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CS3 screen color calibration quandry
jfriend
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I've got a CS3 color calibration mystery. Ihope someone can shed some light on. I tried over at dpreview and they have been no help (lots and lots of incorrect advice being shared).
For multiple years, I've been happily calibrating my CRT display with Eye-One display and I've had very good luck with CS3 looking just like my printer and for an sRGB image, Firefox and IE look pretty much the same too.
Then, my video card died so I got a new video card. Installed the new card, installed the new drivers and calibrated my screen again with Eye-One display.
Now, I've got a weird situation where the colors in CS3 for an sRGB image don't look the same as IE, Firefox, Powerpoint, Word or Opera. And, it's IE, Firefox, etc... that look similar to my home printer.
In an interesting clue, if I soft proof to my monitor profile, then CS3 looks identical to the others. If I assign the monitor profile to my sRGB image, then CS3 looks identical to the others. As a work-around, I am using CS3 by soft proofing to my monitor profile, but I have to remember to do that on every single image I open and that's certainly not a lasting solution.
To my surprise, Bridge and ACR also look like Firefox and IE, not like Photoshop. While Photoshop is clearly more capable of doing advanced color calibration and profiles, it appears that it is off somehow. It's almost as if something is double applying my screen calibration and I have to "undo" one level of that by assigning the profile in CS3 to see normal colors.
The temptation is to say that maybe CS3 is right and everything else is wrong, but I'm having a pretty hard time figuring out how that could be and how I would fix everything else if that was the case.
Anyone have any idea what is happening here or how to correct this situation.
For multiple years, I've been happily calibrating my CRT display with Eye-One display and I've had very good luck with CS3 looking just like my printer and for an sRGB image, Firefox and IE look pretty much the same too.
Then, my video card died so I got a new video card. Installed the new card, installed the new drivers and calibrated my screen again with Eye-One display.
Now, I've got a weird situation where the colors in CS3 for an sRGB image don't look the same as IE, Firefox, Powerpoint, Word or Opera. And, it's IE, Firefox, etc... that look similar to my home printer.
In an interesting clue, if I soft proof to my monitor profile, then CS3 looks identical to the others. If I assign the monitor profile to my sRGB image, then CS3 looks identical to the others. As a work-around, I am using CS3 by soft proofing to my monitor profile, but I have to remember to do that on every single image I open and that's certainly not a lasting solution.
To my surprise, Bridge and ACR also look like Firefox and IE, not like Photoshop. While Photoshop is clearly more capable of doing advanced color calibration and profiles, it appears that it is off somehow. It's almost as if something is double applying my screen calibration and I have to "undo" one level of that by assigning the profile in CS3 to see normal colors.
The temptation is to say that maybe CS3 is right and everything else is wrong, but I'm having a pretty hard time figuring out how that could be and how I would fix everything else if that was the case.
Anyone have any idea what is happening here or how to correct this situation.
--John
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Those images are not color managed in the applications you mentioned expect for Photoshop. Photoshop IS showing you the previews correctly, the others are not (even if they match, even though you profiled the display).
In a color managed application like Photoshop, its looking at the document color space (sRGB in this example) AND the display profile to produce the correct color previews from those RGB numbers. In a non color managed application (all the ones you mention), the RGB numbers get sent directly to the display. The applications have no idea you're using sRGB or have no idea about the display profile. Those previews are incorrect. There's nothing you can about this. Using sRGB does NOT ensure all applications preview the same color. The only way that can happen is when other applications act smartly about color as Photoshop does. An example would be the Safari web browser which on Windows is a beta. It will preview the sRGB images the same as Photoshop.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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Thanks for the thoughts. Three questions:
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#1. You need a printer profile and you need to soft proof with that in Photoshop before you can even decide if the two match. Are you doing this? You can't look at sRGB and assume a print will look this way, you're not sending the sRGB data to an sRGB output device (the only sRGB output device is a display). If they've matched, its pure luck.
#2. Photoshop can act dumb and match the other applications, you did that when you soft proofed using Monitor RGB. That Photoshop is now wrong about the color numbers and matches the other applications isn't a fix (there is no fix for non color managed applications other than making them color managed).
#3. Since (nearly all) web browsers are not color managed, you can view images in Photoshop as they will appear there (you did this) but no one else will necessarily see the previews this way. You have a specific display behavior that's happening in such an application without color management. That means it may look one way to you, different from any other user on another system.
The entire goal of color management is to make one set of RGB or CMYK numbers produce the same color appearance for many users working with all kinds of different equipment. If you work with color numbers outside of color management aware applications, there's no guarantee they will produce the same color appearance over differing devices. For that, you need color management!
