image colors. Choose the monitor profile, uncheck 'Preserve RGB numbers' and enable 'Gamut Warnings' (Shift-Ctrl-Y).

Frank
 
Patrick_C said:
Since I don't use a wide gamut monitor and I've always had some slight confusion with regard to monitor compensation and soft proofing to Mac/Windows RGB or monitor RGB, I'm not 100% sure how things should work when Andrew (with his wide gamut monitor and sRGB file) soft proofs it to Window's RGB. I can understand that it would look bad when proofing to monitor space. I also understand that soft proofing to Mac/Windows is done outside Photoshop's color management and is not using monitor compensation, therefore I'm uncertain how soft proofing the sRGB file to Windows RGB from a wide gamut monitor will look (although I'd like to hope it would look fine).
Click to expand...
Obviously I can't post an image to demonstrate, as you'd need to be viewing through a wide gamut monitor to see the difference(!) but I can can state that unfortunately it doesn't look fine, which is where we started with alll of this. Like you I don't understand why, since I'd have thought that a monitor capable of displaying more colours would represent sRGB more accurately, if anything, but most noticeably flesh tones look extremely pink, verging towards red.

In short, it sounds like my colour management workflow is valid, but I'm to expect significant variance between managed and non-managed applications even with images in the sRGB colour space. That's the last time I'm buying a wide gamut monitor ;)
Patrick_C said:
Andrew Rodney could really clear things up.
Click to expand...
Just my luck if he's not hanging around here these days! I'll head over to his site though and see what I can dig out there.

Thanks for everyone's input.

--
Andrew
 
ajchunt said:
Patrick_C said:
Since I don't use a wide gamut monitor and I've always had some slight confusion with regard to monitor compensation and soft proofing to Mac/Windows RGB or monitor RGB, I'm not 100% sure how things should work when Andrew (with his wide gamut monitor and sRGB file) soft proofs it to Window's RGB. I can understand that it would look bad when proofing to monitor space. I also understand that soft proofing to Mac/Windows is done outside Photoshop's color management and is not using monitor compensation, therefore I'm uncertain how soft proofing the sRGB file to Windows RGB from a wide gamut monitor will look (although I'd like to hope it would look fine).
Click to expand...
Obviously I can't post an image to demonstrate, as you'd need to be viewing through a wide gamut monitor to see the difference(!) but I can can state that unfortunately it doesn't look fine, which is where we started with alll of this. Like you I don't understand why, since I'd have thought that a monitor capable of displaying more colours would represent sRGB more accurately, if anything, but most noticeably flesh tones look extremely pink, verging towards red.
Click to expand...
Confirmation, and a bit of an explanation, here:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23662

--
Andrew
 
I just wanted to thank you for starting this thread. It helped disabuse me of some foolish idea that I was walking around with, and now I finally understand what is happening between color managed, and unmanaged applications. It sounds like that problem only gets magnified in a wide gamut monitor.

So how will you proceed? Could you just adjust every picture by a set amount, say a constant red channel reduction in the midtones? Or would each picture need to be adjusted differently?

I was all excited about the new LED monitors with the Adobe RGB color space ability, but your post makes me wonder. Maybe the answer is in that post that you cited, to have a second non wide gamut monitor for web proofing? -Patrick
 
Patrick_C said:
Since I don't use a wide gamut monitor and I've always had some slight confusion with regard to monitor compensation and soft proofing to Mac/Windows RGB or monitor RGB, I'm not 100% sure how things should work when Andrew (with his wide gamut monitor and sRGB file) soft proofs it to Window's RGB. I can understand that it would look bad when proofing to monitor space. I also understand that soft proofing to Mac/Windows is done outside Photoshop's color management and is not using monitor compensation, therefore I'm uncertain how soft proofing the sRGB file to Windows RGB from a wide gamut monitor will look (although I'd like to hope it would look fine). I also understand that soft proofing to Monitor RGB will use the display's profile but I assume that if any conversion was to take place it would be a null conversion which would be similar to no conversion taking place.
Click to expand...
Patrick,

Monitor compensation is the color conversion from the PCS (profle connection space) to your monitor and it is always part of any soft proofing - it is never turned off.

Softproofing involves the path from your image color space to the PCS. The "Preserve RGB Numbers" switch thereby controls how the target profile is used. You 'Assign the profile' if it is checked or you 'Convert to Profile' if not checked.

