Their is a raw forum here.
The raw converter picks up whatever white balance data is being used by the camera when you shoot the raw file, and uses that white balance as a starting point. That white point, depending on how you have your camera set, may not match the white balance of an in camera jpeg. The beauty of the raw file is that it’s very easy to change this starting point of white balance to anything you want. In your case, it’s just click balance away, as you have known neutral values in your image.
ive tried using the white balance selector but that is not always 100% reliable and consistent. often after using it, the reds are still too orange–basically still some yellow tint left in the photo. why can’t adobe just leave the original colors well enough alone?
In a RAW image, there are no "original" colors. A RAW image is monochrome data from the sensor that needs to be interpreted in accordance with the the sensor’s filter array and the desired white balance. What you may mean is that you would like Camera Raw to retain the white balance chosen when you shot the image (which was used in-camera to create the associated JPEG thumbnail and/or image file. You need to set Camera Raw’s defaults to use the "as shot" white balance instead of its Auto setting. If that’s not the problem, then I’d suggest that your monitor may not be calibrated; other programs that aren’t color managed simply use your uncalibrated monitor’s colors, while color managed programs like Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw apply a profile. If your monitor isn’t properly calibrated, this will cause a difference in the color balance between Photoshop/ACR and other applications’ view of the image.
i use a pro CRT monitor and set at sRGB color space because i do graphics for the web. i set photoshop’s color settings to "monitor color" sRGB [which is virtually color management off].
setting the imported photos to "as shot" and "auto" give the same results.
so the problem seems like adobe’s misinterpretation of the colors in .CRW photos. why can’t adobe just not shift the colors–like other programs and viewers?
i set photoshop’s color settings to "monitor color"<<
Thus giving yourself a non-linear editing space – Not a good idea. Monitor spaces should not be used as working spaces. That’s what View Proof Colours is for…
What Len said is correct. The way you have set it up completely negates the benefits of an expensive pro quality CRT.
Use Adobe Gamma, at the very least, to profile your monitor. Better still invest $/£60 on a hardware solution such as the Spyder. CRTs drift, so recalibrate every month or so.
Then set your PS working space to sRGB which will save you having to convert before saving for web.
This set-up will then faithfully render both your digital images and your web graphics.
Chris.
the color shift problem happens before i export any photos from photoshop. plus this same problem also happens in adobe lightroom–where there is no color management setting…
Allen.
You have been given excellent advice throughout this thread and in the duplicate thread in the Lightroom forum. In fact post #1 in that thread pointed you in the right direction.
If you choose not to listen to the advice, there is little else anyone here can do.
Other than to reiterate: You need to calibrate your monitor and you need to stop using Monitor Profile as your working space. This is especially true if you are creating those web graphics professionally. There is little point in producing work which "looks right" on your own monitor but might look totally different to the rest of the world (ww). Take into consideration the fact your monitor will drift over time and the problem will just keep getting worse.
Yes you’re right. Big bad Adobe is out to trash everyone’s pictures. After all – what do they know about imaging?
I think we should all join Allen and set our PS working space to Monitor Profile. Then we should adjust the colours on screen until they match the "real" colour. That’s right – as displayed on the viewing screen on the back of the camera! ( Allen W, "Bad color shift for RAW photos in Adobe programs??" #2, 12 Jul 2007 5:11 pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/1> )
That way we would all be seeing the world through the same rose coloured glasses.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot. To complete the illusion we need to go out and buy some really good earplugs. Then when we ask questions in at least two different forums, we won’t have to listen to any of the answers!
I was going to suggest to Allen that he spends a little time reading up on colour management at Ian Lyons’ and Jeff Schewe’s excellent web sites. But d’you know what…
according to the lightroom thread, this is a bug in ACR and not related to color management setup on my part…
This image does come in looking yellow when you open it in Camera Raw using the As Shot setting. That would suggest to me that perhaps the camera either not properly tagging the raw file or even more likely, it it giving an erroneous auto white balance. When open files from my Canon 1DsMKII in ACR, they come right were the Canon auto white balance set them. Of course, I can override that if I want, which is part of the beauty of raw. For your file, Allen, really, all you have to do is a simple click balance and you’re home free.
this is a bug in ACR and not related to color management setup on my part…
Absolutely correct. The silly Adobe engineers completely neglected to code their software to run correctly using Monitor Profile as the Photoshop Working Space.
And your CRT manufacturer is not without blame either. Fancy producing a Pro CRT (and they obviously never need profiling) which simply doesn’t match the colours on the back of your Canon.
Sheesh!
I’d ask for my money back if I were you.
ive tried using the white balance selector on the background, the image still leaves a yellow tint to the overall image. reds still look to orange, etc.
the image still leaves a yellow tint to the overall image. reds still look to orange, etc.
