Color sampler tool—how to change readout from numbers to %

[RichardSwearinger]

In CS6, I was working with the color sampler tool (from the eyedropper menu) on two different pictures and something strange happened. On one of the pictures the RGB values were in numbers (218 181 157) and on the other photo they looked like they were in percentages (69 36 21) as one gets with Lightroom.

Am I correct in assuming that the numbers that look like percentages are in fact percentages?

Unfortunately, have no idea how I made the readout switch from one to the other. Is there shortcut key? Does it have to do with some setting or mode in the photograph itself?

Here are screen shots of the two windows....

[Mike_Gondek]

RGB always shows in a value of 0 to 255 for 8bit color. You must have just been over lighter colors to get all values under 100.

If it even were possible, you would see a % symbol after the number as in CMYK.

[Ronald Keller]

If you click on the eyedropper icon you can choose different readouts. Could that be it?

[JJMack]

I believe the RGB values there will always be between 0 and 255 even if you edit is 16 and 32 bit color depth.

[JJMack]

I see I was wrong again,  If you set it 32bit it shows values from 0.000 to 1.000 move the decimal point in your head for percentage. You need to right click each sampler  eyedropper default to RGB values 0-255  in the info panel to convert the numeric  0-255 value the percentage values. 0.000 to 1.000 percent values.

I just let RGB be shown in values  0-255 and remenber 128 is 50%

[Norman Sanders · Accepted solution]

These are the two color values and their swatches. Neither is a %. They are simply different colors with their respective RGB values at its current Color Profile for each.

[Bojan Živković]

Perhaps you have switched to HSB? Is that what are you looking for?

[JJMack]

Their screen capture clearly shows four color samples with RGB values which will be shown with values  in the range  0-255.  They can be converted to  percent of the values one sampler at a time.. 

The had two different  image with 4 color sample  one was a image with 4 dark colors RGB sampled the other image with bright colors sampled,   Because one had all values under 100 they mistakenly thought  the numbers to be percentages and the  Bright color samples something else.

[Norman Sanders]

If you are looking for a color relationship LAB values can help. The dark brown is

almost exactly one quarter the lightness and a few percentage points redder than the light brown.

[RichardSwearinger]

Because I use both systems, what I was hoping for was an easy way to translate from Lightroom percentages to Photoshop numbers and back again. I guess it's back to the abacus for me.

[RichardSwearinger]

Thank you for your for your quick and helpful answers. After reading through your responses I went back and looked again at the files. I was comparing skin tone patches from two different  Color Checker files but it turns out that one patch was exposed much darker than the other. At the time, they looked about equal which is just another reason to never trust your eyes.

I do trust you guys, however, so thank you for your help.