As I wrote in an earlier post, all three soft proof shortcuts (WindowsRGB, MacintoshRGB, MonitorRGB) use "Preserve RGB Numbers", so what you are doing is 'Assign Profile'. You basically re-interprete the RGB values of your image and see the colors they would produce in the sRGB, Apple RGB or the color space of your monitor.

I hope that'll help.

Frank
 
No problem at all, I learnt a lot from it! To be honest, it's put a bit of faith back into forum posts, which often just solicit dumb or offensive responses. This has definitely been a good one, and thanks for pointing that out.

In terms of what I'll do next, basically nothing. I was joking when I said I regretted buying a wide gamut monitor as the most important output for me is print. As has been stated numerous times in this post and pretty much every other I've read on the topic, there's no controlling other people's monitors, so as long as I know that I'm working with a properly profiled monitor, and that any image intended for web is converted to sRGB before saving I'm happy that's the best I can manage. I'll also embed the profile so that if the viewer happens to be using a colour-managed browser they get the added benefit.

The aim of this thread for me was to explain why I was seeing such a difference in saturation when I was under the impression that I had a tightly defined, colour-managed workflow. Now I know, and can once more sleep at night.

Thanks to everyone once again.

--
Andrew
 
Thanks Frank -

In addition to relying on some older info, I may be adding 2+2 and coming up with 5.

The first tidbit was from a PDF that Andrew wrote back in 2004, he refers to the optional "Display using monitor compensation", I do remember when PS 5.0 came out that you had the option to select monitor compensation. I also understand that since PS 6.0 monitor compensation can't be turned off, but I was confused by a later statement Rodney made in his 2005 book when CS (v.8.0) was out.

This was the bit from the 2004 PDF (200409_rodneycm.pdf):

"Next, Macintosh RGB, Windows RGB and Monitor RGB are all ways to examine a file without using Photoshop's Display Using Monitor Compensation feature."

The next tidbit came from Rodney's color management book (2005), (p.92)

"Moving further down, there are three options for soft-proofing images as they may appear outside ICC aware applications. Macintosh RGB, Windows RGB, and Monitor RGB are each different ways to soft-proof a document without using Photoshop's color management display architecture."

I was thinking that "without using PS's color management architecture" might mean that monitor comp would be out of the loop???

I see how preserve #'s and assign would do what you're looking for.

I had always associated monitor compensation with the conversion from the working space to the monitor's space, if it is more specifically from the PCS to monitor space, is the conversion from the working space to the PCS done differently and is there any term for it?

Thanks.

Patrick
 
Poetstock said:
I just wanted to thank you for starting this thread. It helped disabuse me of some foolish idea that I was walking around with, and now I finally understand what is happening between color managed, and unmanaged applications.
Click to expand...
I agree Patrick (Poetstock). This has been a great thread.
Poetstock said:
It sounds like that problem only gets magnified in a wide gamut monitor. So how will you proceed? Could you just adjust every picture by a set amount, say a constant red channel reduction in the midtones? Or would each picture need to be adjusted differently?
Click to expand...
No. I use to do this until I realized that by compensating (taking out the redness) I might be making the image look better on other wide-gamut monitors, but I would be making it look even worse on an average srgb monitor. And also worse on monitors that are using CM'd browsers (that is, making it look worse to the people who are into this kind of thing and view images with a more critical eye! lol).

Another thing to keep in mind is a viewer is seeing your image in relation to all other images on their monitor. So, if they are viewing images on a wide gamut monitor in a non CM browser and yours looks red to them, mine probably does too, and so does Franks, and so does.....it's all relative.

I went thru a phase where I started viewing how my images looked on as many different monitors as I could - friends, family, various monitors at work... none were calibrated. I compared how I knew my images looked on my calibrated monitor in a CM'd program.

It quickly confirmed for me that you really don't have any control over that aspect of things! Some didn't look so bad. Some were so bright that deep reds looked flourescent pink. One had such low contrast that blacks were only dark gray (but, I realized that not only did my images look flat on her monitor, so did everyone elses). I learned that my Dad has to scroll every image I send him cause he uses a small laptop. That's another topic, but it was another realization of how we have no control over other peoples monitors!
Poetstock said:
I was all excited about the new LED monitors with the Adobe RGB color space ability, but your post makes me wonder. Maybe the answer is in that post that you cited, to have a second non wide gamut monitor for web proofing? -Patrick
Click to expand...
What matters is what they are using to view your images, not what you are using to process them.

