[AndreD]

Hey Andre, most of the basic windows apps don't color manage...MS Picture viewer being one of them. That is showing you an incorrect view of your image, if you have calibrated your monitor. So by applying your calibrated profile to an image in gimp, you are seeing incorrectly still. Gimp is a color managed program, just like Photoshop is, so the correct way to work in gimp, should be to set the working space profile to whatever the inteded color space is (sRGB, Adobe etc). I don't know gimp, so it may be somewhat different. Anyway, here is a link talking about color management in gimp so you can look into it more.
http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-pimping.ht ... management

thank you itsallgoode9!
ok, but why doas the picture in gimp looks exceltly like ms picture viewer AFTER choosing "the Try to use the system monitor profile"?
why doas the calibration HAS a visble effect of all apps?
(I can use the spyder pfofile chooser and it has an eeffect of all aps)
makes still NO sense to me

[AndreD]

imho,
color managed apps can work in diferent color spaces like adobeRGB, non cm apps just work on sRGB.
But you still can use a masured icc profile for your monitor, controlled by windows or mac os (in sRBG mode)..

[feynman]

@AndreD See also my waffling longish post above, then it becomes clear...

- Wide-gamut S-IPS-screens - for example HP LP2475W monitor - renders the Adobe RGB (1998) colour space
- The Adobe RGB (1998) colour space is larger than the sRGB colour space
- The HP's deltaE for the white-point is 9,7 which is too high, typical for wide-gamut screens of most makes
- But, the OSD set to brightness 13, contrast 80, red 255, green 236 blue 255 one gets almost perfect sRGB (HP)
- The Spyder 2 is no useful calibration and profiling tool for wide-gamut IPS-screens, buy a proper device
- Example: the black line defines an HP LP2475W's colour space


- Every device has its colour space describing its colour rendering capabilities, thus an ICC profile is needed
- Maxwell Render's own preview display is not colour managed, meaning it does not load an ICC profile
- This is why in Photoshop, on the same monitor's screen, a rendering will look quite different
- Also, most Windows 7 applications, whether from Microsoft or other vendors, are not colour managed

[Mihai]

Feynman, why go in to all these details?

- Maxwell Render's own preview display is not colour managed, meaning it does not load an ICC profile
- This is why in Photoshop, on the same monitor's screen, a rendering will look quite different

The "loaded" ICC profile is the one from the system settings in Windows, so I'm confused here, if people still see the render differently in Maxwell Render and PS. Whether you use the default sRGB profile that came with your monitor as system setting, or you're using your calibrated sRGB profile in system setting, and PS is set to use sRGB standard, the renders should look the same.....

[AndreD]

- But, the OSD set to brightness 13, contrast 80, red 255, green 236 blue 255 one gets almost perfect sRGB (HP)

WAY too red

- The Spyder 2 is no useful calibration and profiling tool for wide-gamut IPS-screens, buy a proper device

yes, i know!
what about spyder4, newer than quato icolor and siverhaze pro but better?!

- Maxwell Render's own preview display is not colour managed, meaning it does not load an ICC profile

but the spyder software tells me at widows start, that the monitor profile has been loeaded on my grafic card,
from that point on, everthing "seems" to be corrected.
spyder manual tells me, that i should TURN OFF apps monitor color management and use windoes color profiling for my screen..

[feynman]

Well, God is in the details :) and there seemed some confusion. As you confirmed, the Maxwell Render preview is not colour managed. If that is so, it displays the render preview with what the monitor is set to. Photoshop can display it with the sRGB profile attached to the rendering, disregarding what the monitor is set to.

Feynman, why go in to all these details? :P

- Maxwell Render's own preview display is not colour managed, meaning it does not load an ICC profile
- This is why in Photoshop, on the same monitor's screen, a rendering will look quite different

The "loaded" ICC profile is the one from the system settings in Windows, so I'm confused here, if people still see the render differently in Maxwell Render and PS. Whether you use the default sRGB profile that came with your monitor as system setting, or you're using your calibrated sRGB profile in system setting, and PS is set to use sRGB standard, the renders should look the same.....