Now don’t you go imagining that this has anything whatsoever to do with colour management or monitor profiling!
chrisjbirchall do you work for adobe?
Allen,
After you click balanced to the background, what were your RGB pixel values? They should be very close to the same for r,g and b. They were when I did that to your image. If they are basically neutral, and your screen still looks yellow, then you’ve definitely got a calibration or a monitor profile problem or both. Any time when red, green and blue pixels are the same value, and you are working in one of the standard "working" RGB color spaces, the image in that area, by definition, has to be neutral.
I saw the title of this thread and the first thing that screamed at me was
BAD MONITOR PROFILE
calibrate your monitor properly (that means hardware calibration. You are a pro right?)
then if things are still off, pop back in.
well if your monitor is properly calibrated and you also have same problem with my photo, then its not my monitor…
Download the original 5MB .CRW and test it out yourself… <
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xz7vfs>
Allen,
Again, what are the RGB values on your background after you click balance? That will tell us a lot. I’m on a hardware calibrated Sony Artisan which is extremely neutral in its display of grays. After I click balance, you image appears neutral. In addition, as I mentioned previously, images from my Canons look remarkably neutral just picking up the metadata from the camera. That’s why I think part of your problem is your camera. Just reading off those rgb values will tell me a lot about what’s going on. It will tell us where to go next.
heres a screenshot. 72.2 72.1 72.1 at a random location. the photo appears neutral after using the white balance selector but there is still yellow tint throughtout photo. the reds look too orange, etc. compared to the original.
<
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9666/untitled1he2.jpg>
(Banging head against wall) – there is NO yellow tint in that screen-shot on any of my three calibrated monitors.
How many times do people have to tell you that your monitor needs calibrating, and that your working space in Photoshop should NOT be a monitor profile?
Up the exposure a bit and it’s dead neutral (all that white in the shot will cause the camera meter to underexpose a bit).
Peter, looking at the reflections in the pens in the shot, the main artificial light source is above the camera- it most likely has fooled the WB sensor into thinking that the colour temp is cooler than is actually the case I reckon, and hence the cast in ACR. Possible?
Okay, now we’re starting to get somewhere. At least we know that the neutrals are probably okay or close on your screen, but don’t know anything about the rest. The same image from your raw file on my calibrated Artisan looks great with neutral grays and very saturated vibrant colors. This still points to the calibration of your monitor, especially since the screen shot does look as you describe.
What monitor is it and exactly how has it been calibrated? The fact that you are using Monitor RGB as your working space is almost certainly the main cause of the problem. You may think that it’s calibrated to sRGB, but it’s really not, especially if the monitor is older.
Get a hardware calibrator and calibrate your screen to 6500K and gamma 2.2 and try the whole thing again.
The RAW looks like it was taken with fluorescent light — and not the natural light variety. With typical fluorescent light you will never be able to get the color balance just right.
Also, it was underexposed, as Fred indicated; I found it needed a full stop of additional exposure.
im using sunwave full spectrum light bulbs with a CRI of 93… <
http://www.sunalite.com/s_lightbulbs.cfm#sunwave>
color seem neutral after using the white balance selector but the reds dont look like the reds outside of adobe, since they are too orange if you compare side-by-side with "normal" photo.
if color management is causing this, then why isn’t there an option to turn off color management for RAW photos? it’s always forced on with adobe camera raw.
Allen,
It doesn’t matter what they claim about the light. It’s not daylight. It’s something more like 4400K with a yellowish cast. Certainly better than standard issue fluorescents, but not daylight by any means. By simply doing a white balance in ACR, everything fell into place and looked quite saturated on what I know to be a reference calibrated monitor. The reds are not orange here. Color management isn’t causing anything, but you not following known conventions certainly seems to be.
Please: Do the following… Hardware calibrate. Use a reasonable RGB working space like Adobe RGB. Convert your files to sRGB for web use or use in non-color managed applications. Make sure you have not disabled color management or are using "monitor rgb" as your working space.
"if color management is causing this, then why isn’t there an option to turn off color management for RAW photos? it’s always forced on with adobe camera raw. "
As has been explained previously, raw captures have no color rendition associated with them. An application like ACR uses two camera profiles – one daylight and one tungsten – and lets you interpolate between them, and with the tint control, allows you to pretty much fine tune your color. If you have all of your CM set up correctly, everything else should fall into place. There are advanced controls in ACR if you want or need to access them that will allow you to fine tune very specific colors. You actually can’t, as far as I know, even process raw files without using some sort of color management. Color management always needs at least two profiles – a source and a destination. With ACR, the source is always the camera profile and you have no access to that. The destination is your RGB working space – sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhoto, etc, and then the monitor profile is thrown in to compensate for your specific monitor. You display can only be as accurate as the quality of your calibration and profile. If that’s off, what you see will be off too.