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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I do not have a printer profile for this printer. It's quite old (though still produces very nice prints). I have an Epson 3800 on order and I will set it up with proper profiles for that. My understanding with soft proofing (and my experience in using it with profiles for online printing services) is that if you are on a properly calibrated screen and your printer is cable of producing the range of colors in your document, you should not see a significant shift in colors when you soft proof. My understanding and experience is that soft proofing is most useful when you need to see what is going to happen to colors that are out of gamut or nearly out of gamut and thus must get mapped to something that is in gamut. Colors that are centered in the gamut should not undergo much at all in the way of change. Is this not right? For example, should anyone see a significant shift in normal causassian skin tone when they soft proof?
Here is a simple observation from my system. In an sRGB document I have, what Photoshop normally shows on my calibrated screen (with no soft proofing) for skin tone is way different than what prints on my printer or what shows on the web as viewed in three different computers I've looked at. Are you sure that there's no possible way that some combination of mis-configurations between my screen calibration, my video card drivers, and Windows could have conspired to make Photoshop be the one that's off here. I'm not saying it's Photoshop's fault, but this sure smells like there's some double correction going on here somehow that causes Photoshop to be off. I've read a bunch of stuff I found in Google and there are reports of things like double LUT loading (two separate pieces of software both trying to load correction values into the LUT) that can lead to weird behaviors like this.
I thought that one of the outcomes of calibrating your monitor was that the video card's LUT is loaded with new values that cause it to render predictable colors such that when a non-color-managed application sends it an sRGB value of (20,100,200), that value renders as a predictable color according to the sRGB standard. Is that not one of the goals of calibrating your monitor? Obviously Photoshop (being a color-managed-app) is capable of much, much more than that since it can use other color spaces, can show you how your document will render in other color spaces, can convert between color spaces with rendering intents, etc... But if you have a properly calibrated and configured system, shouldn't an sRGB value of (20,100,200) render the same in both a color-managed and non-color-managed application?
What exactly does a color-managed-application (Photoshop) do when displaying an sRGB document on screen that the browser does not? If you have a pixel with an sRGB value of (20,100,200) and Photoshop wants to send it to the screen (with no soft proofing turned on), what does Photoshop send to the video card that's different than a non-color-managed web browser? What information from my system is it using to decide how to change that value before sending it to my screen. I'm hoping there are clues here that can tell me what Photoshop is looking at in my system that might be mis-configured or is somehow being double corrected.
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I don't know how to define significant or insignificant shift. I can tell you that the dynamic range of a display far, far exceeds that of any print. You'll be lucky to get something more than 300:1 if that! If you setup the soft proof correctly, if you actually simulate the black of the colorant and the white of the paper, its often pretty significant. And the fact is, there's no closer way to simulate the print onto the display (or Adobe would be doing that). There's no way an sRGB image on any calibrated display will soft proof as closely to a print than having the printer profile (a good one), setting up the soft proof correctly and viewing the print with these both in mind. Again, there's no such thing as an sRGB printer.
Gamut is only one part of soft proofing.
But it IS soft proofing! You can't turn of color management in Photoshop. Its soft proofing based on an sRGB device (if the document is in sRGB), and previewing correctly on your display because of the display profile. You're just not soft proofing to the other output device!
Photoshop is doing everything correctly. The other applications are not. Get a Mac <g> sorry but all applications at least play by the same rules here.
Photoshop does it right. Download Safari and open an image (sRGB) and examine the preview at the same 100% zoom ratio in Photoshop. They match.
No, that's not's whats happening. In fact, the LUT can be totally null and you can (and often should) profile this way. Its the profile that is key here. The LUTs can be totally linear for best output on most LCDs. Its the profile that tells the color management system how to preview the numbers.
You calibrate your display because its an unstable output device. You want the behavior to be the same everytime you use it. But color management doesn't care about this, it cares about how devices behave described by a profile. The profile is what isn't being used in non ICC aware applications (nor do they know squat about the document color space, they see everything as sRGB or monitor RGB). As long as the profile describes the current behavior of the display, assuming the behavior isn't totally screwed, you'll get correct color appearance because of this profile.
Its always soft proofing. You can tell it to soft proof based on an sRGB output device (a CRT display). You can tell it to show you how it would look in a dumb non ICC aware application like your web browser but ONLY ON YOUR machine (not anyone else). It can show you what the sRGB numbers will look like when you convert them for your printer and paper.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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I'm talking about the "soft proof" feature in Photoshop that you turn on or off with the View/Proof Colors menu item in the Windows version of CS3. I was describing what happens when that is on or off. I'm trying to describe specific experiments and observations and figure out what is happening from that. I wasn't implying that I am turning color management off in Photoshop.
