Confused about custom colour profile and Lightroom's export embedding

FlyingShrapnel

FlyingShrapnel

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Kyle
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Hi all, confused about what lightroom does with a custom colour profile and whether I'm following the best practice, would appreciate any help massively! :confused:

At the moment, I have a custom colour profile generated by X-rite colormunki display that i use to calibrate my monitor, which I do all the editing on, using Lightroom. Then when I am exporting the finished photos, I get lightroom to embed my custom profile. the exported JPEGs seem to work fine, the thumbnails would have wonky colours but when opened in windows image viewer thing they look fine, and they look fine when i upload facebook/flickr and view them in the web browser. I have checked them using a different laptop and the photos dont look "off" so I think they are working fine at the moment.

Now my question is whether this is the best way to approach colour management?

Or if I get lightroom to export using sRGB, will it then convert the photos into sRGB despite being edited using a custom colour profile? (lets call this case 2)

and am I right in thinking case 2 would mean the colours in the photo wont look "off" in 99.9% of the case when viewing the photos as pretty much the whole word runs on sRGB, but the catch is that some of the colours viewable in my custom profile wont be accurately represented in sRGB?

Thank you!:)
 
The profile is of your monitor and specifies how to get LR to display correctly on your monitor. When you export the JPEG, you should be exporting with sRGB - your monitor profile should not come anywhere near the exported file as it is for your monitor only.

If I am understanding what is profiled here....
 
arad85 said:
The profile is of your monitor and specifies how to get LR to display correctly on your monitor. When you export the JPEG, you should be exporting with sRGB - your monitor profile should not come anywhere near the exported file as it is for your monitor only.

If I am understanding what is profiled here....
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Thank you, so I should export into sRGB regardless of what profile my monitor uses to display the colours? I'm assuming that is what the calibrator does - set up my monitor to display colours correctly from the "entire colour space". Sorry im not familiar with colour management and still trying to get my head around it

what do you mean when you say "If I am understanding what is profiled here...."? Do you mean what object has been profiled? that will be my monitor
 
Yes and yes.

The monitor profiling allows a colour managed application to convert the "ideal" colour space it is using to the colour space the monitor actually displays, thus getting the colours accurate on the monitor. If the monitor displayed exactly sRGB, then the mapping would be 1:1. The monitor profile does not alter the data in the JPEG image on disk - it just uses the information to convert it into a displayable image.

Calibration = trying to set the output display chain (normally in the graphics card for a monitor) to display a known colour space.
Profiling = displaying a known set of colours on the monitor and measuring how far off the known colour space the monitor actually displays. This information is then used to generate a map between actual and ideal and allows a program that uses output profiles to generate more accurate colours by applying this profile before the data is output.
 
You're welcome :) It does take a while to get your head around it!
 
just looked into this again and had an experiment, if I exported JPEGs from Lightroom using sRGB and view it on my laptop screen (non profiled) they look fine, but when i view the same photo on my profiled screen, the blacks look way too black and the colours look off. whereas if i did the above the other way round, export embedding my colour profile generated by colormunki and view the JPEG on my laptop screen, it looks slightly different to the sRGB one but not off, and view the same photo on my profiled monitor it looks same as it was in Lightroom. viewed the JPEG in Windows Photo Viewer (stock image viewer on win7)

@arad85 you said I should embed sRGB when exporting right? so where have I gone wrong when exporting sRGB?
 
When you view an sRGB image on a wide gamut monitor (which it sounds like your calibrated screen is) then you need to view images with a color managed application or else they will look overly contrasty and over-saturated. I don't believe Windows Photo Viewer is color managed, or at least if it is it's not color managed very well. Look at your sRGB image in Lightroom (which is color managed) and I bet it looks fine.

Your laptop is likely a standard gamut screen, and because of that your sRGB will look fine in Windows Photo Viewer. On the other hand if you viewed an aRGB image on your laptop using Windows Photo Viewer it will look awful, where it would look fine on your wide gamut monitor :)

Never use your monitor profile as the embedded ICC profile when exporting an image.
 
