Inspiring

Question

Images with large color profile looks with less contrast in Photoshop after exported in Phocus software.

Forum|Forum|6 days ago
January 27, 2026
4 replies
62 views

Hello,

I have a "problem" opening my 16 bits Tiff files in Photoshop, exported from Hasselblad .3f files in Phocus software. If I export my files in Phocus, in a large color profile like Prophoto RGB, open this 16 bits TIFF in photoshop, this images have much less contrast then in Phocus. Colors look the same but contrast is very different. But if I export in Adobe RGB in Phocus, I can see my images in Photoshop exactly like I can see in Phocus, no problem, as if I open in others applications like Preview (non color manage apps), same image as in Phocus. My monitor is calibrated, and I tried with other monitor profiles but still the same loss of contrast. I have turn off “precise color management for HDR displays” in Technology Previews and use an iMac 27”, latest Photoshop. Same thing happen in my laptop (MacBook Air) with older Photoshop version. I am doing something wrong?

Thank you!

Tiago Garcia

D Fosse

Community Expert

Two things to try:

One, disable “use graphics processor” in PS settings.

Two, in PS color settings, switch from Adobe Color Engine to Apple Color Engine. There’s been a long running issue in MacOS where the black point under some circumstances is incorrectly represented with the Adobe color engine.

If either of these seem to make the difference go away, report it to Apple as a bug.

Tiago Mota GarciaAuthor

Inspiring

When disable “use graphics processor” in PS and then switch from Adobe Color Engine to Apple Color Engine, both images look equal, no difference, but the image in AdobeRGB gets more “flat”, like the one in ProPhotoRGB! With this settings both images look the same but more flat then the one I saw and exported from Phocus.

E

ExUSA

Legend

Try switching to the built-in Apple display profile (which should actually be quite close to the generated profile, they are fairly accurate) and see if this continues. That would determine if its a bad profile.

Tiago Mota GarciaAuthor

Inspiring

Already do that, tried with built-in Apple display profile, and in different monitors, still the same flat image in ProphotoRGB.

Tiago Mota GarciaAuthor

Inspiring

Thank you both for your help!

@creative explorer, I understand… to take fully advantage of these .3fr files for printing I would like to use large profiles in 16 bit, I was expecting some difference in part because of gamma difference in Adobe RGB and ProphotoRGB, but was not expecting such a “flat” image. Maybe I will do that, use Adobe RGB or make a little more editing in Prophoto RGB to get a wide colour range.

On the other hand, @D Fosse, in the beginning I was thinking as you said, “In a color managed application, there is no interpretation of the color space. It should be reproduced correctly in both applications, and if both are correct, they are identical.” So, I recalibrated my monitor with a new profile and test in another computer, results are the same, a much more flat image in ProphotoRGB. That's why I thought I was doing something wrong! I believe a color managed application, even with gamma difference in Adobe RGB and ProphotoRGB, the application should “read” this profiles and with the monitor profile it should be very approximated. Cant understand this difference.

Thanks!

D Fosse

Community Expert

What calibrator are you using?

No, there should not be any difference. If there is, something’s wrong.

Tiago Mota GarciaAuthor

Inspiring

My calibrator is a Spyder 5 Elite. I tried with other generic monitor profile, tried in other computer, laptop with different profiles and result is always the same. I would expect some differences if I was converting from a large color gamut profile in other smaller, but in this case I can not understand! Maybe I am wrong but I am thinking about Phocus export method, the flat images make me thinking about something like black point compensation. The result is like I select Levels tool and move left slider 5 steps or more to the right, ending in a much more flat image.

creative explorer

Community Expert

@Tiago Mota Garcia Honestly, you aren't doing anything "wrong" at all. You are following a high-end, professional workflow by staying in a wide-gamut 16-bit space. It’s how Hasselblad .3f files in Phocus and Photoshop interpret the "mid-tones" of the ProPhoto RGB color space differently.

I would leave it as is, but if you wanted to try by using Adobe RGB, you get a Gamma 2.2 file that looks identical in Phocus, Photoshop, and Preview, avoiding this "flat contrast" headache entirely.

m

D Fosse

Community Expert

In a color managed application, there is no interpretation of the color space. It should be reproduced correctly in both applications, and if both are correct, they are identical. If they are not identical, at least one of them is wrong.

In the same way, two different color spaces should also always display identically, save for minimal gamut differences that will only be visible where monitor gamut is bigger than document profile gamut. That is not the case for ProPhoto.

In most cases, a symptom like this indicates a broken or incorrect monitor profile, and that’s my bet here. What calibrator are you using? Note that if your calibrator makes LUT-(table-)based monitor profiles (some do by default), that is not well supported in MacOS and you should always use matrix-based profiles.

This kind of thing tends to show up with a large color space like ProPhoto because remapping such a huge color space down into the much smaller monitor color space will magnify small errors. Although it all ends up in the same monitor profile, the source color spaces are different, and so the conversion, the math, is different. It’s a different conversion.

As another side to the same coin, it could be a GPU bug. The conversion into the monitor profile is executed in the GPU, so a problem in one can cause the other to choke and vice versa. To test this, try to disable the GPU in Photoshop settings, and see if there is still a difference (this shifts display color management back to the CPU in the traditional way).

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

I agree with @D Fosse with an embedded ICC colour profile, no matter the size of the colourspace, the same file viewed in two colour managed applications should look the same. I too am wondering about a GPU bug which is perhaps affecting Photoshop and not Phocus.

@Tiago Mota Garcia please let us know here when you find a fix, as this is a puzzling situation

neil barstow colourmanagement - adobe forum volunteer,

colourmanagement consultant & co-author of 'getting colour right'

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