Different colors in different image viewers?

[sankos]

I'm on a wide-gamut calibrated and profiled Eizo (Win8.1) and I've got both CO8 and CO9 showing me exactly the same level of saturation in my images as in other colour-managed photo programs (LR5, RawTherapee, DOP9, PhotoNinja, NX-D, PSE, etc.). If CO8 or CO9 had a colour-management issue we'd be inundated with posts about it, that's for sure, as it's used by many professional photographers with wide-gamut monitors. You could try looking at your photos with some of those programs and compare to CO. If the level of saturation is markedly different (there will be slightly different colours owing to different colour profiles but the level of saturation should be about equal) then it's something with your CO setup/installation.

--
Marcin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sankos/

 

[Shangri La]

Then it sounds like you have done all the right things.
Not sure what more to suggest as I do not use C1Pro - or really Win7 with a decent monitor in any color-managed way. Though I do also use a Win7 laptop, my color-crucial work is done on Mac OS X using Adobe products.

The apps I know for sure are color-managed at all times are Lightroom and Photoshop - which it sounds like you do not have - and they use Adobe's own Color Management Module, not the one from the host OS. I believe Windows Photo Viewer on Win7 is color-managed via Windows Color System for the single-image window (and provided the monitor profile is ICC V2 - and we have read that SpectraView II produces ICC V2.1, which I am presuming therefore is OK). Not sure the slide-show part of WPV is color-managed.

If after calibration/profile of your monitor in wide-gamut/native mode, and with that profile loaded by WCS you are getting consistency between what is you see on screen in C1Pro raw (use an image which you know does not have really saturated colors in general) and the view of an exported sRGB JPEG in Win7 WPV of the same image then that is how it should be.

If (with monitor set to wide-gamut) FastStone and other image browsers then show the same sRGB JPEG much more saturated, then that is because they are not using the display profile (and are in-effect sending the file RGB values direct to the monitor, which because it is now expecting wide-gamut referenced values will mean the colors will come out more saturated).

 

[Shangri La]

Regarding Windows image viewer's rendering, the windows explorer's image preview shows the saturated colors but the photo/gallery viewers show washed-out colors, so I feel windows is doing something not consistent there.

Windows explorer, desktop, most movie viewers, Internet Explorer and the Edge browser are all non-colour-managed so on a wide-gamut monitor they look overly saturated. The Windows photo viewer (*not* the Photos app that you can find in Win8 and Win10) is colour-managed so what you're seeing there is "more true" than in the non-colour-managed applications.

So maybe you got so used to seeing oversaturation in other places in Windows (BTW, you have to use Firefox on a wide-gamut monitor in Windows, everything else is oversaturated) that what you call washed-out is in fact the norm? Just guessing because the setup you've described sounds OK so that's the only conclusion I'm left with.

How about opening your sRGB, C1-created jpeg in Firefox (with this add-on set up) -- if the colours and tones are similar to C1 than that's what you should go by and adjust your processing to the level of saturation that is aesthetically pleasing to you, i.e. boost the saturation in your C1 workflow.

--sankos wrote:

I'm on a wide-gamut calibrated and profiled Eizo (Win8.1) and I've got both CO8 and CO9 showing me exactly the same level of saturation in my images as in other colour-managed photo programs (LR5, RawTherapee, DOP9, PhotoNinja, NX-D, PSE, etc.). If CO8 or CO9 had a colour-management issue we'd be inundated with posts about it, that's for sure, as it's used by many professional photographers with wide-gamut monitors. You could try looking at your photos with some of those programs and compare to CO. If the level of saturation is markedly different (there will be slightly different colours owing to different colour profiles but the level of saturation should be about equal) then it's something with your CO setup/installation.

 

[Mark K W]

Then it sounds like you have done all the right things.

Not sure what more to suggest as I do not use C1Pro - or really Win7 with a decent monitor in any color-managed way. Though I do also use a Win7 laptop, my color-crucial work is done on Mac OS X using Adobe products.

The apps I know for sure are color-managed at all times are Lightroom and Photoshop - which it sounds like you do not have - and they use Adobe's own Color Management Module, not the one from the host OS. I believe Windows Photo Viewer on Win7 is color-managed via Windows Color System for the single-image window (and provided the monitor profile is ICC V2 - and we have read that SpectraView II produces ICC V2.1, which I am presuming therefore is OK). Not sure the slide-show part of WPV is color-managed.