Bob_a said:
When you view an sRGB image on a wide gamut monitor (which it sounds like your calibrated screen is) then you need to view images with a color managed application or else they will look overly contrasty and over-saturated. I don't believe Windows Photo Viewer is color managed, or at least if it is it's not color managed very well. Look at your sRGB image in Lightroom (which is color managed) and I bet it looks fine.

Your laptop is likely a standard gamut screen, and because of that your sRGB will look fine in Windows Photo Viewer. On the other hand if you viewed an aRGB image on your laptop using Windows Photo Viewer it will look awful, where it would look fine on your wide gamut monitor :)

Never use your monitor profile as the embedded ICC profile when exporting an image.
Click to expand...
Thank you Bob, I just tried it again, both an sRGB and aRGB JPEG looks fine in Photoshop on my profiled monitor and laptop monitor. However the same JPEGs look off when viewed in Windows Photo Viewer on my profiled monitor but fine on my laptop monitor? Do I just need to trust that exported in sRGB will be fine everywhere else except my profiled monitor?

I have checked the JPEGs which I embedded my custom profile on my phone and they look ok, not way off like when viewed on sRGB/Windows Photo Viewer/profiled monitor

A bit more about my set up, Im using a Dell U2412m (which I dont think is wide gamut?) attached to my laptop (the same one I have been viewing my images on when I said "laptop monitor") as a secondary display. Does that make a difference?
 
Export with your images tagged as sRGB and you'll be fine. Frankly, don't even think about using aRGB or any other colorspace as part of your workflow until you get a great grasp of color management.

With sRGB and a properly set-up/calibrated system:
  • The colors will always look fine on a standard gamut monitor no matter what application you use.
  • The colors will always look over saturated (particularly reds) and overly contrasty when viewed on a wide gamut monitor using a non-color managed application.
  • The colors will always look fine on a wide gamut monitor when using a color managed application.
  • An sRGB image uploaded to the web with the ICC profile missing (an untagged image) will look over-saturated and overly contrasty even though Chrome, Safari and Firefox are color managed. Firefox is the only browser that can deal with this situation (requires changing one of it's hidden settings)
None of the Microsoft applications are properly color managed (that I'm aware of anyway) ... but that doesn't matter much if you are viewing an sRGB image with a standard gamut monitor.

I believe you are correct that the U2412M is not a wide gamut monitor, which makes me think you may have some other issue going on. What gamut did you calibrate to ... Full Gamut or sRGB? Did you mess with any of the Windows "Color Management" settings (which shouldn't be touched)? :)
 
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arad85 said:
Known issue with Windows Photo Viewer. This: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ng-color/e836462d-9567-413f-9c92-11c4931984af link seems to suggest selecting a V2 profile.
Click to expand...

Bob_a said:
Export with your images tagged as sRGB and you'll be fine. Frankly, don't even think about using aRGB or any other colorspace as part of your workflow until you get a great grasp of color management.

With sRGB and a properly set-up/calibrated system:
  • The colors will always look fine on a standard gamut monitor no matter what application you use.
  • The colors will always look over saturated (particularly reds) and overly contrasty when viewed on a wide gamut monitor using a non-color managed application.
  • The colors will always look fine on a wide gamut monitor when using a color managed application.
  • An sRGB image uploaded to the web with the ICC profile missing (an untagged image) will look over-saturated and overly contrasty even though Chrome, Safari and Firefox are color managed. Firefox is the only browser that can deal with this situation (requires changing one of it's hidden settings)
None of the Microsoft applications are properly color managed (that I'm aware of anyway) ... but that doesn't matter much if you are viewing an sRGB image with a standard gamut monitor.

I believe you are correct that the U2412M is not a wide gamut monitor, which makes me think you may have some other issue going on. What gamut did you calibrate to ... Full Gamut or sRGB? Did you mess with any of the Windows "Color Management" settings (which shouldn't be touched)? :)
Click to expand...

thank you gents, I will try creating another profile using version 2 and see if that helps. any real life difference between using v2 and v4 sRGB?

as for what gamut i calibrated to, probably sRGB? I dont remember changing the settings when using the x-rite software... and I dont think I touched the "Color Management" settings either
 
FlyingShrapnel said:
thank you gents, I will try creating another profile using version 2 and see if that helps. any real life difference between using v2 and v4 sRGB?

as for what gamut i calibrated to, probably sRGB? I dont remember changing the settings when using the x-rite software... and I dont think I touched the "Color Management" settings either
Click to expand...

