OM3, Colour profiles and Workspace question

alan scott · Mar 5, 2025

I have a question for anyone with workspace (WS) and colour profile experience.

I have received my OM3 and I'm trying to get my head around the colour and mono profiles.

I have built a colour profile in WS to my satisfaction and I want to use on my OM3. I can write down the colour settings and then manually change the colour wheel settings on the camera (which I've done). However under the camera tab in WS there is an option to "load color/monochrome profile" which appears to load a given profile from a jpeg created in WS onto the camera (or that is what the graphic implies).

I can't get this to work, it always comes up with an error message saying that the profile is corrupt or missing. Any idea what I'm doing wrong. My workflow is:

- take image of a macbeth color chart and adjust colours until they look how I want them

- export the image as a jpeg

- in WS activate the load color/monochrome profile" under the camera tab

- drag and drop the jpeg into the process box

- get the error message

Am I misunderstanding what this function does or am I using it wrongly?

Can anyone point me to a tutorial/explanation of this function or tell me where I'm going wrong

Thanks in anticipation.

Danielvr · Mar 5, 2025

alan scott said:
- export the image as a jpeg

Have you tried exporting it as an EXIF-JPG? The settings that you can copy to other images are stored in the EXIF data. When you save a regular JPG, the EXIF info will be stripped.

alan scott · Mar 5, 2025

I think I did. To make sure I'll try again and see what happens.

Thanks

alan scott · Mar 5, 2025

Danielvr said:
Danielvr said:

- export the image as a jpeg

Click to expand...

Have you tried exporting it as an EXIF-JPG? The settings that you can copy to other images are stored in the EXIF data. When you save a regular JPG, the EXIF info will be stripped.

Tried it with EXIF-JPG and it's still errors. I had the jpeg on my desktop and opened it it WS, when I hovered the cursor over the file it showed the exif data and the profile settings were there.

Thanks for your help.

gary0319 · Mar 5, 2025

Have you tried using a file from another OM camera for the same process. Perhaps the Workspace software needs an update to recognize the OM-3 files. It is not uncommon for processing software needing to be updated when a new camera is introduced.

Just a thought.

alan scott · Mar 5, 2025

gary0319 said:
Have you tried using a file from another OM camera for the same process. Perhaps the Workspace software needs an update to recognize the OM-3 files. It is not uncommon for processing software needing to be updated when a new camera is introduced.

Just a thought.

I'll give a try and let you know.

alan scott · Mar 5, 2025

gary0319 said:
Have you tried using a file from another OM camera for the same process. Perhaps the Workspace software needs an update to recognize the OM-3 files. It is not uncommon for processing software needing to be updated when a new camera is introduced.

Just a thought.

Gary,

tried it with a file from the OM1-2 and the OM5. Both exactly the same. I've checked I am running the latest version of WS.

I am trying to load to the OM3, maybe that's the common factor here. I tried it with the OM1-2 and it said the camera didn't support this function. I don't have any other cameras to I can use unfortunately.

Thanks anyway

--
Alan Scott
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth" - Marcus Aurelius

Danielvr · Mar 5, 2025

alan scott said:
Tried it with EXIF-JPG and it's still errors.

Sorry to hear it.. but are you sure that this 'Load Color//Monochrome Profile' command reads the profile from a JPG file? When I click on it, it wants to connect to a camera, not load a file. To me that suggests that it wants to read from the Mono 1-4 or Color 1-4 profiles in your camera (I do not have an OM-3 myself, so I can't try).

(Note: there's another command that does read the profile from a JPG file, but that's in the raw development module. When you load an .ORF file and look in the Edit Palette, on the third tab ('Basic'), there's an option Picture Mode that has a pulldown menu. When you select the last option, 'Monochrome Profile', an icon appears that lets you load a profile from a JPG.)

alan scott · Mar 5, 2025

Danielvr said:
Danielvr said:

Tried it with EXIF-JPG and it's still errors.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear it.. but are you sure that this 'Load Color//Monochrome Profile' command reads the profile from a JPG file? When I click on it, it wants to connect to a camera, not load a file. To me that suggests that it wants to read from the Mono 1-4 or Color 1-4 profiles in your camera (I do not have an OM-3 myself, so I can't try).

(Note: there's another command that does read the profile from a JPG file, but that's in the raw development module. When you load an .ORF file and look in the Edit Palette, on the third tab ('Basic'), there's an option Picture Mode that has a pulldown menu. When you select the last option, 'Monochrome Profile', an icon appears that lets you load a profile from a JPG.)