If after calibration/profile of your monitor in wide-gamut/native mode, and with that profile loaded by WCS you are getting consistency between what is you see on screen in C1Pro raw (use an image which you know does not have really saturated colors in general) and the view of an exported sRGB JPEG in Win7 WPV of the same image then that is how it should be.

If (with monitor set to wide-gamut) FastStone and other image browsers then show the same sRGB JPEG much more saturated, then that is because they are not using the display profile (and are in-effect sending the file RGB values direct to the monitor, which because it is now expecting wide-gamut referenced values will mean the colors will come out more saturated).

--
Mark W.
http://500px.com/Mark_Wycherley

Actually I do have LR4 installed on the same PC. I will try this then: process the image in LR4 and export in sRGB and see if the colors are the same. If the behavior is the same as C1Pro, then I know LR/C1Pro are handling the colors correctly and the issue is the viewer.

Yes - compare LR and C1Pro on the same loaded sRGB source image. Do that with the monitor set in wide-gamut and a profile for wide-gamut selected for load in Windows. Make sure your system has not been in and out of hibernation, so do the comparison immediately after boot. You can compare what you see on screen in FastStone and LR4 in the same way with a selection of sRGB JPEGs in wide-gamut mode.

I've heard about Windows in some cases not handling colors correctly on wide gamut monitor. But when I set the monitor to sRGB and the jpg is exported in sRGB mode, all viewers should render the colors the same, no?

Depends whether they ignore or use the monitor profile and if you are changing that in tandem with changing the monitor's local gamut setting.

But in my case, the color difference remains regardless of monitor setting.

There is one other thing we have not mentioned which is the internal color LUTs which may be in the monitor and how your SpectraView installation is using and setting those. If the real calibration and color-profile info is actually being set in the hardware LUT in the monitor, then maybe that is a significant factor. This is a little bit at my knowledge limit also as although my monitor can do it, I do not use HW calibration or SpectraView myself. You would really need to be looking in detail at the manuals for both your monitor and SpectraView and the associated configuration of each to know whether you are set-up at all to create and set hardware-based calibration data into the monitor internal LUT.

--
Mark W.
http://500px.com/Mark_Wycherley

 

[Shangri La]

Then it sounds like you have done all the right things.

Not sure what more to suggest as I do not use C1Pro - or really Win7 with a decent monitor in any color-managed way. Though I do also use a Win7 laptop, my color-crucial work is done on Mac OS X using Adobe products.

The apps I know for sure are color-managed at all times are Lightroom and Photoshop - which it sounds like you do not have - and they use Adobe's own Color Management Module, not the one from the host OS. I believe Windows Photo Viewer on Win7 is color-managed via Windows Color System for the single-image window (and provided the monitor profile is ICC V2 - and we have read that SpectraView II produces ICC V2.1, which I am presuming therefore is OK). Not sure the slide-show part of WPV is color-managed.

If after calibration/profile of your monitor in wide-gamut/native mode, and with that profile loaded by WCS you are getting consistency between what is you see on screen in C1Pro raw (use an image which you know does not have really saturated colors in general) and the view of an exported sRGB JPEG in Win7 WPV of the same image then that is how it should be.

If (with monitor set to wide-gamut) FastStone and other image browsers then show the same sRGB JPEG much more saturated, then that is because they are not using the display profile (and are in-effect sending the file RGB values direct to the monitor, which because it is now expecting wide-gamut referenced values will mean the colors will come out more saturated).

--
Mark W.
http://500px.com/Mark_Wycherley

Actually I do have LR4 installed on the same PC. I will try this then: process the image in LR4 and export in sRGB and see if the colors are the same. If the behavior is the same as C1Pro, then I know LR/C1Pro are handling the colors correctly and the issue is the viewer.

Yes - compare LR and C1Pro on the same loaded sRGB source image. Do that with the monitor set in wide-gamut and a profile for wide-gamut selected for load in Windows. Make sure your system has not been in and out of hibernation, so do the comparison immediately after boot. You can compare what you see on screen in FastStone and LR4 in the same way with a selection of sRGB JPEGs in wide-gamut mode.