[feynman]

Hey, so you also got too much HP sauce, just like us :)

Well, there are different bottlings, er, batches of HP monitors... We seem to have the spicy ones here... Because you care about colour, I'd get at least a spectrophotometer, like X-Rite's i1 Display Pro, which is great for wide gamut screens and then profile after calibration during those boring monday morning meetings :D

As before, calibrating and then profiling a monitor's screen does not make colours look correct in softwares that do not evaluate the ICC profile attached to an image, but use the monitor's setting, no matter whether you are running OSX or Windows.

Probably, you could go to a friendly printing company in Málaga and ask them to lend you a spectrophotometer and give free colour tips along the way?

And, let's not forget: "Colors are only symbols. Reality is to be found in luminance alone. When I run out of blue, I use red." Pablo Picasso

- But, the OSD set to brightness 13, contrast 80, red 255, green 236 blue 255 one gets almost perfect sRGB (HP)

WAY too red ;-)

- The Spyder 2 is no useful calibration and profiling tool for wide-gamut IPS-screens, buy a proper device

yes, i know!
what about spyder4, newer than quato icolor and siverhaze pro but better?!

- Maxwell Render's own preview display is not colour managed, meaning it does not load an ICC profile

but the spyder software tells me at widows start, that the monitor profile has been loeaded on my grafic card,
from that point on, everthing "seems" to be corrected.
spyder manual tells me, that i should TURN OFF apps monitor color management and use windoes color profiling for my screen..

[AndreD]

Well, God is in the details and there seemed some confusion. As you confirmed, the Maxwell Render preview is not colour managed. If that is so, it displays the render preview with what the monitor is set to. Photoshop can display it with the sRGB profile attached to the rendering, disregarding what the monitor is set to.

exactly, thats why I came to the conclusion that the profile has been added twice.
(one by photoshop cm and another by the spyder software)
the spyder software IS sending the profile to the grafic-card while windows startup, thats for shure and you can see the color changes a few seconds after windows is up and it has an effect on all apps...
if, now ps or gimp are using another cm, for me its clear in that case the profile has been added twice and I can see the changes then..

[feynman]

Wait - don't confuse yourself :)

1 Using your spyder, you have done a calibration and then an ICC display profile (mntr) was created for your monitor's screen
2 This ICC profile "knows" what colour space can be addressed by it
3 A colour managed application can evaluate that profile to display colours of an image, now taking your monitor's screen's "quirks" into account, nothing is "added twice". Photoshop "takes over" with the help of your graphics card
4 That means: if you soft-proof your image in Photoshop using Proof Colors with Monitor RGB, the image is displayed to your monitor's screen's abilities, that's all, good for an image you want to have as desktop background ;) If you soft-proof it with Internet Standard RGB (sRGB), however, the image is displayed in sRGB colour space, your ICC display profile is evaluated to provide a corrected display
5 This is why you should chose to soft-proof or "simulate" the colour space of your intended image use while retouching it

Well, God is in the details :) and there seemed some confusion. As you confirmed, the Maxwell Render preview is not colour managed. If that is so, it displays the render preview with what the monitor is set to. Photoshop can display it with the sRGB profile attached to the rendering, disregarding what the monitor is set to.

exactly, thats why I came to the conclusion that the profile has been added twice.
(one by photoshop cm and another by the spyder software)
the spyder software IS sending the profile to the grafic-card while windows startup, thats for shure and you can see the color changes a few seconds after windows is up and it has an effect on all apps...
if, now ps or gimp are using another cm, for me its clear in that case the profile has been added twice and I can see the changes then..

[AndreD]

Wait - don't confuse yourself

1 Using your spyder, you have done a calibration and then an ICC display profile (mntr) was created for your monitor's screen
2 This ICC profile "knows" what colour space can be addressed by it
3 A colour managed application can evaluate that profile to display colours of an image, now taking your monitor's screen's "quirks" into account, nothing is "added twice". Photoshop "takes over" with the help of your graphics card
4 That means: if you soft-proof your image in Photoshop using Proof Colors with Monitor RGB, the image is displayed to your monitor's screen's abilities, that's all, good for an image you want to have as desktop background If you soft-proof it with Internet Standard RGB (sRGB), however, the image is displayed in sRGB colour space, your ICC display profile is evaluated to provide a corrected display
5 This is why you should chose to soft-proof or "simulate" the colour space of your intended image use while retouching it