I'm pretty sure it does, after the camera is connected (the OM3) it presents you with dialogue to enter a file name or a box to drag and drop a file into. When I drop a jpeg into it it doesn't complain about the file type but just says the profile is missing or is corrupt.

ScottoG · Aug 16, 2025

Hello Alan. Did you ever figure this out?
Thanks.

alan scott · Aug 16, 2025

ScottoG said:
Hello Alan. Did you ever figure this out?
Thanks.

no, no success so I've given up for now. I suspect that workspace or the OM-3 need a software update. A bit of a pity really.

In my opinion OMDS are missing out on an opportunity here. There's so much the could do with some software development. It would be great if you could create a recipe in workspace and download it in it's entirety to the camera. Or even better give workspace and the camera the capability to use LUT's

gary0319 · Aug 16, 2025

alan scott said:
ScottoG said:

Hello Alan. Did you ever figure this out?
Thanks.

Click to expand...

no, no success so I've given up for now. I suspect that workspace or the OM-3 need a software update. A bit of a pity really.

In my opinion OMDS are missing out on an opportunity here. There's so much the could do with some software development. It would be great if you could create a recipe in workspace and download it in it's entirety to the camera. Or even better give workspace and the camera the capability to use LUT's

I've not used this feature, but I did bring up WS and go through he motions and got the same result not being able to find the camera, etc. But, just before that I got a standard Windows question asking if I was wanting to allow the App to be updated..... not the camera.

Perhaps it did not mean to load a profile into the camera, but instead to download a profile FROM the camera to be used in subsequent processing???

ScottoG · Aug 17, 2025

alan scott said:
ScottoG said:

Hello Alan. Did you ever figure this out?
Thanks.

Click to expand...

no, no success so I've given up for now. I suspect that workspace or the OM-3 need a software update. A bit of a pity really.

In my opinion OMDS are missing out on an opportunity here. There's so much the could do with some software development. It would be great if you could create a recipe in workspace and download it in it's entirety to the camera. Or even better give workspace and the camera the capability to use LUT's

Yes, I really hope that OMDS seize the opportunity and expand the capability and usability of the OM-3 'recipes'. They've made a great start and, for example, in addition to your suggestions, they could greatly enhance the usability by allowing access to the full set of recipes in the camera, regardless of the Custom Mode that's currently in effect. (i.e. By decoupling the recipes from the Custom Modes somewhat. Maybe have a standard set of 4 per CM, with an option to access the full set.)

Also, from what I've read, there isn't an equivalent to the E-P7's Shortcut button, which enables direct access to the list of profiles for quick reselection. The OM-3 seems to require use of the Super Control Panel to do this. Is that correct?

I'll be watching for the first major firmware update!

alan scott · Aug 18, 2025

Gary

as you can see from the two screen shots above the second one shows the dialogue to insert a file in the box to be used as the source for the colour settings. The associated graphic shows clearly the direction of the download is from the pc to the camera.

The first picture shows the error message after inserting a file.

--
Alan Scott
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth" - Marcus Aurelius

gary0319 · Aug 18, 2025

alan scott said:
Gary

as you can see from the two screen shots above the second one shows the dialogue to insert a file in the box to be used as the source for the colour settings. The associated graphic shows clearly the direction of the download is from the pc to the camera.

The first picture shows the error message after inserting a file.

That does look to be the case, my suggestion was without merit, sorry, The first screen does seem to Indicate that the image profile to be loaded to the camera originated as shot from the camera. There has been a feature that allows the shooting parameters of, say one OM-1 to be loaded to another camera, but it must be another OM-1 camera. Perhaps you are right that the WS does not recognize the newer OM-3 profiles. Have you tried calling WS tech support?

alan scott · Aug 18, 2025

gary0319 said:
alan scott said:

Gary

as you can see from the two screen shots above the second one shows the dialogue to insert a file in the box to be used as the source for the colour settings. The associated graphic shows clearly the direction of the download is from the pc to the camera.

The first picture shows the error message after inserting a file.

Click to expand...

That does look to be the case, my suggestion was without merit, sorry, The first screen does seem to Indicate that the image profile to be loaded to the camera originated as shot from the camera. There has been a feature that allows the shooting parameters of, say one OM-1 to be loaded to another camera, but it must be another OM-1 camera. Perhaps you are right that the WS does not recognize the newer OM-3 profiles. Have you tried calling WS tech support?

Gary,

no apology necessary.

