Problem with PS file vs. any other file format

[Trains1985]

Hello,

I am having a terrible time working with a dark-colored photo. The photo looks great when Photoshop, but when printing or saving it as ANY non-PS form, the lighter colors look significantly more saturated and the darker colors look quite a bit darker and muddy. 

My current workflow is a NEC color-critical monitor as well as an Epson 3880 printer. 

The lighter photo was taken using my phone and the darker one was a jpeg-formed copy of the the native PS file. The one taken with my phone (lighter one) is much more accurate to my PS version.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Sand Patch

[c.pfaffenbichler]

For starters you saved the jpg without embedding the Profile. 

What was its original Color Space? sRGB or something else? 

Please set the Status Bar to »Document Profile« and post screenshots of the layered image and the jpg open in Photoshop. 

[Trains1985]

Thank you for responding.

First, I'm a little bit confused on how you say I save the jpeg file without embedding the profile. Are you referring to the screenshots, or my actual file?

Second, I seemed to be using the Adobe RGB 1998 setting.

And third, here is a screenshot of the current color settings. It looks like the RGB was set to the color critical monitor I'm using.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

And again: 

Please set the Status Bar to »Document Profile« and post screenshots of the layered image and the jpg open in Photoshop. 

»It looks like the RGB was set to the color critical monitor I'm using«

Why would you set the Working Space to the monitor profile?

That’s nonsense as it makes a mockery of Color Management. Though as you set Photoshop to preserve embedded profiles it would not be an immediate problem if the image has the correct profile embedded.  

(edited)

[D Fosse]

Sorry to put it bluntly, Trains, but you have misunderstood this completely. You do not set the monitor profile as working RGB, ever, under any circumstances. It kills color management.

Do not mix up document profile and monitor profile! They are entirely different things, serving entirely different purposes. You need both, and they need to be in the correct place.

The embedded document profile is a standard color space like sRGB, Adobe RGB etc.

The monitor profile is set at system level, and managed by the operating system. Photoshop loads it at startup, and uses it in a standard profile conversion from the document profile and into the monitor profile. These corrected numbers are sent to screen, on the fly, as you work.

When the calibration>profiling process is finished, the calibration software sets the monitor profile up automatically. Don't do anything!

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Big point – »The embedded document profile«!

Without an embedded profile complaining that an image is displayed differently on different applications or devices is pretty much pointless. 

[davescm]

I've posted this before but have a read through it, it may help your understanding :

Colour Management simple explanation

Digital images are made up of numbers. In RGB mode, each pixel has a number representing Red, a number representing Green and a Number representing Blue. The problem comes in that different devices can be sent those same numbers but will show different colours. To see a demonstration of this, walk into your local T.V. shop and look at the different coloured pictures – all from the same material.

To ensure the output device is showing the correct colours then a colour management system needs to know two things.

1. What colours do the numbers in the document represent? 
This is the job of the document profile which describes the exact colour to be shown when Red=255 and what colour of white is meant when Red=255, Green = 255 and Blue =255. It also describes how the intermediate values move from 0 through to 255 – known as the tone response curve (or sometimes “gamma”).
Examples of colour spaces are (Adobe RGB1998, sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
With the information from the document profile, the colour management system knows what colour is actually represented by the pixel values in the document.

2. What colour will be displayed on the printer/monitor if it is sent certain pixel values?
   This is the job of the monitor/printer & paper profile. It should describe exactly what colours the device is capable of showing and, how the device will respond when sent certain values.
   So with a monitor profile that is built to represent the specific monitor (or a printer profile built to represent the specific printer, ink and paper combination) then the colour management system can predict exactly what colours will be shown if it sends specific pixel values to that device.
   
   So armed with those two profiles, the colour management system will convert the numbers in the document to the numbers that must be sent to the device in order that the correct colours are displayed.
   
   

So what can go wrong :

1. The colours look different in Photoshop, which is colour managed, to the colours in a different application which is not colour managed.
   This is not actually fault, but it is a commonly raised issue. It is the colour managed version which is correct – the none colour managed application is just sending the document RGB numbers to the output device regardless without any conversion regardless of what they represent in the document and the way they will be displayed on the output device.
   
   
2. The colour settings are changed in Photoshop without understanding what they are for.
   This results in the wrong profiles being used and therefore the wrong conversions and the wrong colours.
   If Photoshop is set to Preserve embedded profiles – it will use the colour profile within the document.
   
   
3. The profile for the output device is incorrect.
   The profile should represent the behaviour of the device exactly. If the wrong profile is used it will not. Equally if the settings on the device are changed in comparison to those settings when the profile was made, then the profile can no longer describe the behaviour of the device. Two examples would be using a printer profile designed for one paper, with a different paper. A second example would be using a monitor profile but changing the colour/contrast etc settings on the monitor.
   The monitor profile is set in the operating system (in Windows 10 that is under Settings>System>Display >Advanced) which leads to a potential further issue. Operating system updates can sometimes load a different monitor profile, or a broken profile, which no longer represents the actual monitor.

Colour management is simple to use provided the document profile is correct, always save or export with an embedded profile, and the monitor/printer profile is correct. All the math is done in the background.

I hope that helps

Dave

[Trains1985]

I thank all of you for taking the effort in helping me with my monitor/printer issue. This is hugely informative to me. Please bare with me and my total illiteracy on the aspects of color management.

