Bridge converting images to Grayscale when image fully desaturated

[carynorton]

In short, if I open a file in ACR and drop the saturation to 0%, when I Open that image Bridge / Photoshop Opens it as Grayscale instead of RGB. This is without hitting the "BW" button. 

If I Save instead of Open, it saves as RGB (my expected outcome). It's only when I Open that it randomly decided to open as Grayscale. I haven't found a way to adjust this behavior. 

Anybody have a suggestion? 

[gary_sc]

First off, congrats, you've discovered a very curious thing. When I first started reading your question, I was going: "Well of course it would be considered a B&W image, that's what removing the Saturations does. But then I realized that it actually changed the image's mode. 

That was curious, and I agree that it should not be doing that.

However, I'm not sure I'm following your steps to Save the image into RGB. From where are you saving? PS? ACR? What steps are you doing this?

[carynorton]

Hey Gary, glad to see a familiar person reply to my post. Ha

So the steps are as follows:

In Bridge, I open a file (Command + R) in ACR. Most of the time it's a CR3, but I tested it with a jpg too (jpg was a color image in RGB color mode and in sRGB color space). 

Once open in ACR, I pull all the saturation out, effectively making it a BW image, but I have not hit the "BW" button in the main editing area in ACR. 

From here, if I hit "Open", the image will open in Photoshop and will be in Grayscale color mode. If I hit "Save" instead, it will save to the specified location, but it will save it in RGB color mode, which is what I want. 

Is that more clear?

[gary_sc]

Hi Cary,

Well the one thing you left out was that you saved it as a something else. I saved it as a psd and that indeed did have the RGB format. (When you save it as another dng, open that dng, then open that into PS it remains as a BW images, that's what was throwing me off.

I'm stumped. Let me ask around and see what I can find. If anyone reading this knows the answer, please speak up!

[gary_sc]

Oh, let me add that I did another test: I took that psd that is an RGB image, opened up the in Photoshop.

There, all access to any saturation is gone. MAYBE, and I'm guessing here, the image is converted to B&W because any color information has been removed as it is effectively a B&W image at that point. [Note: not the best way to make a B&W image but it is what it is in that regard.]

[carynorton]

The main thing is that it's changing color mode without being asked, you know? I don't ever really use Grayscale. I work in RGB until it's done and then save a copy as CMYK if it's going to print. 

Converting to RGB isn't difficult or overly time consuming, just an unneeded step. Mild inconvenience, you know?

Thanks for your tests. Hope we find an answer. 

[carynorton]

Just a quick bump to see if anything has come up.

[gary_sc]

Nope, not that I know of.

But I have been wondering: since all color ability (Vibrance, Saturation, Hue, etc.) are gone after you have removed Saturation in the raw file, what do you do with the image in PS that requires RGB? Even after you return the image to RGB, you cannot pull any Saturation back into the image. 

Do you recolor or something?

Just curious.

[carynorton]

Various actions and plugins need RGB because of how I made them or how they're programmed. That's mostly it. But also, sometimes images in grayscale don't render right (for instance, if I text an image, it shows up as a black box instead of the image).

[gary_sc]

Thanks for the update. I'll investigate, no promises and ABSOLUTELY no time frame either way

(Sorry about that but that's the way it is.)

[TheDigitalDog]

What do mean by Grayscale instead of RGB; when you open it and examine the embedded profile, it shows what; and when you look at the color channles, are there one or three?

[gary_sc]

Andrew,

It's opening up as Grayscale, that's the issue. 

All that was done was to take the Saturation slider and shove it to the left (zero). Then click on "Open."

[TheDigitalDog]

Indeed, that's gotta be a bug. I tried it too, san's Bridge anywhere near the test. 

My Workflow Options set for ProPhoto RGB.

-100 Saturation, I end up with a grayscale document; not good. 

-99 I get ProPhoto RGB.

This makes no sense and needs to be fixed. In the meantime, the -99 Sat works kind of, sorta, 

[TheDigitalDog]

So guess what happens when I try this in Lightroom Classic. Slide Saturation to -100, Edit in Photoshop command (which is supposed to hand off rendering to ACR there): Image renders in ProPhoto RGB. 
So yeah, this is clearly a bug. Lightroom hand off to ACR, if ACR still renders from LR, works as expected. 

[jbm007]

I can confirm it's a bug Digital Dog.

[carynorton]

So this is still happening 3 years later so I'm assuming it's a feature not a bug. It sure would be nice to be able to force PS to open the file as a "Color" image, ie RGB, if it's set to Color in Raw. With Profile set to Color and the saturation at -100 it opens in grayscale despite not having Monochrone Profile selected.