Strange sRGB soft proof issue

[NB, colourmanagement]

Hi All, I was working with a client yesterday discussing how much disappointment he gets when converting his Prophoto files to sRGB.

He's a bicycle photographer. Sometimes those bike frames are pretty bright colours. Working on a new MacBook with macOS Ventura and an Eizo Coloredge connected. 

He tells me the Eizo calibration looks correct 

Photoshop version 24.7.0 - I tested PS v 23.5.5 and that does it too

We've been discussing how disappointing sRGB can sometimes be when containing these bright colours and his maybe using P3 given that most of the customers view on handhelds, risky I know - if folk view it colourmanaged browsers on a desktop. Anyway that was our start point, then we did some tests.

Maybe we discuss the P3 colourspace business here later.

So, the softproofing issue.

A: Prophoto image, soft proof to sRGB, RelCol, BPC on - loses some colour as one would expect, in this example not too much. (See the image I uploaded). 

B: convert that Prophoto image to sRGB RelCol, BPC on

He wanted to look at that soft proofed to sRGB -a null conversion you'd think, so - no change expected

BUT taking the sRGB image and soft proofing to sRGB there is a very significant change in the red colour. 

 

I can't think of any explanation, any thoughts please

Extra Info:
Turn on Gamut warning, it shows a significant area of the image highlighted (and this is an sRGB image softproofed to sRGB - so nothing should be out of sRGB gamut to my thinking?)

Can you guys reproduce it?

(seems I can't upload here, so I'll upload the original ProPhoto file using wetransfer and ask that you first convert to sRGB then do the soft proof as described above)       Here's a link to the prophoto file, lasts 7 days

I hope this makes sense
neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[davescm]

I don't see that here Neil

I opened the file which was Prophoto.

Softproofing to sRGB with Rel Col and BPC on  - showed a colour change in the bright reds

Convert to sRGB (again RelColor and BPC on) showed that same change

Softproofing the sRGB doc to sRGB Rel Col and BPC on shows no change - gamut warning shows nothing. So all as expected here.

Photoshop 24.7 on Windows 11, Monitors Eizo CS2731 profiled with Color Navigator and i1Display Pro

Is it possible you/he has two sRGB profiles installed with one of them corrupt?

My other thought was had he assigned sRGB rather than converting - but that would be immediately obvious - the whole bike turns orangy-brown!

Dave

[davescm]

One more thought , based on this thread : https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/bug-unter-mac-os-ventura-color-differences-betwe...

Is he running the current Ventura OS - the thread above mentions 13.1 making a difference to colour management in InDesign?

Dave

[NB, colourmanagement]

@davescm thanks for the testing. I appreciate it. 

I think its a Mac GPU thing, @TheDigitalDog  answer here (strangely searching here hadn't found that thread - but it popped up next to my post after I posted)  https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/soft-proofing-not-working-for-srgb/m-...

Following@TheDigitalDog s advice John (the client) turned off the GPU in PS prefs and the issue went away,

of course that’s painful because the GPU has a lot of functions

- this a brand new MacBook Pro,  so I'd imagine it's universal to mac users. The scary thing is its not practical to work with the GPU disabled. It may be affecting accuracy of appearance in other ways!

He further commented: 

ProphotoRGB 16bit file with sRGB soft proof looks different GPU on or Off, so there is an issue beyond sRGB file / sRGB softproofing.

I was willing to accept that my old mac Mini (2012) has the same issue on an PS v 23.5.5,

plainly that’s a well out of date GPU, but it's looking like Adobe needs to make some changes to accommodate Mac hardware and that this apparent bug has been around a while. 

Any Adobe Expert Mac users here willing to test it, please?@TheDigitalDog? I'm confident that it's very likely universal on Mac but let's see. 

neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[davescm]

It is still worth checking the Ventura version. Some color management issues were reportedly resolved with 13.1.

Dave

[NB, colourmanagement]

@davescm thanks, I have asked - also to test without his Eizo connected, i.e. on the Macbook screen.

N

[NB, colourmanagement]

@davescm Hi Dave, the MacBook is using macOS Ventura 13.4

- this fault is also apparent on my 2012 office mac mini with Photoshop PS v 23.5.5 so perhaps it's been around a while? 

I asked John to disconnect the Eizo and try the MacBook alone for this test, in case the external screen was the issue. It's not, the issue persists with the Eizo disconnected. 

Of course, soft proofing RGB to RGB isn't something one would do all the time, but if that's broken, who knows what else may be affected in appearance.

And plainly, for day-to-day work, the graphics processor needs to be on 

thx NeilB

[NB, colourmanagement]

Another update

- I asked John to run the GPU compatibility check on his Macbook

"To check your GPU compatibility in Photoshop, go to Help > GPU Compatibility and see the report dialog that opens.

The information on this screen reflects the GPU state when Photoshop is launched."

 

It all comes up green so that's another issue as its definitely not working right with soft-proof 

I hope this helps get the issue solved
neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer

[Nick Tymchenko]

I can confirm I'm seeing the same issue here (M2 Max, Ventura 13.2.1). When soft proofing sRGB to sRGB (null conversion) it is very obvious that colors do change a bit. Disabling GPU indeed fixed the issue but honestly sounds like a bad workaround. 

[NB, colourmanagement]

So it looks like this is a mac thing. I'll do some more testing as I have Ventura mac here now. 

I hope this helps neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right' google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management Help others by clicking "Correct Answer" if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts. 

[Lumigraphics]

If the file is printed, which is a closer match? And both the MacBook Pro and Eizo are wide-gamut, how does a narrow gamut display look? This is definitely odd.