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Color Management / Color Profiles - Windows 10

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telljcl

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Still wading through the seemingly ill-conceived situation that is "color management".

So I have color calibrated my wide gamut monitor (BenQ 2700), have that .icc profile active for Windows, have "use color management" checked in 2 imaging programs I use to view and manage .JPG files (Picasa and IrfanView), and use Capture One (which is always color managed, AFAIK) to convert / develop RAW files.

I shoot Sony Raw, with sRGB color space set in camera.

I export the .JPGs with sRGB 2.1 as the color profile (not the same as color space, I take it...)

* Should I use my monitor's calibration .icc file instead or sRGB 2.1 here??

Just also realized that viewing .JPGs straight from the camera (which I normally don't shoot) via IrfanView is oversaturated, despite Irfanview having "use color management" checked.

Apparently the camera (Sony A9 in this case) is not embedding a color profile, (I guess only the color "space", sRGB). This is normal I suppose?

So I guess because I have a wide-gamut monitor and the camera-generated .JPGs don't have a profile I'm seeing the over saturation? If I viewed them using the same viewer on a "normal" monitor would they look "normal"?

Interestingly, viewed in Picasa (with "use color management" checked) I don't see oversaturation on the OOC jpgs - I guess Picasa is applying the .icc file to everything - even if there is no embedded color profile?

IrfanView has another tick-box for "Also apply color profile to files without embedded profile" and checking this removes the over-saturation, presumably rendering the "accurate" image...

Very confusing - I would greatly appreciate any clarification or affirmation of the above.

Thanks!
 
telljcl said:
Still wading through the seemingly ill-conceived situation that is "color management".

So I have color calibrated my wide gamut monitor (BenQ 2700), have that .icc profile active for Windows, have "use color management" checked in 2 imaging programs I use to view and manage .JPG files (Picasa and IrfanView), and use Capture One (which is always color managed, AFAIK) to convert / develop RAW files.

I shoot Sony Raw, with sRGB color space set in camera.

I export the .JPGs with sRGB 2.1 as the color profile (not the same as color space, I take it...)

* Should I use my monitor's calibration .icc file instead or sRGB 2.1 here??
Click to expand...
Nope. Assuming your intent for the jpg files is posting to the web or sharing with friends your Capture One process recipe should use sRGB. The Photoshop equivalent would be [Edit -> Convert to Profile: sRGB] + [embed profile when saving as jpg].

Regarding the rest of your post, the symptoms you describe sound to me like IrfanView is not properly color managing. I do not have any experience, however, with IrfanView (or Sony) so I will let others address that specifcally.

Generally speaking, an application needs to do two things in order to properly color manage: 1) it needs to recognize and make use of color profiles embedded within image files 2) it also needs to recognize and make use of your monitor calibration profile. If I’m not mistaken, over saturation of sRGB images on a wide gamut monitor is usually a symptom of an application not making use of your monitor profile.
 
Billiam29 said:
telljcl said:
Still wading through the seemingly ill-conceived situation that is "color management".
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
LOL
Billiam29 said:
Regarding the rest of your post, the symptoms you describe sound to me like IrfanView is not properly color managing. I do not have any experience, however, with IrfanView (or Sony) so I will let others address that specifcally.
Click to expand...
To enable Irfanview color management, click Options > Properties/Settings > Zoom/Color Management > Enable color management.

Irfanview uses your monitor profile by default. Do not save (write) files with Irfanview! The color management works only on input, not on output.

P.S. My dualDell U2412 monitors have gone out of whack. On one, I had to reduce RGB -6 -6 -1 to make them match.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for that clarification - makes sense (in an area that seems to not make sense much of the time...)
 