It would be interesting t hear from anyone with a pen f or EP7 t see if those cameras work.

--
Alan Scott
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth" - Marcus Aurelius

alan scott · Aug 18, 2025

ScottoG said:
alan scott said:

ScottoG said:

Hello Alan. Did you ever figure this out?
Thanks.

Click to expand...

no, no success so I've given up for now. I suspect that workspace or the OM-3 need a software update. A bit of a pity really.

In my opinion OMDS are missing out on an opportunity here. There's so much the could do with some software development. It would be great if you could create a recipe in workspace and download it in it's entirety to the camera. Or even better give workspace and the camera the capability to use LUT's

Click to expand...

Yes, I really hope that OMDS seize the opportunity and expand the capability and usability of the OM-3 'recipes'. They've made a great start and, for example, in addition to your suggestions, they could greatly enhance the usability by allowing access to the full set of recipes in the camera, regardless of the Custom Mode that's currently in effect. (i.e. By decoupling the recipes from the Custom Modes somewhat. Maybe have a standard set of 4 per CM, with an option to access the full set.)
Also, from what I've read, there isn't an equivalent to the E-P7's Shortcut button, which enables direct access to the list of profiles for quick reselection. The OM-3 seems to require use of the Super Control Panel to do this. Is that correct?

I'll be watching for the first major firmware update!

Scott,

sorry for the late reply, summer school break here in the UK and I'm on grandkid duties.

I can't find any other way of accessing the profiles other than using the SC panel or custom modes. Another improvement would be the ability to store the white balance settings with each profile. That would give you four completely independent profiles per custom setting (is this what you meant?)

regards

--
Alan Scott
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth" - Marcus Aurelius

ScottoG · Aug 19, 2025

alan scott said:
gary0319 said:

alan scott said:

Gary

as you can see from the two screen shots above the second one shows the dialogue to insert a file in the box to be used as the source for the colour settings. The associated graphic shows clearly the direction of the download is from the pc to the camera.

The first picture shows the error message after inserting a file.

Click to expand...

That does look to be the case, my suggestion was without merit, sorry, The first screen does seem to Indicate that the image profile to be loaded to the camera originated as shot from the camera. There has been a feature that allows the shooting parameters of, say one OM-1 to be loaded to another camera, but it must be another OM-1 camera. Perhaps you are right that the WS does not recognize the newer OM-3 profiles. Have you tried calling WS tech support?

Click to expand...

Gary,

no apology necessary.

It would be interesting t hear from anyone with a pen f or EP7 t see if those cameras work.

Alan & Gary, I'm learning a lot from this discussion. Thank you.

I may have missed this in the discussion but perhaps the distinction between "Select an image *that was shot* using ..." (my emphasis) and an image that was modified by a profile created in OM WS is crucial.

Alan, did you start with an OM-3 image file when you created your custom profile in WS?
If so, one might expect the output from any subsequent modifications made in OM WS to be compatible with the download process. However, because OM WS profiles can be applied to any (Olympus) image files, including ORF, maybe the result isn't compatible with the OM-3. Have you tried it with an unmodified file from the OM-3?
Or maybe it's just a bug. Should be resolvable in s/w, in any case.

Also, FYI, I just tried the Camera/Load Profile function with my E-P7 connected. Without even asking for a source image file, it fails with the error message: "Unable to use this function on this camera.(0x8004500B)". Perhaps not unexpected.

alan scott · Aug 19, 2025

Scott,

the image was a OM-3 orf file. I opened this in WS and used the adjust color/saturation to change the look to how I wanted it. I then exported as a Jpeg (or EXIF-JPEG same result either way). This jpeg file was the one I used.

When I looked at the jpeg file in WS (hovered my cursor over the file) it showed the changes I had made to the colour wheel accurately.

I suppose the problem could be with the export function not producing a jpeg file that is a compatible format.

gary0319 · Aug 19, 2025

alan scott said:
Scott,

the image was a OM-3 orf file. I opened this in WS and used the adjust color/saturation to change the look to how I wanted it. I then exported as a Jpeg (or EXIF-JPEG same result either way). This jpeg file was the one I used.

When I looked at the jpeg file in WS (hovered my cursor over the file) it showed the changes I had made to the colour wheel accurately.

I suppose the problem could be with the export function not producing a jpeg file that is a compatible format.

Or perhaps it needs the OOC JPEG as the starting point since that is where the profile would have been applied (imbedded? It seems some things with Olympus/OM are kind of JPEG-centric.

OM3, Colour profiles and Workspace question

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