Well, I'd think using the x-rite defaults would probably work well. For my (not x-rite) software I have some options regarding the gamut to calibrate to. I'd pick FULL gamut since the others are a simulation.

Not sure what the options are for your x-rite software but here's a few settings that I'd pick:

CIE Illuminant should be D65
Luminance (if you have that setting) should be between 80 to 120 depending on room lighting. I have mine set at 100.

Hopefully reprofiling fixes the issues you're seeing. Make sure you warm up your monitor for about an hour and calibrate 3 times in a row.
 
just did another calibration to gamma 2.2, ICC profile v2, D65 and luminance 120 (so it is harder to have overly bright photos as i am looking at a brighter screen right?)

there wasnt an option to choose what gamut to calibrate to though, no idea what it has calibrated to

YAY! using a v2 profile has fixed the Windows Photo Viewer/profiled monitor/sRGB looking overly saturated and off colours! :LOL:
I now feel more comfortable to export into sRGB (which is the way it should be) :D

Thank you once again gentlemen, this is very reassuring, I can now sleep at night :p

PS. What's the difference between gamma 1.8 and 2.2?
 
FlyingShrapnel said:
PS. What's the difference between gamma 1.8 and 2.2?
Click to expand...
It's the curve used to translate input values to output grey scale. The relationship isn't linear and a higher number is more contrasty (from memory). Google gamma curves for more information :)
 
FlyingShrapnel said:
just did another calibration to gamma 2.2, ICC profile v2, D65 and luminance 120 (so it is harder to have overly bright photos as i am looking at a brighter screen right?)

there wasnt an option to choose what gamut to calibrate to though, no idea what it has calibrated to

YAY! using a v2 profile has fixed the Windows Photo Viewer/profiled monitor/sRGB looking overly saturated and off colours! :LOL:
I now feel more comfortable to export into sRGB (which is the way it should be) :D

Thank you once again gentlemen, this is very reassuring, I can now sleep at night :p

PS. What's the difference between gamma 1.8 and 2.2?
Click to expand...

Use Gamma 2.2 :)

You'll need to experiment with luminance a bit. For my room light setting 120 is too bright which would result in prints being too dark. 100 for me is perfect. If your room is brighter than mine then 120 could be just right.

Best way in my experience is to edit some images, send them out to a good lab to get printed (with auto-corrections turned OFF by the lab), then if they come back a bit dark turn down luminance or if too bright (doubt that will be the case using 120) then turn it up. There's also some decent grey scale step charts you can find on the internet that will help you get it pretty close.

Here's one: http://www.tranquilityimages.com/calibrate.shtml Look at the upper chart that has lots of steps (don't follow the procedure. just use the chart :) ). Turn down luminance until you can barely see a difference from the second to third from the left step. Many monitors won't be capable of distinguishing between the first and second step. If it looks like you'd need to increase luminance I'd leave it at 120 and wait for prints to come back instead.

Also, did the x-rite software allow you to target a contrast ratio? If it does, set it to achieve a contrast ratio of around 250:1 if you typically use luster paper. The range is typically 150:1 for some matte papers to 350:1 for highly glossy papers. I try to get ~250:1 as my own default. The weird thing about my NEC calibration system is that the contrast ratio result never matches what I target, so when I target 350:1 the calibrated result is 236:1.

If your contrast ratio is set too high then your resulting prints may be flat, too low and they may be too contrasty.
 
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Thanks for the detailed run down including printing Bob, I dont print photos in my line of work so I dont need to sort that one out yet :D

The x-rite software didnt let me set a contrast ratio (or i wasnt on the right settigns and didnt see it), but again that's ok, majority of my work is viewed on screen anyway.
Of course it is nice to have the knowledge in the back of the head, thanks again :)

Cheers gents, case closed (y)
 
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