Well, God is in the details and there seemed some confusion. As you confirmed, the Maxwell Render preview is not colour managed. If that is so, it displays the render preview with what the monitor is set to. Photoshop can display it with the sRGB profile attached to the rendering, disregarding what the monitor is set to.

exactly, thats why I came to the conclusion that the profile has been added twice.
(one by photoshop cm and another by the spyder software)
the spyder software IS sending the profile to the grafic-card while windows startup, thats for shure and you can see the color changes a few seconds after windows is up and it has an effect on all apps...
if, now ps or gimp are using another cm, for me its clear in that case the profile has been added twice and I can see the changes then..

yes but:
the spyder software sends the icc profile to the grafic-card after windows starts and the WHOLE color changes.
(Apps, Destop, Icons, Videos, just everything)
If I start photoshop, the whole color changes done by the spyder software are STILL THERE..
Therefore, the Spyder manual says that you have to switch OFF the CM of Apps like PS.
I´m shure that PS don´t know anything about the changes the Spider Software did after windows start so what else could ps do than adding the profile again like gimp does it if you choose "use system monitore profile" under gimps color management settings..

[Mihai]

As you confirmed, the Maxwell Render preview is not colour managed. If that is so, it displays the render preview with what the monitor is set to. Photoshop can display it with the sRGB profile attached to the rendering, disregarding what the monitor is set to.

A colour managed application can evaluate that profile to display colours of an image, now taking your monitor's screen's "quirks" into account

Aren't you saying two opposite things here?

I think there's a big confusion..."disregarding what the monitor is set to"....PS doesn't disregard the monitor profile, even if you don't use the calibrated monitor profile as your working space in PS - which you shouldn't. It reads first the embedded ICC profile of your image, then automatically adapts the display of that profile looking at your systems monitor profile so that you get the most accurate colors displayed on that monitor, of the particular Working Space you have chosen, be it AdobeRGB, ProPhoto, sRGB....

I think this was mentioned before but here it is again, as far as I understand it:

- use a standard Working Space in PS, such as sRGB, NOT your calibrated Monitor sRGB profile (which will appear in the working spaces list if you've calibrated the monitor)
- use your calibrated Monitor sRGB profile in the system settings of your OS.

Something else to take into consideration: IF you have a wide gamut monitor and wish to work in AdobeRGB color space, then probably your monitor has a display preset to switch it from sRGB to AdobeRGB, and you need to also calibrate your monitor for THAT display preset and you'll get a calibrated Monitor AdobeRGB profile, which you should use in system settings, IF you've set your monitor to use AdobeRGB preset instead of sRGB preset. And again, in PS set it to the standard AdobeRGB working space, NOT your Monitor AdobeRGB profile.

The problem we were discussing here is why a render shown in Maxwell, looks different in PS, if PS is using the standard sRGB working space, and the render was also set to use the standard sRGB space. They should look identical....but there can be also the graphics card settings that interfere...

[feynman]

Yes, the ICC display profile of your calibrated monitor's screen, created with your spyder, changes your display on every startup. That's what's supposed to happen, because now white balance, gamma, deltaE, etc. is tuned.

Now, you open Photoshop. Photoshop's Working Spaces RGB is, hopefully, set to ProPhoto RGB or at least Adobe RGB (1998), because you have a wide-gamut S-IPS screen in your monitor as I understood. Photoshop's Colour Management Policies RGB is set to Preserve Embedded Profiles.

Then, you open a rendering from Maxwell Render (done with ProPhoto RGB or at least Adobe RGB (1998) which was, hopefully, selected in the Tone Mapping section of your Camera panel). Photoshop will open the rendering and display it to you as rendered in the ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB, taking your ICC display profile into account.

No ICC profile is added by any software here or applied twice. If, however, you have selected Monitor RGB in Photoshop and Convert to Working RGB, then your ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB (1998), sRGB or whatever is converted to your screen's ICC display profile's colour space and much colour information would be lost for good (if you would now save over your original image).

