[biz-engineer]

First problem, using monitors.
I use two monitors: one default laptop monitor and a large external monitor. I use Silkypix or Pentax DCU for basic raw conversion. Both monitors have been calibrated, the external monitor is need 100% sRGB compliant, so I use that external monitor for adjusting raw development parameters. I check JPEG using Faststone image viewer. But now I'm confused because the developed JPEGs don't look the same as the raw development preview of Silkypix or PDCU with CMS enabled with the correct monitor calibration LUT selected. So, I don't know:
- if having a calibration LUT installed in windows display settings and CMS enabled with the same calibration LUT in the raw development software does actually correct colors twice before the data reach the graphic card
- or if having a calibration LUT installed in windows display settings already corrects the data once before rendering via the graphic card , and in that case there is not need to enable CMS in the raw development software.

Second problem: soft proofing for printing.
I tried soft proofing with printer icc profiles provided by the printed company, but I could see weird results. Does that mean the printer icc profile includes paper rendering and therefore won't work with soft proofing on a calibrated monitor?

Thanks for your inputs.

[pschlute]

Ah, Colour Management, my favourite subject....not !

i recently looked at different image viewers for my new Win10 machine as the default photos app is not colour managed at all.

i tried Faststone but it was not working well for me. I am using a wide gamut monitor and enabling or disabling CMS within Faststone had no affect. I found this admittedly old post which may explain things FastStone is not colour-managed: Ricoh Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

i eventually downloaded Fast Picture Viewer Pro which is also freeware. It correctly displays my images. if you try it remember to enable colour management in the settings and also enable the custom monitor profile you have created for your screen.

ps make sure you have selected the same custom monitor profile in Silkypix Display settings.

[biz-engineer]

i tried Faststone but it was not working well for me. I am using a wide gamut monitor and enabling or disabling CMS within Faststone had no affect.

Faststone CMS seems to be only about taking into account if an image embedded profile says "sRGB" or "AdobeRGB", it doesn't care about where the image is displayed. As for Silkypix or PDCU, the color management is about using a correction profile for where the image has to be displayed. But nowhere it is said when the color management feature should be enabled or disabled. The trouble is, it's a problem for developing raw photos because we may then have some surprises when we open the prints.

---------- Post added 24-10-18 at 15:18 ----------

i eventually downloaded Fast Picture Viewer Pro which is also freeware. It correctly displays my images. if you try it remember to enable colour management in the settings and also enable the custom monitor profile you have created for your screen.ps make sure you have selected the same custom monitor profile in Silkypix Display settings.

In the meantime (since the posted) I've done some tests again, and it looks like if the defaut icc profile is enable in Windows 10 display settings is correct for each monitor, then the color management feature should be disabled for display otherwise the color correction would be applied twice: once by the image processing / displaying software and a second time at the level of the graphic card driver. I hope that's correct. I would need to do some test prints to be sure about that.

[thazooo]

Color Management...AKA...Color Mismanagement....
Problem 1 - I've run into this with Vista and Win 7. I've had to go into Windows Color Management and check every setting. I'll end up having to change a setting, LUT , to force windows to use it. I haven't decided if Windows just ignores the automatic LUT loading or if the Datacolor program has a problem.
Problem 2 - As it was explained to me, when you soft proof you're trying to compare illuminated colors to back lit colors. There's a difference. I jump over soft proofing and just print a 5x7.
The easiest way to double color management is to have color management turned on in program and in printer driver. Using both will give you a head ache. I use Canon Printers and in the Printer set-up is a section for turning On and Off color management. I turn mine Off and use program color management.
You can find a Kodak color chart online for free. I use one for all calibration.
Good Luck.

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Last edited by thazooo; 10-24-2018 at 06:33 AM. Reason: mis spell

[pschlute]

As for Silkypix or PDCU, the color management is about using a correction profile for where the image has to be displayed. But nowhere it is said when the color management feature should be enabled or disabled.

