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Emirena
Inspiring
June 7, 2022
Answered

what on earth does windows 10 do to color profiles?

  • June 7, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 5695 views

I noticed this when trying to set night photos as deesktop backgrounds.

When I open JPGs in windows "photo" app they appear normal (brightness level as I wish). When I hit "edit" in this app, they darken significantly.

When I open them in photoshop, they appear normally (as I wish and as in windows preview).

Same phenomenon occurs when I try to set them as my desktop background: they appear much more dark than I wish, untrue to preview image (see screenshot comparisons).

Note, even when I open these screenshots after taking them, they appear much brighter when viewed as new JPG screenshot files than they did on screen when I took them.

I tried saving the original file (IMGP4677-* variants attached) with various assigned color profiles, and no difference is seen anywhere except within the windows photo preview.

Same darkening issue and untrue screenshot brightness phenomenon occurs.

I am using a microsoft surface laptop connected to a Dell ultrasharp monitor (displays "generic PNP monitor" under color profile in windows display settings?).

Can someone help me regain my sanity and tell me what's wrong with my color profiles?

I normally save every JPG as embedded - SRGB profile. I never noticed this before, and it doesn't seem to be occuring on photos from my old camera or that were edited in older versions of photoshop as opposed to new lightroom mobile and photoshop camera raw 14.3. (imgp4677.jpg contained LR custom masks and brightness edits to bring up the foreground significantly without killing the night sky black level totally).

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer D Fosse

    Convert the image to your monitor profile. Then the numbers will be in your monitor color space and it will display correctly on your monitor (but nowhere else!)

     

    That answers your question and the thread can be closed.

     

    I need to emphasize that this is not something you normally want to do. It breaks color management everytwhere else. But if it's important to have a desktop image correctly displayed, this is how you do it.

    2 replies

    Bob_Hallam
    Bob_Hallam
    Legend
    June 8, 2022

    Sadly Windows 10 and its previous iterations are not 100% color-managed like the Mac OS.  Sure it would be an average user's expectation, but the WCS team cannot do it all and have somewhat limited access to the entire OS. If your expectations haven't been managed by this comment and you want the whole OS to be color managed, then buy a Mac.  They are the best tools for color at present.  

    ICC programmer and developer, Photographer, artist and color management expert, Print standards and process expert.
    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 8, 2022

    The whole operating system is not color managed on Mac. If that was true, you wouldn't need application color management at all, you could use all non-color managed software. Obviously you can't do that. What is true is that more of the native applications - if you use them! - are color managed.

     

    If you gather some statistics over color management bugs and problems here in the forum, you will see that MacOS certainly does no better. I'd say quite the opposite. Almost all problems on Windows are bad monitor profiles from the monitor manufacturers, which is entirely outside Microsoft's control. Other than that Windows color management is extremely reliable and robust.

     

    As photographer at an art museum, my whole job relies on critically accurate color. This is what I work with every day.

      TheDigitalDog
      TheDigitalDog
      Inspiring
      June 8, 2022

      https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2313/_index.html

      ColorSync is the color management system provided in OS X. It is the OS X implementation of the International Color Consortium (ICC) specification, providing system-level color management of images, documents, and devices. ColorSync consists of several parts as shown in Figure 5.

      Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
        D Fosse
        Community Expert
        D FosseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        June 7, 2022

        The Windows desktop is not color managed. It ignores the embedded document profile, and it ignores your monitor profile. It just sends the RGB numbers straight to screen.

         

        Windows Photos recently (and silently) got full color management, and the new versions should display correctly and 100% identically to Photoshop.

         

        The difference is often very obvious in predominantly dark images. Most LCD displays have a native dip in the shadows, making shadows appear darker than they really are. The monitor profile accounts for this (since it's based on actual measurement), and a color managed application will display all shadows correctly and lighter.

          E
          EmirenaAuthor
          Inspiring
          June 11, 2022

          what's the best way for me to set a desktop background image with color as seen in photoshop or windows Photos, if possible at all, then? I've saved and re-saved with "do not color manage" and other settings and still no dice.

          I forgot that although straight bitmaps, JPGs still display differently depending on color profiles. I first encountered this when posting camera photos set to adobe RGB to instagram - they all appeared faded. I set my camera and photoshop export settings to sRGB and fixed that.

          Is there a way to save the correct appearance i want for desktop background images?

          D Fosse
          Community Expert
          D FosseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
          Community Expert
          June 11, 2022

          Convert the image to your monitor profile. Then the numbers will be in your monitor color space and it will display correctly on your monitor (but nowhere else!)

           

          That answers your question and the thread can be closed.

           

          I need to emphasize that this is not something you normally want to do. It breaks color management everytwhere else. But if it's important to have a desktop image correctly displayed, this is how you do it.

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