You can soft-proof (simulate) in Photoshop, how your beautiful wide-gamut ProPhoto RGB rendering will look in nasty sRGB :D

So, yes, in a nutshell, Photoshop "knows" nothing, unless you tell Photoshop what to do in which case.

yes but:
the spyder software sends the icc profile to the grafic-card after windows starts and the WHOLE color changes.
(Apps, Destop, Icons, Videos, just everything)
If I start photoshop, the whole color changes done by the spyder software are STILL THERE..
Therefore, the Spyder manual says that you have to switch OFF the CM of Apps like PS.
I´m shure that PS don´t know anything about the changes the Spider Software did after windows start so what else could ps do than adding the profile again like gimp does it if you choose "use system monitore profile" under gimps color management settings..[/quote]

[Mihai]

yes but:
the spyder software sends the icc profile to the grafic-card after windows starts and the WHOLE color changes.
(Apps, Destop, Icons, Videos, just everything)

Normal. Because it sent 0 - 255 - 0 for example to the monitor, but the monitor displayed 13 - 242 - 21, so that profile is ment to adjust what the monitor displays, either by adjusting the monitor directly, or if that's not possible, adjusting what the graphics card sends to the monitor, to compensate.

If I start photoshop, the whole color changes done by the spyder software are STILL THERE..

Because Photoshop still uses your monitors corrective profile, or it wouldn't really make sense to have a calibrated monitor...if you draw something red, you expect to see it red, not red-orangy...

Therefore, the Spyder manual says that you have to switch OFF the CM of Apps like PS.

Do they really say that? Turning OFF the CM in PS means setting the Color Management policies setting in Color Settings to Off, which is a silly thing to do since it means any image you save from PS will have no ICC profile embedded in it, among other bad things. And the color changes you saw in the UI will still be there if you're using your calibrated monitor profile as system profile. What they ment maybe is that you shouldn't use the monitors calibrated profile as a working space in PS.

[Mihai]

Now, you open Photoshop. Photoshop's Working Spaces RGB is, hopefully, set to ProPhoto RGB or at least Adobe RGB (1998), because you have a wide-gamut S-IPS screen in your monitor as I understood.

But but but...

Do they have the monitor itself set to the (probably default from factory) sRGB mode, OR, have they set it to AdobeRGB mode as well? If you've left your high end monitor in sRGB mode, and hoping to work well with colors in PS, even if its working space is set to AdobeRGB....you won't actually have those wide gamut colors displayed.

I'm not sure how it works exactly but depending on the monitor, some wide gamut monitors emulate sRGB space better than others, because they have to restrict the colors they display somehow, to fall within sRGB gamut. And in fact they will display a more accurate sRGB emulation (and your calibrated sRGB monitor profile will work better) if you set the monitor to sRGB mode, if you intend to work in that color space.

[feynman]

Yes and no :D

Working Spaces RGB should be set to the highest gamut the input device can deliver (camera, scanner, Maxwell Render (which is a camera, hence the Tone Mapping setting possibility that attaches the selected profile). One can always "nastyfy" the 16-bit/channel gamut before exporting for web, inkjet printing or CMYK printing.

- use a standard Working Space in PS, such as sRGB, NOT your calibrated Monitor sRGB profile (which will appear in the working spaces list if you've calibrated the monitor)

Yes, but the ICC display profile does not clip to sRGB, you're actually basing it on gamma 2.2, 6500K, ambient room light. For HP wide-gamut sauce, one needs spyders series 4 if one wants to stay with that manufacturer.

- use your calibrated Monitor sRGB profile in the system settings of your OS.

After calibration and profiling, one should never tamper with the monitor's controlz! Use Photoshop to soft-proof other colour spaces before converting an image.

Something else to take into consideration: IF you have a wide gamut monitor and wish to work in AdobeRGB color space, then probably your monitor has a display preset to switch it from sRGB to AdobeRGB, and you need to also calibrate your monitor for THAT display preset and you'll get a calibrated Monitor AdobeRGB profile, which you should use in system settings, IF you've set your monitor to use AdobeRGB preset instead of sRGB preset. And again, in PS set it to the standard AdobeRGB working space, NOT your Monitor AdobeRGB profile.

I still believe that the initial problem comes from the fact that the Maxwell Render preview, not being colour managed, simply uses the screen's RGB, calibrated or not, so it does not make the necessary correction, if the rendering is done in another colour space. Anyway, I better shut up and get back to the bean counters :)

The problem we were discussing here is why a render shown in Maxwell, looks different in PS, if PS is using the standard sRGB working space, and the render was also set to use the standard sRGB space. They should look identical....but there can be also the graphics card settings that interfere...