So if the new monitor you are referring to has features that you want, then that might be good, as long as most of the stuff you do with your images on your own monitor can be done in Color managed programs. And if you will use a CM'd browser then atleast you will see your images, and others, look the way they want them to look when you are on the web.

--
Chandra
 
Hi Patrick,

I agree with you, these statements are indeed confusing. As you said before, maybe Andrew R. himself can comment on them.

I don't know if Adobe introduced the Term 'Monitor Compensation' first but I believe that earlier versions of Photoshop had an option whether or not the 'display is using monitor compensation'. What it referred to was the use of an ICC display profile in order to 'compensate' for the unique color characteristics of each user's display. In later versions that options was removed, probably because it hardly makes sense to turn this off, especially while soft proofing with ICC profiles.
Patrick_C said:
I had always associated monitor compensation with the conversion from the working space to the monitor's space, if it is more specifically from the PCS to monitor space, is the conversion from the working space to the PCS done differently and is there any term for it?
Click to expand...
Think of it this way, converting from a working color space into the monitor's space is done in two conversion steps. First from the working color space into the PCS using your working space profile and then from the PCS to the monitor space using the monitor profile. When soft proofing, e.g. for a printer, the conversion steps are like this: working color space to PCS, PCS to printer color space using the printer profile (and a rendering intend), printer color space to PCS using the printer profile and finally from the PCS into the monitor space. So, for the first case your definition of 'monitor compensation' might hold up but what about the second case?

BTW: Soft proofing with "Preserve RGB numbers" checked is pretty much handled like the first case above, only that in this case the working space profile is getting replaced by the target profile, the final conversion from PCS to the monitor color space is the same.

As I said above, I'm not 100% certain where the term 'Monitor compensation' originated from, so I don't claim that my definition is 100% correct.

Frank
 
jdoo said:
Thanks Chandra. I'll ask you then. Can you give me a link, to any article or book, or other reference - where this is explained?
Click to expand...
See if this shows up for you (page 51- ??). It's from Andrew Rodney's book. I read it recently and it's good info, but these particular pages won't load today on my computer (there is a note above and below these pages about pages 44-49 and pages 55-56 not being included, but page 51-54 does not fall within that range. And like I said, I just read it recently, so I don't know why it won't show up now. Anyway, here it is. I hope it shows up:

http://books.google.com/books?id=jFl-3v9sSEUC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=monitor+compensation+andrew&source=bl&ots=s7r6cqAFN7&sig=TFzNPMrDPOpTbzJyH0nHjm-Fvco&hl=en&ei=UfxMSuaKKIWwMKOe9fAD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
jdoo said:
I just cannot recall ever hearing of using soft proofing for anything other than checking print destination output. I am not question whether or not what you guys are saying is correct... just wondering why I haven't heard of this before - and where I can go for more information on the process. Appreciate the help.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's talked of often because, like you, I think most people only use soft proofing for print purposes (it's all I use it for unless I am involved in a thread like this). But it's nice to know what the Monitor RGB, Window/Mac RGB proofing does, if you ever find you have a need for it (or if someone asks about it on the forum :-)).

--
Chandra
 
Thanks for the reply Frank.

I don't know for sure but I'd bet they did originate the term, I just went back and took a look at an old Photoshop 5.0 manual, don't ask me why but I still have it. The manual is © 1998. "Display Using Monitor Compensation option" is on page 82 of the manual but they don't go in to it too deeply. I remember it specifically because you had the option to turn monitor compensation ON or OFF in the RGB Setup dialog. If I'm recalling correctly v. 5.0 was the first version with real color management similar to what we have today.

I was familiar with the basic

working space -> PCS -> monitor or output space

Your definition may be perfect and I could see how it could be correct because the conversion from working space to PCS wouldn't involve the monitor profile. Although I knew the PCS was in the loop, I only brought up monitor compensation and didn't bother to discuss the PCS when talking about the difference of previews in an sRGB file in an aware -vs- unaware application.

Patrick
 
That was very helpful. I do appreciate your time and experience with this issue. I had one more question if you have time:

When you are talking about wide gamut monitors are you referring to the ones that are at, or close to, 100% of AdobeRGB? And if so, how are you able to see to edit your images in the Prophoto space? This is confusing to me. If the monitor can't see out there.....?

Regards, Patrick
 
If you can afford it use 2 monitors, a wide gamut and a sRGB.

Cheers

Ron
 
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