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March 30, 2017
Answered

RAW colors problem

  • March 30, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 5684 views

Since a few days I have this problem with raw files. Anyone have any idea? Red go to purple and all pictures are a little bit darker.

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Correct answer D Fosse

Probably you are right and I'm tricked by the dark interface in Photoshop.

But I swear, my problem appeared recently, before everything was ok. Surely now exist a problem. Indeed  I read about Canon files open in Photoshop, but I repeat, everything was ok, with same camera, same laptop.

Jpeg come from my camera, I photographed in raw+jpeg.

Maybe you are right and the problem is GPU, but I don't know exactly what. Also I uninstalled all programs installed recently, no change.

It is possible before this problem, raw files opened in ACR were a little bit darker or brighter (don't bother me). Now, as you can see red/orange colors are affected.


paulp90612957  wrote

Jpeg come from my camera, I photographed in raw+jpeg.

Ah, OK, finally we got to the bottom of it.

Everything here is perfectly normal and working as it should.

As has been pointed out several times, the camera jpeg will not match ACR, it's not supposed to. The camera jpeg is processed in camera, by Canon's camera firmware, and represents Canon's idea of how the image should look.

In ACR you're supposed to create your own rendering. The ACR defaults are just a starting point. The rest is up to you.

There is no such thing as a "correct" or "accurate" rendering of a raw file. You can look up a large number of previous threads here concerning this.

3 replies

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 1, 2017

No wonder you have color inconsistencies when you have color management "off"!

Set it back to where it was, set color management policies to "preserve embedded profiles", and don't touch it again.

There's this idea out on the internet that turning color management off ensures color consistency. That's a complete misunderstanding. It's the opposite - color management was invented to solve these exact problems. And it does.

ssprengel
Inspiring
April 1, 2017

Turn of the GPU/Graphics-Processor in Ctrl-K setting within the plug-in. Does anything change?

If this only happens with raws, and you’re comparing with what you see in Windows Photo Viewer, then isn’t the issue merely that you’re viewing the camera JPG processing in WPV (as shown in the camera-embedded jpg preview of the raw) with the Adobe default processing? The camera-processing and Adobe-processing wouldn’t be identical, usually, so what you’re seeing may be normal.

The display profile what most of this thread is about, so far, or the GPU, is likely only the issue if you’re seeing a difference in newly-opened JPGs as well as raws.

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 1, 2017

Indeed. Are we really looking at shooting raw + jpeg here? In that case everything's normal.

OTOH if Windows Photo Viewer is showing the processed raw file, then display profile and/or GPU is the only possible explanation. Not only the most likely, but the only possible.

ssprengel
Inspiring
April 1, 2017

One of each of the side-by-side comparison shots is from Windows Photo Viewer, so while WPV is color managed on newer OSes, it would be showing the camera-embedded JPG preview or a Microsoft-raw-engine rendering, at best, compared to whatever we’re seeing in Adobe software.

So is the problem that the raw-in-Adobe and the raw-in-MS or JPG-in-MS aren’t the same? If so then that is to be expected, although you might be able to get the Adobe rendering to match the camera at little more if you set the Camera Profile to Camera Standard (or whatever Camera-centric color profile you like) instead of Adobe Standard, all in the Camera Calibration tab of the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in.

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 31, 2017

That's a defective monitor profile. Recalibrate.

Windows Photo Viewer is fully color managed, and these two should display absolutely identically. All color managed applications should always display identically (that's the whole point).

Broken monitor profiles can often affect different applications differently.

If you're not using a calibrator, you probably got a bad manufacturer profile through Windows Update. In that case replace it with sRGB IEC61966-2.1 for now (use Adobe RGB if your monitor is a wide gamut model). Relaunch all apps so that they can load the new profile at startup.

March 31, 2017

Thanks for help, but I've made the calibration and also I set up sRGB IEC61966-2.1  in Color Management. The problem still persist.

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 31, 2017

Did you relaunch both apps after changing profile?

Is this a dual display setup? There have been some reported cases where ACR uses the profile for the other (wrong) display. Try to switch main and secondary.