I guess you've reached the conclusion that there's no possible mis-configuration of my system or the third party software I use for screen calibration and video sub-system that could cause Photoshop to be wrong. I'm not ready to 100% believe that.
I will download Safari and try it and see how it compares (it will be the fourth browser on this system). What are some other typical color managed applications in the Windows world that I could also compare? Any that ship with Windows or that are freely available?
OK, but something related to my calibration is significantly affecting how non-color-managed apps display on my screen. I can see it kick in at a certain point in the boot process just in the way the Windows desktop displays. I guess I could verify that it's the Eye-One software by disabling it from the boot process and seeing that the screen doesn't change appearance during the boot process when that's removed, but I was assuming that's what it was.
Next step for me, see how Safari behaves.
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John, just want you to know you're not alone. I've had this question for over a year now and still don't understand the answer. While the referenced thread talks about the Huey, I've switched to the Eye One Display 2 and still have the same issue.
I feel like I'm a pretty smart guy. But I can't get through my thick head what Andrew is saying. I too feel like the non-soft proof display in PS should be identical to the monitor soft-proof display on a calibrated monitor operating with a proper profile. I think we both have the same goal: We want to edit in PS, LR, Etc. so that we see on our displays exactly the colors someone else would see in a non-color-managed application, on a calibrated display, in an image with an sRGB profile.
I'm going to hang on this thread by pins and needles in the hopes I'll finally understand this conundrum.
www.ackersphotography.com
Thanks for the support Ben. It sounds like we're similarly smart guys wondering why this is so messed up. I suspect that Andrew is right that the two will never be perfectly identical even for sRGB images, but I'm also quite sure that something is wrong with my system when they are as massively different as I see in my system right now. For an AdobeRGB image or a ProPhotoRGB image, I get the big difference. But for an sRGB image, it seems like it ought to be possible to configure my system properly and then adjust it in Photoshop in a way that is both technically correct for color-managed display and will display with reasonable colors in a non-color-managed browser on a properly calibrated display. If not, how does one ever hope to prepare something for web display?
In an interesting development, I see that color management is coming to Firefox 3. Now, we just need IE to get with the program and then get the whole world to upgrade. Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel (though many years away).
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Non ICC aware application.
Document is sRGB (R125/G98/B23) to the display you get (R125/G98/B23)
ICC Aware doc:
Document is sRGB (R125/G98/B23) and this color space is defined plus the RGB values are going through the display profile. You do NOT get (R125/G98/B23) because you need to color manage the data for proper previewing .
Use the Assign Profile command, load different profiles and look at the numbers. They don't change. But the color appearance does. That's what we need here (color management) being a set of RGB values that preview as they should be previewed. To do so, you need the profile of the display.
Non ICC aware applications don't do this.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Thank you for the simple example that we can build on. Maybe this will help clarify things for me.
If all that happens is that you make a profile that characterizes a given device and you give that to Photoshop, I completely understand your example. That is easy for me to understand is what happens with printer profiles. The profiling process just measures the output results and reports back in a profile. The output device itself isn't changed at all. It isn't "calibrated" at all by the profiling process - it's just characterized so that color-managed things using that device can figure out how to do the right thing when using it.
What I don't understand is what is happening when Eye-One Display "calibrates my display". I thought it was measuring the default color rendering of the display and then loading some appropriate changes into the video card so that the default rendering of the display was much closer to the expected rendering: so that (R125/G98/B23) would render as it is supposed to according to the sRGB standard, even in a non-color-managed app.
I definitely see a shift in monitor colors happen when the eye-one software loads upon boot so something related to this is happening. I thought the purpose of that shift was to "fix" my monitor so a dumb non-color-managed application dumping sRGB values directly to the display would get reasonable results (yes, maybe not perfect, but reasonable).
The process you described in your simple explanation does not include this step of "calibration" at all. What you describe is a process that would produce a "profile" that Photoshop could use in order to mess with the numbers it sends to the video card in order to try to get the screen to end up with the right colors. In essence, it would apply error correction to the document RGB numbers such that when it sent the new numbers to the screen, the screen would end up with a proper color display. That sounds like what you would do if you had a profiled, but not calibrated display.
If that's the way the world works, then I'm puzzled about what the big color shift is that I see in my monitor during boot process and I guess my only solution is to throw away my monitor and get a new one that has a default rendering that's much closer to correctness.