I've heard about Windows in some cases not handling colors correctly on wide gamut monitor. But when I set the monitor to sRGB and the jpg is exported in sRGB mode, all viewers should render the colors the same, no?

Depends whether they ignore or use the monitor profile and if you are changing that in tandem with changing the monitor's local gamut setting.

But in my case, the color difference remains regardless of monitor setting.

There is one other thing we have not mentioned which is the internal color LUTs which may be in the monitor and how your SpectraView installation is using and setting those. If the real calibration and color-profile info is actually being set in the hardware LUT in the monitor, then maybe that is a significant factor. This is a little bit at my knowledge limit also as although my monitor can do it, I do not use HW calibration or SpectraView myself. You would really need to be looking in detail at the manuals for both your monitor and SpectraView and the associated configuration of each to know whether you are set-up at all to create and set hardware-based calibration data into the monitor internal LUT.

--
Mark W.
http://500px.com/Mark_Wycherley

Here's the latest update: the C1Pro-exported sRGB jpeg file looks less saturated in LR4/View-NX2/Picasa (after enabling color management)/Windows 7 photo viewer, just like in C1Pro editing mode. Only Windows explorer image preview and FastStone (though color management enabled) show more saturated colors. I edited the image in LR4 and export to jpeg, the behavior is the same.

I'm still thinking before this instance the images were more saturated in C1Pro editing mode and output. But perhaps I had been using windows in wide gamut mode and got used to over saturated colors.

As for the calibration, I'm pretty sure it was done on monitor internal LUT level with SpectraView. I really have no idea how it's more beneficial compared to graphics card level calibration and can only assume it should have no impact to users on application level lol.

Thank you guys again for being so helpful throughout. I really appreciate it : )

 

[Mark K W]

Then it sounds like you have done all the right things.

Not sure what more to suggest as I do not use C1Pro - or really Win7 with a decent monitor in any color-managed way. Though I do also use a Win7 laptop, my color-crucial work is done on Mac OS X using Adobe products.

The apps I know for sure are color-managed at all times are Lightroom and Photoshop - which it sounds like you do not have - and they use Adobe's own Color Management Module, not the one from the host OS. I believe Windows Photo Viewer on Win7 is color-managed via Windows Color System for the single-image window (and provided the monitor profile is ICC V2 - and we have read that SpectraView II produces ICC V2.1, which I am presuming therefore is OK). Not sure the slide-show part of WPV is color-managed.

If after calibration/profile of your monitor in wide-gamut/native mode, and with that profile loaded by WCS you are getting consistency between what is you see on screen in C1Pro raw (use an image which you know does not have really saturated colors in general) and the view of an exported sRGB JPEG in Win7 WPV of the same image then that is how it should be.

If (with monitor set to wide-gamut) FastStone and other image browsers then show the same sRGB JPEG much more saturated, then that is because they are not using the display profile (and are in-effect sending the file RGB values direct to the monitor, which because it is now expecting wide-gamut referenced values will mean the colors will come out more saturated).

 

[Shangri La]

Then it sounds like you have done all the right things.

Not sure what more to suggest as I do not use C1Pro - or really Win7 with a decent monitor in any color-managed way. Though I do also use a Win7 laptop, my color-crucial work is done on Mac OS X using Adobe products.

The apps I know for sure are color-managed at all times are Lightroom and Photoshop - which it sounds like you do not have - and they use Adobe's own Color Management Module, not the one from the host OS. I believe Windows Photo Viewer on Win7 is color-managed via Windows Color System for the single-image window (and provided the monitor profile is ICC V2 - and we have read that SpectraView II produces ICC V2.1, which I am presuming therefore is OK). Not sure the slide-show part of WPV is color-managed.

If after calibration/profile of your monitor in wide-gamut/native mode, and with that profile loaded by WCS you are getting consistency between what is you see on screen in C1Pro raw (use an image which you know does not have really saturated colors in general) and the view of an exported sRGB JPEG in Win7 WPV of the same image then that is how it should be.

If (with monitor set to wide-gamut) FastStone and other image browsers then show the same sRGB JPEG much more saturated, then that is because they are not using the display profile (and are in-effect sending the file RGB values direct to the monitor, which because it is now expecting wide-gamut referenced values will mean the colors will come out more saturated).