The Silkypix manual reads to me that for best and most accurate results you should enable colour management and select your custom monitor profile. I have used Silkypix like this for years. i cannot see why you would not enable it.

[sbh]

I also use a laptop + an external monitor. Both are calibrated. Other than that, I don't do anything else colour related (except save as sRGB for web images). From either DCU, CO 11 or Silkypix 9, when I develop an image to jpeg and open it in preview (Mac), it looks exactly the same. IIRC colour management is on by default in DCU.

[biz-engineer]

I also use a laptop + an external monitor. Both are calibrated. Other than that, I don't do anything else colour related (except save as sRGB for web images). From either DCU, CO 11 or Silkypix 9, when I develop an image to jpeg and open it in preview (Mac), it looks exactly the same. IIRC colour management is on by default in DCU.

Ah yes, the image I'm using to compare all look the same when color management is disabled. The reason is that I have DisplayCal service automatically started after login in windows, meaning the correction profiles are already applied. The images don't exactly match between displays, but that's because my external display covers the full sRGB color space (give by a verification post calibration with displayCAL), and the primary display of the notebook isn't able to cover the full sRGB space even after full calibration. The primary display of the notebook is supposed to be a better display (latest IPS tech), but it's not, it has more contrast and brightness capability so that the images pop, but the color space is skewed inside the sRGB color space. For developing RAWs, I have to use the older display that once calibrated is about 100% sRGB compliant.

[TonyW]

I am afraid I can be no help on either Silkypix or Pentax DCU (or recent use of Faststone), however colour management principles should apply to any application. So FWIW:

1. Laptop monitors are usually poor with external monitors usually offering improvements (there are exceptions of course. So I would concentrate on getting my external monitor correctly calibrated and make sure that Windows was applying that profile via the Color Management dialogue.

2. Faststone is (I believe!) colour managed, but it needs to be switched on in the application. I suspect your JPEGS are already in sRGB and as this is normal for the type you should see them pretty much as you saw on the camera LCD at the time of acquisition. Faststone should read and honour any embedded colour space tags in your files, however there will be no such thing in your raw files (arguably they do not have a colour space)

3. It is not surprising that your JPEG images do not match what you are seeing in your raw editors as they are two different animals. JPEG are baked data taken from the raw acquisition files and have been manipulated by the software to represent what someone thought would make a nice looking image in the camera presets e.g. Vivid, Neutral, Landscape etc.
Raw on the other hand have to have some pre editing applied by the application software to make them look half decent including setting White point, gamma etc. - without this (and if you could really see raw as acquired) you would see a pretty dark low contrast image with a horrible green cast. I suspect you may have a switch in Pentax software that applies your camera preset to the raw data and therefore should give you a look similar to JPEG SOOC.

4. Windows Color management must be set to use your ICC profile – worth checking that it is as default. Any queries just post a screen grab of your settings.

5.

- if having a calibration LUT installed in windows display settings and CMS enabled with the same calibration LUT in the raw development software does actually correct colors twice before the data reach the graphic card
- or if having a calibration LUT installed in windows display settings already corrects the data once before rendering via the graphic card , and in that case there is not need to enable CMS in the raw development software.

Not sure I fully understand where you are coming from here but colour management should only be applied once. Your monitor is calibrated to your required WP, gamma and luminance. The resulting profile describes the condition of your monitor at the time of profiling. This description contains the details of how close or how far away you are from your desired aim points. With these details a properly colour managed application will know how to display your data correctly i.e. if the monitor is a little too yellow the application should apply correction to display how the data actually would look.
Without a calibration profile all bets are off regarding accuracy of screen rendering in a colour savvy application.

[sbh]

... The images don't exactly match between displays, ...

Same here and I guess they never will, unless they are the exact same model or top-end displays. But I'm fine with that because it will give me a clue how the image will look on different displays. My external display is slightly more green-ish than the laptop - no matter how I calibrate it.