Okay, let me start trying to get myself out of this mess.

First, let me start of on C.pfaffenbichler's recommendation. When I made the Status Bar Document Profile, it changed the text to say, "Untagged RGB (8bpc).

Then I changed the Working Space to Adobe1998, however after I had closed the Color Setting window and opened it up again the RGB had defaulted to sRGB IEC61966-2.1. Is that to be expected? 

Also, will I end-up needing to go into my SpectraViewII software for any reason?

Sand Patch

[davescm]

"I changed the Working Space to Adobe1998, however after I had closed the Color Setting window and opened it up again the RGB had defaulted to sRGB IEC61966-2.1."

Did you click OK or just close the dialogue window?

If your file is untagged then you will need to assign a profile. Which profile to assign is anyone's guess - try sRGB and if that looks wrong try Adobe RGB

In color settings I like to check "Missing Profiles Ask When Opening" as that way I get a warning on opening an image with no embedded profile and have to choose a profile for it there and then.

If you suspect your monitor profile is broken then you would use Spectraview to make a new one, but at this stage there is nothing to indicate that. I do though recalibrate and make new profiles for my monitors every 200 hours of use.

Dave

[Trains1985]

To answer your first question, I always click "OK," unless otherwise. To assign a profile, should I navigate to Edit > Assign Profile or Convert to Profile? If neither, where should I go? In the Assign Profile window, the setting has been set to "Don't Color Manage this Document". Obviously, that is consistant with what my Status Bar has been telling me. If that is indeed the correct window, should I revise it to the Working RGB: sRGB... setting, which does not have any other choices nor does it seem to change the appearance of the image in anyway. Or, should I check the "Profile" setting, with the dropdown menu sat at the sRGB... setting? The Profile one include a wide array of Epson profiles.

To give you an idea of idea of how I use my color-critical monitor I primarily use it for Illustrator vector files and use it for photography as a second resort. I got it about six years ago, and overall have been incredibly happy with it, when it comes to viewing images on display vs. the printouts, using my Epson 3880 printer. In terms of calibrating, I try to do that every two weeks. I have read that it is very common that people recycle their color-critical monitors every 2-3 years, but I have never found any need to do so myself. Once I asked an expert photographer, who has had two of them for as long as I have had mine, and what his take was on the scenario. His response was that he still thrilled with his original monitors. So I'm not quite sure about what to think of the idea of the need to replace them so often.

I brought this issue to you because of the unusual with my trying to print such a dark print, not having been as high quality as my other prints (taking into account that they had been quite a bit light in tone overall). Also, I have read that the Epson 3880 has a tendency of making prints noticably darker prints by other artists, despite the fact that it is a nine-color printer with four shades of black ink is contains.

Sand Patch

[D Fosse]

This is the "assign profile" option you want. Obviously it doesn't have to be Adobe RGB, but it has to be a standard color space - sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto or DCI-P3.

:

What characterizes a standard color space is that it's device independent - that is to say universal, behaving in an ideal manner with no special idiosyncrasies. A monitor profile doesn't qualify - it has a different purpose.

I'm sure your NEC is still an excellent monitor. I'm using two 6-year old Eizos at my job and see no reason to replace them in the foreseeable future. That's not the issue. But you have to set it up correctly.

Color management always requires two profiles, a source and a destination. The profiles don't do anything; they are detailed maps of a given color space. Using these profiles, data are remapped by the application, from one color space into the other, thus preserving appearance in the new color space.

So you have an image, in the document color space. To represent this correctly on screen, it needs to be remapped into the monitor color space. This is a standard profile conversion that Photoshop performs on the fly, as you work, without any intervention from you.

The monitor profile is automatically set up by the Spectraview software at operating system level, as default profile for that monitor. From then on it's managed by the operating system. Photoshop requests it from the operating system when it starts up.

So then you have the complete display color management chain: document profile > converted by the application > monitor profile.

---

Then an entirely different issue: too dark prints. The usual explanation for that is a too bright monitor. This is handled at an earlier stage, by monitor calibration. Calibration is independent from the profiling process described above. Lots of people confuse calibration and profiling because they are performed in one go, one after the other. But they are separate.

Calibration sets the environment for color management to operate in.

You set the monitor white point to be a visual match to paper white. You want to see paper white on screen. That's a purely visual match, nevermind the numbers. Let the numbers be what they want. The usual recommendation for white point is 120 cd/m², but that's just a recommendation for "average" conditions. Your perception is influenced by many factors from ambient light to application interface, so just get a visual match. Then the rest will fall into place and the prints will match.

Match the screen to the print; not the other way. The same goes for white point color and black point.

[Trains1985]

All of that having said, is there anything else I can do, besides eventually replacing my monitor, to improve the output's results?

Sand Patch

[D Fosse]

Why on earth do you think you need to replace the monitor?

Just read the thread again and follow all the advice here, and you'll be fine. This isn't difficult. Most color management problems happen because people do something when they don't need to. Yours is a case in point, by setting the monitor profile as working RGB. That got you into some trouble that you need to back out from, probably by reworking those files from scratch.

Just make sure that

• there is an embedded document profile
• you use applications that actually are color managed
• run your calibrator (at sensible white point parameters) and allow it to set that profile up in the OS

That's basically all it takes.