I thought the purpose of calibrating my display was to "calibrate" my display. Measure it's default behavior, then apply corrections at the video card level so when a straight sRGB value is sent to the video card, it renders somewhat close to what that value is supposed to be. If it could indeed do that, then shouldn't it be possible to generate results that were very close for sRGB documents in both color-managed and non-color-managed apps.
Is it at all possible that my problem is that my screen has been both profiled and calibrated. The calibration has attempted to apply "fixes" at the video card level, but Photoshop doesn't realize that and thinks the performance of my monitor is the uncorrected "profile". Thus, it is overcorrecting things?
Or, does Eye-One Display, measure things, then apply some corrections to the video card, then profile the result which Photoshop then uses. And, the reason I see a big discrepancy between color-managed and non-color-managed display is because even my "fixed" display is pretty far off so Photoshop still has a lot of correcting to do?
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There is no default calibration. Out of the box, the same make and model may vary wildly even when set to factory defaults (although this should level the playing field per model). The only way a fixed set of RGB and CMYK numbers can preview correctly is for the software to understand the scale of the numbers (R12/B87/G255 is a different color in sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), Scanner RGB or your printer RGB), and the profile that defines the display (output device).
Loading LUTs into the video card isnt' a good fix. For one, most are using 8-bit systems which cause banding. Unless you know you purchased a high bit display (high bit in that its altering the curves with more than 8-bits per color INSIDE the unit AND leaving the LUTs linear), best to leave the unit at factory default and ONLY adjust the brightness for calibration. Trick is finding what button actually affects this (Apple displays are smart, that's the only button they provide and for good reason).
If you have a lower end LCD, ask to calibrate at native gamma and white point, leaving the LUTs close to if not totally linear.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
As for the inconsistent colors between photoshop and other programs, what about:
1) Leaving EyeOne activated on startup, but in the windows display settings, replace the monitor-profile with sRGB. Photoshop will then not use the monitor-profile for correctiong the output on the monitor, but EyeOne does that instead with LUT in the video card.
2) Deactivate the EyeOne boot program and have photoshop use the generated monitor-profile for output. Photoshop should then be right and there should be no banding but other programs dont show the right colors.
I'm not sure if that will work, but perhaps its worth trying.
Kristof
If you set the display so no LUTs are affecting it, then profile the display, this is all moot. The key is the profile. Displays which allow internal high bit corrections like my NEC 2690 leave the LUT totally linear, there's nothing to load.
Nothing will fix this issue! Photoshop always uses a profile to produce a preview, you can't not do this! The profile assumes a certain fixed behavior (that's why we calibrate). Not having that invoked doesn't do anything but make the Photoshop preview wrong and doesn't make the non ICC aware preview correct (that's not possible).
There is no fix for this other than use all ICC aware applications to preview the same numbers.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
www.ackersphotography.com
No! It takes the RGB values and sends them directly to the display. You're getting Raw RGB values without the profile being used (Photoshop 4 and earlier).
Every user who calibrates their displays to the same calibration will still have different profiles since these displasy DO NOT all behave identically. If they did, (and they didn't alter their behavior) we'd have little reason to calibrate and profile them. The fact is, they are all over the place in terms of color appearance.
Walk into Circuit City and look at all the TV's getting the same RGB values. Do they all look the same? Nope. Should they? Well ideally yes.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Yes, I understand why each monitor has its own profile. So, maybe what I need to focus on here is calibration.
If my editing is geared toward web display, shouldn't I be calibrating my monitor to the sRGB color space since most consumer monitors are targeted toward the sRGB color space (broad generalization)? Does that question even make sense?
www.ackersphotography.com
No, sRGB the working space in which your color numbers reside (the color space) is totally separate from the display. You're confusing the RGB numbers in a document and their scale to the RGB numbers getting sent to the display which is going to be different SO you can get a match.
There's NOTHING you can do about this issue with non ICC aware applications. ALL ICC aware applications do this previewing correctly. They know what sRGB is. They know what each users display profile means. That allows them to show all users the sRGB numbers correctly and the same way.
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Now, I'm even further confused. I'm really not trying to cause trouble, I just want consistent color. Any ideas on this one?
New computer running Windows Vista. New video card. New monitor (an HP LP3065 30" flat screen). I install Photoshop, Firefox and Safari - brand new installations of each. Haven't calibrated the monitor yet, but I don't think that matters for this test since I'm not comparing to an outside device, just comparing different pieces of software on the same computer.
