JPGs turn darker during export

[thetest2015]

Hi!

Currently I have the problem that in Ps, Lr and Capture One 20 all exported jpgs and tifs turn out darker, more contrasty and I loose detail especially in the shadow areas, when opened in the system standard apps, irfanview, chrome e.g.. Only when I open the jpg in the programs mentioned above they look correct.

Converting the image to sRGB in Photoshop did not help in any of the mentioned programs.

When open the "Save for web" (using conver to sRGB) dialog in PS they already start looking wrong, when the preview mode is set to screen. Changing it to "Use Document Profile" fixes the preview, but not the exported file.

My Windows 10 system (GTX780) is calibrated using displaycal and their profile loader. All programs are using the profile as far as I could see from checking with a blue tinted profile. The same problem arises on my Notebook (Win 10, Intel gpu), which is also calibrated with dispcal, turning it off doesn't help. All color management settings in PS are standard and can't be the problem as the behaviour seems to be system wide.

I'd be happy for any pointers where the culprit could be. The standard pointers regarding color management on other articles didn't help.

[Per Berntsen · Accepted solution]

Have you enabled color management in Irfanview?

If not, go to Options > Properties/Settings and enable it, then restart Irfanview.

Chrome is color managed out of the box, and should display the same as Photoshop and Lightroom.

If it doesn't, it is probably caused by a defective or corrupted monitor profile.

Windows 10 is known to install low quality monitor profiles from monitor manufacturers when doing updates, check that the profile you created is actually the default.

To open the color management dialog, press the Windows key + R, type colorcpl in the box, and press Enter.

If your profile is set as default, try setting the monitor profile to sRGB, and see if that fixes the issue.

If it does, try to recalibrate.

What is the make and model of your monitor?

And what calibrator do you use?

[thetest2015]

Thank you for the quick reply!

I haven't had the IrfanView cm enabled yet, unfortunately it didn't change the result.

The monitor profiles were created using DisplayCal (recent version) and an i1 Display Pro (the older Rev A). I am using their profile loader, which constantly checks if the profile is still loaded - it also shows up correctly in Windows color dialog.

Playing around with different profiles while I had irfan & ps with the same image open I noticed the following:

- When loading the standard sRGB Profile from Windows I get consistent results across both programs.

- If I then switch back to my calibrated profile (the switch is visible) they match until the moment I bring photoshop back in focus. Then something loads and it jumps back to the inconsistent result.

I'm using an Asus VN279QLB

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

"darker, more contrasty and I loose detail especially in the shadow areas, when opened in the system standard apps, irfanview, chrome e.g."

That's a very typical description of how an sRGB file looks when viewed without color management. All LCD monitors have a native dip in the shadows, which is accounted for and corrected in the monitor profile. But if the monitor profile is not used, it looks darker with loss of shadow detail.

That's confirmed here:

"When open the "Save for web" (using conver to sRGB) dialog in PS they already start looking wrong".

That's because Save For Web and Export by default are configured with disabled color management. To enable it, you need to check "embed color profile" and set preview to "use document profile". In Export they are both rolled into one, but that still doesn't help when it's off by default.

"All programs are using the profile as far as I could see from checking with a blue tinted profile."

No, they are not. This is a common misunderstanding. This is not the monitor profile, this is the calibration. Two different things. The monitor profile is a standard icc profile, used by color managed applications only. It doesn't adjust anything, it's only a description, a map. The adjustments are done by the application as it sends data to the display subsystem. The monitor profile operates at a much higher precision level than the calibration, using many more parameters. It's a standard profile conversion, just like any other profile conversion. But the application has to support it.

In short - this is just lack of standard color management.

[D Fosse]

Your second post confirms everything I said. You are not viewing in a properly color managed application. Both the document and monitor profiles are ignored and not used, because the application you're using doesn't support it.

You cannot "experiment" with profiles. Never do that. The whole concept relies on the correct profile being used. The correct profile is the one that accurately describes the color space it refers to.

Again - you are confusing monitor calibration with monitor profile.

And just in case anyone wonders, using sRGB as monitor profile cancels out all color management, so it is no surprise that it now matches a non-color managed app. If the file is sRGB, source and destination profiles are now the very same, so no profile conversion happens. That's known as a null transform - nothing happens. That's the definition of no color management. It doesn't even matter what the profile is, as long as they're the same.

[thetest2015]

Thank you for the detailed info!

I forgot about the embed profile, changing this fixes the problem inside of photoshop.

Investigating further the IrfanView settings now work too, the plugin wasn't installed... After installing it IrfanView works as expected. Afters some tweaking Firefox too. Only chrome isn't there yet. But now I at least know the root of the problem.

[D Fosse]

Glad you have your ducks in a row now 😉

I have no idea why anyone at Adobe would think that disabling color management in SFW/Export is a good idea. It has always caused an incredible amount of confusion. You expect them to match, and they don't. So people go chasing red herrings, and usually end up breaking Photoshop's color management too.

Anyway, most web browsers today have solved the problem by assigning sRGB if the profile is missing. This allows the full color management chain to operate again, because there has to be a profile at document level in order to convert into the monitor profile. Both source and destination profiles have to be present and correct, otherwise the whole process halts.

The catch in Firefox is that you have to configure this manually by setting color management to "mode 1". In the default mode 2, images without a profile are not color managed.