Thanks - on the Irfanview part of this, I do have color management enabled, and then found an additional tick box for "apply even to files that don't have one embedded" or something along those lines. Checking that seemed to make the out of camera .jpgs look right (i.e. less saturated) and match the others. So I guess you could say that solved that one part of this, but I still have to wonder how others are likely seeing some of these files online. I know using "Edge" browser makes things really saturated - not sure what else is going on out there in terms of viewing consistency.
 
telljcl said:
So I guess you could say that solved that one part of this, but I still have to wonder how others are likely seeing some of these files online.
Click to expand...
You have no control whatsoever over what others are seeing in their environments. The only thing you can do is take care of your end and create your output against a "standard" which would be sRGB in most intances. Whether other computer/monitor combinations are adhering to that standard and how well they're going about doing it is completely out of your hands.
telljcl said:
I know using "Edge" browser makes things really saturated - not sure what else is going on out there in terms of viewing consistency.
Click to expand...
Edge and Internet Explorer are "poster child" examples for how *not* to do color management. You can dig into some of the browser color management threads in this forum if you want to see proof of this. People who live their imaging lives totally within a sRGB world may never notice the faults of Edge and IE. Anyone who works in a color managed wide gamut environment almost certainly will.

A good online test page for browser color management capabilities is: http://cameratico.com/tools/web-browser-color-management-test/
 
Thanks - and thanks for that link as well. Interesting - never knew getting into wide gamut / calibrated monitor would unleash other issues...
 
telljcl said:
Still wading through the seemingly ill-conceived situation that is "color management".

So I have color calibrated my wide gamut monitor (BenQ 2700), have that .icc profile active for Windows, have "use color management" checked in 2 imaging programs I use to view and manage .JPG files (Picasa and IrfanView), and use Capture One (which is always color managed, AFAIK) to convert / develop RAW files.

I shoot Sony Raw, with sRGB color space set in camera.
Click to expand...
Setting sRGB (or anything else) in the camera affects only jpegs. It has no effect on raw.
telljcl said:
I export the .JPGs with sRGB 2.1 as the color profile (not the same as color space, I take it...)
Click to expand...
A colour profile is a description of a colour space. It describes the colour gamut (by defining the R, G and B primaries used, so you know what the RGB values mean) and also the TRC (Tone Response Curve - usually by means of a "gamma") and white point (e.g. 6500K - that is, "white" is equivalent to 6500K radiation, or whatever).

It's a bit like having a set of dimensions and with it a profile that says "these dimensions are in inches".

A monitor profile (only) also usually contains calibration information used when the computer boots up to set the look up tables in the video card to preset monitor TRC and white point. This isn't strictly profile information.

Note that simply embedding a profile in an image file doesn't make the image sRGB or whatever - it simply labels it. This is often referred to as "assigning" a profile to an image. When a program "converts" an image from one colour space to another, it not only embeds the new colour space, but also converts each pixel from one colour space to another. A bit like converting inches to centimetres, for example, where you convert the dimensions and then change the label from "these dimensions are in inches" to "...in centimetres".
telljcl said:
* Should I use my monitor's calibration .icc file instead or sRGB 2.1 here??
Click to expand...
No. A monitor profile should only ever be used by programs writing to the monitor to which it applies.

How colour management works:
  • A colour managed programs gets the image profile, usually embedded in the image. That would normally be a standard profile such as sRGB, ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB. Raw images don't have a profile, and raw convertors need to know how to convert that raw image to a standard profile.
  • The program also looks up the monitor profile by asking Windows (or Mac OS). By the way, that's the only thing Windows does for colour management - maintain a list of profiles for devices.
  • The program then uses the two profiles to convert the image pixel-by-pixel from the original colour space (e.g. sRGB) to monitor colour space, and sends it to the monitor.
telljcl said:
Just also realized that viewing .JPGs straight from the camera (which I normally don't shoot) via IrfanView is oversaturated, despite Irfanview having "use color management" checked.

Apparently the camera (Sony A9 in this case) is not embedding a color profile, (I guess only the color "space", sRGB). This is normal I suppose?
Click to expand...
You also mentioned in another post about an option to use a profile even when one isn't embedded.

When an image doesn't contain an embedded profile, the program doesn't know what to do, and you're in bandit country. Some programs just assume that such images are sRGB. That's a good guess, and it's usually right. Sometimes there's an option to tell the program to assume sRGB for images with no profile. Sometimes (e.g. in Photoshop) you can tell it to warn you if there's no profile.