Sometimes I also check the image on other devices whether it is too far off in some way. For example when I do a really vibrant image with lots of saturation, I want to avoid it to be over the top on the phone or tablet.

[biz-engineer]

Same here and I guess they never will, unless they are the exact same model or top-end displays.

Normally, is both monitor would having a color gamut covering 100% of the sRGB gamut and displaying with sRGB, both images should look the same. Unfortunately, not all displays cover 100% of the sRGB space, and now I understand why color gamut is only specified for some models of displays.

[TonyW]

There is no guarantee that two monitors, even identical monitors, will visually match after calibration profiles applied.

The point of calibration is just to get the monitor close as possible to required standards. The resulting profile should accurately describe how far away your monitor is from required standards. With this profile any colour savvy application should be able to display your image data accurately as it will adjust the rendering to take into account monitor deficiencies.

[pschlute]

Faststone is (I believe!) colour managed, but it needs to be switched on in the application

Colour management in Faststone did not work for me. I use a wide gamut monitor and it is profiled. With Faststone it displayed very oversaturated colours despite the image being tagged and colour management being enabled in the settings.

[biz-engineer]

2. Faststone is (I believe!) colour managed

Colour management in Faststone did not work for me

For faststone we have to read carefully: Color management in Faststone is only about dealing between sRGB and AdobeRGB after reading the color space from JPEG metadata if the photograph to be displayed. PDCU and Silkypix are able to do both colors space switching, display and printer LUTs. That's what I understood after developping the same RAW image with sRGB and Adobe RGB and displaying both with FastStone with CMS option enabled and disabled. With FastStone the JPEG image developped into an Adobe RGB color space will look like the sRGB version with CMS is enabled. If CMS is disabled, the Adobe RGB image won't look fine like the sRGB displayed into an sRGB space.

Now I understood that my laptop display will never match the external display because the laptop display doesn't have a wide enough gamut to cover sRGB. The only condition to be able to display an image without color drift is to have the display gamut at least as large of the colors space in which the raw image is developed. That means, to display colors correctly with sRGB the display gamut has to be at least as large as sRGB. The same is for Adobe RGB , but since the vast majority of displays aren't capable of covering 100% of the Adobe RGB color space, it is seldom used. As soon as the display gamut is inferior to the intended color space, the color rendering will be shifted.

[TonyW]

For faststone we have to read carefully: Color management in Faststone is only about dealing between sRGB and AdobeRGB after reading the color space from JPEG metadata if the photograph to be displayed. PDCU and Silkypix are able to do both colors space switching, display and printer LUTs. That's what I understood after developping the same RAW image with sRGB and Adobe RGB and displaying both with FastStone with CMS option enabled and disabled. With FastStone the JPEG image developped into an Adobe RGB color space will look like the sRGB version with CMS is enabled. If CMS is disabled, the Adobe RGB image won't look fine like the sRGB displayed into an sRGB space.

Now I understood that my laptop display will never match the external display because the laptop display doesn't have a wide enough gamut to cover sRGB. The only condition to be able to display an image without color drift is to have the display gamut at least as large of the colors space in which the raw image is developed. That means, to display colors correctly with sRGB the display gamut has to be at least as large as sRGB. The same is for Adobe RGB , but since the vast majority of displays aren't capable of covering 100% of the Adobe RGB color space, it is seldom used. As soon as the display gamut is inferior to the intended color space, the color rendering will be shifted.

Colour management in Faststone did not work for me. I use a wide gamut monitor and it is profiled. With Faststone it displayed very oversaturated colours despite the image being tagged and colour management being enabled in the settings.

Interesting, what I found was that I did not like the application as it was slow at responding and did not appear to display image colour as expected i.e. like a correctly colour managed application PS, LR etc.. However colour management was applied (although the implementation seemed poor!) Saving TIFF files with Prophoto and sRGB embedded resulted in the application applying correction (still not a good correction IMO) and images displaying very similar. With CMS disabled Prophoto image appears dark and unsaturated as would be expected with no management.