I open an sRGB JPEG in Photoshop right next to the same sRGB JPEG in Safari. The two don't look anything close to the same. The Safari version looks much redder. Further, the Firefox version looks the same as the Safari version. It's as if the Safari version isn't being color-managed.
As a test, if I assign the monitor profile to the image in Photoshop, it suddenly looks the same as Safari. The monitor profile is HP's default profile (since I haven't generated one myself yet, but I did install the HP software that came with the monitor and it installed a profile).
My test image is this: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/215783023-O.jpg.
Any ideas what's happening now?
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Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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Wow, this is agonizing. It is almost enough to drive a 20 year Windows veteran to get a Mac! Safari for Windows is indeed color managed. It's pretty easy to prove it is in this page because it displays all three versions of the image the same (sRGB, AdobeRGB and AppleRGB) while Firefox shows all three of them as different.
I've now profiled and calibrated my monitor and there was almost no change in appearance which I guess just means that "out of the box", it's pretty good. The calibration graph in Eye-One shows almost no deviation.
Unfortunately, I still get the same difference between Photoshop and Safari/Firefox for an sRGB image. The browsers are much redder. On a few quick test prints (nothing sophisticated), Photoshop seems to match the test prints pretty good so that's at least a good starting point. It is a bit agonizing that I can't get a color-managed browser to match Photoshop on a brand new system with a high quality monitor.
I expect I'm not the only one who has had this problem so I'll have to do some more Googling to try to look for ideas.
For those lurking on this thread (I know you already know this stuff Andrew), this is a useful page to check out and see the difference between images in different color profiles nin browsers. It's particularly useful when you can have both Firefox/IE and Safari up on screen so you can see how a color managed browser handles it differently. Sure enough Safari renders all three versions of the image the same and they all look different in Firefox.
I wish I had some other color-managed applications that I could add to the comparison matrix. If Safari matched Photoshop, I'd chalk up the Firefox difference to lack of color management, but it appears that there's something else going on somewhere that is throwing things off.
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That's what I did. The Safari rendered images are redder than Photoshop rendered images and, for sRGB images, Safari looks the same as Firefox.
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The document has an embedded profile?
On the Mac, open in both produces the same color appearance (note, you need both zoom ratio's to be the same, ideally 100%).
Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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The history of this image is that I shot it in RAW last night, opened it in ACR, tweaked it slightly, then with ACR set to sRGB, did Open Image to open it in Photoshop, then saved it as a JPEG (using Save As, not Save for Web). I then made another version that fits on my screen at 100% by just doing Image/Resize. Here's the full size JPEG I'm looking at: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/215783023-O.jpg. And, here's a reduced size version of it that fits on my screen at 100%: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/photos/215937943-O.jpg.
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Author "Color Management for Photographers"
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OK, I think I've reached the end of my road for now. According to this thread on an Apple support forum, Safari for Windows properly reads the document profile, but it converts it to sRGB and sends that to the screen. It does not use your monitor profile which Photoshop does. Thus, if your monitor profile is a bit different than sRGB, you see differences in the two apps even though Safari "claims" to be color managed.
Also, this explains why (for an sRGB image), I get the same result in Safari as in Firefox. Firefox takes an sRGB image and sends it to the screen. Safari takes an sRGB image (converts to sRGB, which is noop for an image that is already in sRGB) and sends it to the screen. You get the same thing. Photoshop, on the other hand, takes an sRGB image and converts it for proper display on a device with the monitor profile (not sRGB), thus giving a different result (which should be technically correct).
So, Safari for Windows is only half color managed. It reads document profiles, but converts them all to sRGB, ignoring your monitor profile.
OK, I'm ready to just believe in Photoshop and ignore my web display. Not even Safari has gotten that right yet on Windows. I can only hope that, since Safari is still Beta, maybe Apple will fix that.
Thanks for following along with me Andrew on this journey. I've learned a bunch.
EDIT: Here's yet another confirmation of what Safari for Windows is doing.
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Apple just recently released Safari 3.0.4 beta and 'lo and behold, it now looks identical to Photoshop. Though I can't find it anywhere in the release notes, they must now be paying attention to the monitor profile. Puzzle solved.
I can now take an image that clearly shows different in CS3 when compared to Firefox and Safari 3.0.3, then upgrade to 3.0.4 and the same document now looks identical in CS3 and Safari (but still different in Firefox). I can even convert that same document to ProPhotoRGB (no visible change in CS3) and it still looks identical in Safari and CS3. The ProPhotoRGB version looks extremely different in Firefox as expected.
This has been confirmed by at least one other user in an Apple Support forum in this thread. If you want a color managed browser, use Safari.
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