However, the most frequent behaviour when an image doesn't have a profile is that the program just gives up and doesn't colour manage. The result here is that if an sRGB image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor without colour management, the colours will be over-saturated.
telljcl said:
So I guess because I have a wide-gamut monitor and the camera-generated .JPGs don't have a profile I'm seeing the over saturation? If I viewed them using the same viewer on a "normal" monitor would they look "normal"?
Click to expand...
Yes, probably.
telljcl said:
Interestingly, viewed in Picasa (with "use color management" checked) I don't see oversaturation on the OOC jpgs - I guess Picasa is applying the .icc file to everything - even if there is no embedded color profile?

IrfanView has another tick-box for "Also apply color profile to files without embedded profile" and checking this removes the over-saturation, presumably rendering the "accurate" image...

Very confusing - I would greatly appreciate any clarification or affirmation of the above.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
As Billiam29 says, Edge and IE are not properly colour-managed. They don't use the monitor profile, assuming all monitors to be sRGB gamut, which results in over-saturated colours on a wide-gamut monitor. It's very perverse: Microsoft go to all the effort to include colour-management in their browsers, but do it incorrectly such that colours are 100% guaranteed to be wrong except on monitors with a colour space identical to sRGB.

By the way: other browsers also vary on how "wide gamut friendly" they are. Best is Vivaldi, as it automatically assumes that images and other graphic elements that do not contain profiles are sRGB. This is the W3C recommendation. Firefox doesn't assume that by default, but can be made to by setting "gfx.color_management.mode" to 1 (Google for how to do that).

Chrome and Safari simply won't colour-manage graphic elements that don't contain a profile, which means that many web pages are uber-saturated on wide-gamut monitors.

--
Simon
 
Last edited:
Simon Garrett said:
telljcl said:
Still wading through the seemingly ill-conceived situation that is "color management".

So I have color calibrated my wide gamut monitor (BenQ 2700), have that .icc profile active for Windows, have "use color management" checked in 2 imaging programs I use to view and manage .JPG files (Picasa and IrfanView), and use Capture One (which is always color managed, AFAIK) to convert / develop RAW files.

I shoot Sony Raw, with sRGB color space set in camera.
Click to expand...
Setting sRGB (or anything else) in the camera affects only jpegs. It has no effect on raw.
Simon Garrett said:
I export the .JPGs with sRGB 2.1 as the color profile (not the same as color space, I take it...)
Click to expand...
A colour profile is a description of a colour space. It describes the colour gamut (by defining the R, G and B primaries used, so you know what the RGB values mean) and also the TRC (Tone Response Curve - usually by means of a "gamma") and white point (e.g. 6500K - that is, "white" is equivalent to 6500K radiation, or whatever).

It's a bit like having a set of dimensions and with it a profile that says "these dimensions are in inches".

A monitor profile (only) also usually contains calibration information used when the computer boots up to set the look up tables in the video card to preset monitor TRC and white point. This isn't strictly profile information.

Note that simply embedding a profile in an image file doesn't make the image sRGB or whatever - it simply labels it. This is often referred to as "assigning" a profile to an image. When a program "converts" an image from one colour space to another, it not only embeds the new colour space, but also converts each pixel from one colour space to another. A bit like converting inches to centimetres, for example, where you convert the dimensions and then change the label from "these dimensions are in inches" to "...in centimetres".
Simon Garrett said:
* Should I use my monitor's calibration .icc file instead or sRGB 2.1 here??
Click to expand...
No. A monitor profile should only ever be used by programs writing to the monitor to which it applies.

How colour management works:
  • A colour managed programs gets the image profile, usually embedded in the image. That would normally be a standard profile such as sRGB, ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB. Raw images don't have a profile, and raw convertors need to know how to convert that raw image to a standard profile.
  • The program also looks up the monitor profile by asking Windows (or Mac OS). By the way, that's the only thing Windows does for colour management - maintain a list of profiles for devices.
  • The program then uses the two profiles to convert the image pixel-by-pixel from the original colour space (e.g. sRGB) to monitor colour space, and sends it to the monitor.
Simon Garrett said:
Just also realized that viewing .JPGs straight from the camera (which I normally don't shoot) via IrfanView is oversaturated, despite Irfanview having "use color management" checked.

