Colour space / Colour profile questions

[Fred Pedersen]

Have experienced some issues recently. I have been using a EIZO Colour Edge monitor calibrated using a Datacolor SpyderX Elite: When I save Tiffs/Jpgs with sRGB profiles embedded from Photoshop they look wildly different when viewed in Photoshop and the MacOs 'Preview' app or uploaded to the web on the monitor (with the above mentioned calibrated display profile). In the 'Preview' app and on the web the images looks a bit darker/contrasty and there is loss of detail in the darker areas. On the laptop screen (disconnected from external display) it is the same when using a Datacolor generated profile for it, but when using the generic display profile for the laptop the two images appear identical when viewed in Photoshop and Preview simultaneously. On the external monitor I can get the same image to look very similar when selecting the display profile sRGB for the external display. I will attach some screenshots in cast that helps to understand the situation. My quandary is if an expensive external display is really that useful for editing images that are passed on to clients as JPGs with sRGB colour profiles? Would it make most sense to just set the display to sRGB colour from the beginning of the editing process? If so does it not seem to make calibrating the display at bit less necessary? Or is there a way to using the calibration tool and external display to get better sRGB Jpgs? The attached images are composites of multiple exposures (.dng files stacked in Lightroom and trasferred to Photoshop via the 'Edit in Photoshop' function) in order to capture detail in the shadows as well as the highlights.

Many thanks in advance.

[Per Berntsen]

When two color managed applications don't match, it's almost always caused by a defective or incompatible monitor profile. If setting the monitor profile to sRGB fixes the issue, this confirms that your monitor profile is at fault.

Try to recalibrate, and make sure to create a matrix based (not table based/LUT), version 2 (not version 4) icc profile.

Using a table based and/or version 4 profile can lead to problems.

Are you using the Eizo Color Navigator software for calibration?

Alternatively, you have been hit by a Mac OS bug that uses the wrong monitor profile for the external monitor.

@D Fosse might be able to shed some light on this.

My quandary is if an expensive external display is really that useful for editing images that are passed on to clients as JPGs with sRGB colour profiles? Would it make most sense to just set the display to sRGB colour from the beginning of the editing process? If so does it not seem to make calibrating the display at bit less necessary?

There is no reason not to work on a calibrated monitor.

And setting the monitor profile to sRGB will limit the colors to the sRGB gamut on your (I assume) wide gamut monitor, which can display most colors inside the Adobe RGB gamut.

[Fred Pedersen]

Thanks for the reply. Very helpful. I personally suspected that it is the Preview program that somehow doesnt manage the profile for the monitor that I created by using the SpyderX Elite and the datacolor software. I used this as I often shoot photos in controlled light situations and take accompanying datacolor colour chart shots and create profiles from these which I create via the datacolor SpyderChekr and subsequently use in Lightroom. Do you think it will be better to use the Eizo software to calibrate monitor even though I will use datacolor colour charts and create profiles for individual shots/shoots? My feeling was to keep as much as possible in the datacolor eco-system would be good to have consistency with monitor profile and the profiles for each individual shoot applied in Lightroom. I will definitely try and follow your prescriptions for the monitor profile and see if that solves the issue. Thanks very much again.

[D Fosse]

As Per says.

This sounds like the wrong profile rather than a bad profile. That has been reported quite often recently, on iMacs/MBPs with an external connected monitor. This configuration - integrated+external display - is the one common factor in all these cases.

That points to a problem with display assignments in the video card/operating system.

It has previously been seen with some Windows laptops, but recently it seems to be specifically a Mac problem.

A workaround seems to be to switch primary/secondary display assignment in the OS, so that PS/ACR/Lightroom etc are on the primary display.

Oh, and there's no reason to use the Spyder software with these monitors. They are made to be used with the dedicated Colornavigator software, and that's how you realize their full potential.

[Fred Pedersen]

Thanks, I will see if assigning displays and using Eizo colour navigator software as per your answer will fix the issue. I actually usually work with the macbook display closed which is why i started thinking that something is wrong with how 'Preview' managed the display profile I had created using the Datacolor SpyderX Elite. I thought that would be sensible as I also use Datacolor software and colour chart for individual shoots/photos. Basically everything looks perfect at least to me as long as it stays within the Adobe ecosystem. But if I try to open the photos in preview or look at them in Preview or upload to website viewed via Firefox/Safari. It's just so strange that the Adobe software can but not the other ones. Thanks again.
PS. I recently upgraded to Big Sur. I never noticed the issue before that, so maybe it has something to do with it.

[Fred Pedersen]

Hello again,

changing the monitor assignment didn't solve the problem. I work primarily with the laptop screen closed so it shouldn't really cause a problem. I have also created a new profile using the ColorNavigator7 software as per Per Berntsen's prescriptions. So under 'ICC profile details settings' I am using version 2.2 as well as 'Gamma (EOTF) value' as the tone curve setting (as opposed to LUT). This did not solve the problem. I can see that you wrote to another user who had an discrepancy with the darker parts of his photos between Lightroom and Photoshop that I black point compensation box somewhere in the ColorNavigator should be unticked (perhaps this was CN6?). So I have been looking for it but have not found it yet. I think the problem must be with how 'Preview' manages the colour profile. Am using Big Sur 11.5.1. I noticed the issue after upgrading from Catalina.