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holapinata
Participating Frequently
June 12, 2017
Question

Different representations of colours between software

  • June 12, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 3016 views

Hi there!

I hope someone can help me out, because I'm a bit puzzled. I got two colour calibrated pc's (Datacolor Spyder), and since recently I notice that between different software, photos are rendered with different saturation/contrast levels.

So I noticed, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Chrome, seem to display photos pretty much indistinguishable similar. But then Edge and the default Windows Photos app and Faststone, display the photos all a bit more saturated/contrasty.

This happens on two machines, both Windows 10. Both calibrated, and even same type monitors. And I do export photos with the sRGB profile. Those JPG's are displayed in Photoshop quite accurately the same as the RAW's in Lightroom, but then different in other APPS, besides Chrome....

I'm quite lost with this, and don't know what to trust anymore..

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Dennis

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2 replies

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holapinataAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 12, 2017

I'm still confused that some photo viewers ignore sRGB. It just doesn't make sense to me.

As far as I remember from a time when I really got into this stuff, I understood that the display profile is sort of the final universal "translation" of colours to the display. So that applications don't "use" the display profile one-on-one. As I've read in the past, whether you're working with ProPhoto (Lightroom), or AdobeRGB (within Photoshop for instance), when your system is calibrated, it still gets translated to a "universal" rendering of colours, that is within (a certain percentage of) sRGB (if your monitor isn't wide gamut). So I'm still confused with what's happening here, since I'd like to post process in a way in Lightroom and Photoshop, so that the exported JPG (with sRGB) is at least on my machine displayed similar in Edge or the Photos app. That way I trust there's a higher chance my photos are displayed reasonably similar on other people's systems.

I feel that these apps, Photos, Faststone, Edge, simply ignore the sRGB color profile that's attached to the exported JPG? Since when I open the JPG back into Photoshop, it's displayed the same as the RAW file (which renders in ProPhoto) in Lightroom...

Per Berntsen
Community Expert
Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 12, 2017

So I'm still confused with what's happening here, since I'd like to post process in a way in Lightroom and Photoshop, so that the exported JPG (with sRGB) is at least on my machine displayed similar in Edge or the Photos app. That way I trust there's a higher chance my photos are displayed reasonably similar on other people's systems.

Since it appears that you have a wide gamut monitor, there is no way you can make your photos appear correct in non-color managed apps like Edge or Photos. And there is nothing you can do to increase the likelihood of your work displaying correctly on other people's monitors, apart from working with a calibrated display and making sure that images have the sRGB profile embedded.

What you can do is to encourage users to use only color managed apps to view your work - practically all web browsers except Edge and Internet Explorer will display correctly, as long as the profile is embedded.

The free Irfanview image viewer is color managed (must be turned on under Settings).

Adobe Bridge is color managed, and I think it is a free download, even you don't have a Creative Cloud subscription.

The latest version (20) of ACDSee is also color managed, not free. though.

I feel that these apps, Photos, Faststone, Edge, simply ignore the sRGB color profile that's attached to the exported JPG?

The way I understand this, they may or may not ignore the sRGB profile, but the important thing is that they do not use the monitor profile. For the image to display correctly, the sRGB profile must be embedded and the application must convert the image from the source profile (sRGB) into the monitor profile. D Fosse​ can explain this better and more correctly than I can.

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holapinataAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 12, 2017

Thanks Per, for your detailed explaination.

I don't have a wide gamut monitor though...  It's "just" sRGB.

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
June 12, 2017

Some programs, including LR and Photoshop, are "color-managed", meaning they use the color profile assigned to your display by the calibrator to produce accurate colors.  Other programs, including Windows Photos and Faststone, are not color-managed and  ignore the profile assigned by the calibrator, and they can render colors significantly different from color-managed programs, especially on wide-gamut displays.

Your only option is to avoid the non-color-managed programs.

    H
    holapinataAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 12, 2017

    Thanks so much for you reply. I had a feeling this was the case, but the tricky thing is, that some clients view my work on non color managed software, which then gives a representation that's quite off...

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