Apparently the camera (Sony A9 in this case) is not embedding a color profile, (I guess only the color "space", sRGB). This is normal I suppose?
Click to expand...
You also mentioned in another post about an option to use a profile even when one isn't embedded.

When an image doesn't contain an embedded profile, the program doesn't know what to do, and you're in bandit country. Some programs just assume that such images are sRGB. That's a good guess, and it's usually right. Sometimes there's an option to tell the program to assume sRGB for images with no profile. Sometimes (e.g. in Photoshop) you can tell it to warn you if there's no profile.

However, the most frequent behaviour when an image doesn't have a profile is that the program just gives up and doesn't colour manage. The result here is that if an sRGB image is displayed on a wide gamut monitor without colour management, the colours will be over-saturated.
Simon Garrett said:
So I guess because I have a wide-gamut monitor and the camera-generated .JPGs don't have a profile I'm seeing the over saturation? If I viewed them using the same viewer on a "normal" monitor would they look "normal"?
Click to expand...
Yes, probably.
Simon Garrett said:
Interestingly, viewed in Picasa (with "use color management" checked) I don't see oversaturation on the OOC jpgs - I guess Picasa is applying the .icc file to everything - even if there is no embedded color profile?

IrfanView has another tick-box for "Also apply color profile to files without embedded profile" and checking this removes the over-saturation, presumably rendering the "accurate" image...

Very confusing - I would greatly appreciate any clarification or affirmation of the above.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
As Billiam29 says, Edge and IE are not properly colour-managed. They don't use the monitor profile, assuming all monitors to be sRGB gamut, which results in over-saturated colours on a wide-gamut monitor. It's very perverse: Microsoft go to all the effort to include colour-management in their browsers, but do it incorrectly such that colours are 100% guaranteed to be wrong except on monitors with a colour space identical to sRGB.

By the way: other browsers also vary on how "wide gamut friendly" they are. Best is Vivaldi, as it automatically assumes that images and other graphic elements that do not contain profiles are sRGB. This is the W3C recommendation. Firefox doesn't assume that by default, but can be made to by setting "gfx.color_management.mode" to 1 (Google for how to do that).

Chrome and Safari simply won't colour-manage graphic elements that don't contain a profile, which means that many web pages are uber-saturated on wide-gamut monitors.
Click to expand...
 
Simon Garrett said:
Simon Garrett said:
Just also realized that viewing .JPGs straight from the camera (which I normally don't shoot) via IrfanView is oversaturated, despite Irfanview having "use color management" checked.

Apparently the camera (Sony A9 in this case) is not embedding a color profile, (I guess only the color "space", sRGB). This is normal I suppose?
Click to expand...
You also mentioned in another post about an option to use a profile even when one isn't embedded.

When an image doesn't contain an embedded profile, the program doesn't know what to do, and you're in bandit country. Some programs just assume that such images are sRGB. That's a good guess, and it's usually right. Sometimes there's an option to tell the program to assume sRGB for images with no profile. Sometimes (e.g. in Photoshop) you can tell it to warn you if there's no profile.
Click to expand...
IrfanView lets you choose a profile for untagged images but I don't think it warns you about the missing tag. OP could also try XnView MP to compare with IrfanView and Picasa. Note that FastStone and the Windows 8/10 "Photos" app will look incorrect when compared with the three on a wide-gamut monitor.
Simon Garrett said:
By the way: other browsers also vary on how "wide gamut friendly" they are. Best is Vivaldi, as it automatically assumes that images and other graphic elements that do not contain profiles are sRGB. This is the W3C recommendation. Firefox doesn't assume that by default, but can be made to by setting "gfx.color_management.mode" to 1 (Google for how to do that).
Click to expand...
Yes, and unfortunately Firefox abandoned the LittleCMS colour engine (which is the most often used colour engine for open source and some commercial programs), so the deepest blacks might look slightly different in Fx, Irfan and Ps -- otherwise photos should look very similar in all three when they are set up correctly.
 
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