There’s nothing wrong with your file other than being shot under weird light, but there is a lot wrong with the rest of your workflow and what seems to be your reluctance to adhere to a standard workflow.
Once again, can you give us the specifics of your calibration – white point, black point, color temp in K. luminance figures. What kind of "pro" CRT is that? The standard "pro" crt for the last several years has been the Sony Artisan. Most of those are getting long in the tooth. Y’know, anything over 20,000 hours is pushing it with a crt. How old is your display? Maybe it’s getting tired?
according to the lightroom thread, this is a bug in ACR and not related to color management setup on my part…
As I told you in the Lightroom thread, it’s not a bug, it’s a consequence of camera vendors not sharing (some hide, Nikon go as far as to encrypt it on some cameras)) important information. You problem is exacerbated by a poor choice of colour settings/monitor calibration.
have you tried my .crw file in your photoshop / lightroom? does it look ok outside adobe and yellow inside adobe–without using manual white balance?
there is no yellow cast in reality with my full spectrum lighting.
my monitor is IBM C220p
(Edit)
Never mind….. I’ll let someone else explain lighting 101.
have you tried my .crw file in your photoshop / lightroom?
Yes, and it behaves as expected. Actually, compared to the Canon PowerShot Pro1 it’s pretty darned good. So, you’ve a lot less to grumble about than owners of the Pro1.
Allen,
Unfortunately, you seem hell bent on looking anywhere but where you need to for an answer for your problem. In reality you don’t have a problem, as none of us are having the same problem you are with your very own file. It’s now time for you to step up to the monitor, as it were, and take some responsibility – for your calibration, and for you lighting.
….and thanks for the laughs!
Head Desk…
I was going to say somthing until I read the whole thread. circular logic aside, it can be a hard concept to get around but colour management and calibration is one thing that Adobe does VERY WELL.
BRETT
well even if what you guys are saying is true about monitor calibration, there can still be another possible solution to this color problem. adobe can add an option to turn off color managment for RAW file instead of forcing it on.
why doesn’t adobe just add an option to turn off color management for raw images so that this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place?? we should have an option to have our photos look as they do outside of adobe…
The words head, brick and wall come to mind!
Allen,
What we’re saying really is true. What you’re failing to understand, is that without color management of some sort, there is no frame of reference for what your raw files are supposed to look like. Even if you were able to turn CM off, in order to show you anything at all, the software would have to assume something about the source (camera) and the destination(RGB working space and monitor). That assumption would invariably be wrong, so you might as well do it right to begin with. When you turn CM off in Ps, it still uses whatever settings your color preferences were set to, appropriate or not. Even in the "old" days before color management was the catch phrase of the day, the same assumptions were made. Do you think you were better off color wise in Ps 4? Not me. You can fight it as much as you want, thinking you’ve got a better system through ignorance, or you can spend the time to understand and learn and have complete control over every stage of your imaging process no matter where your images are going – web, photo printer or offset preess.
Maybe I didn’t nominate the brick part, Chris, but I was already there in post #24
Fred Nirque, "Bad color shift for RAW photos in Adobe programs??" #24, 13 Jul 2007 8:16 pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/23>
Still laughing in a pained sort of way. 🙁
+ option to turn off color management for raw files 😛
In what program "outside of adobe" exactly are you seeing "correct colors" as you call them?
He’s seeing "correct" colors in any program that does not use a monitor profile to help display images, so, in effect, his images are in "Monitor RGB", which is only valid on that one display and may not be correct at all – just happens to look okay there. This is why Allen has been advised to recalibrate, or actually, calibrate and profile his monitor, as the profile that Ps is using is not only not good, it’s not the right one.
i just want colors of my RAW photos to look as it looks from my camera. and one way to get around this issue is to have adobe add an option to not force color management for RAW photos.
the colors looks "normal" in all non adobe programs i use:
– Microsoft RAW Image Viewer
– Canon ZoomBrowser EX
– XnView image viewer
– my camera’s LCD screen
only looks yellow in:
– adobe photoshop
– adobe lightroom
Allen. I really don’t know why people (including me) keep giving you advice in this thread. It must be for the entertainment value!
Photoshop and Lightroom are professional imaging applications. Therefore they are colour managed and capable of producing the most exacting quality in terms of colour and tonal fidelity.
All the others you cite as being correct are simply image viewers. They do not colour manage. They just present the image as-is, on a suck-it-and-see, hope for the best, basis. They may well look okay on your system, but your system/monitor will not necessarily display images in the same manner as the next person’s.
Just go and look at a bank of TV screens at your local electrical goods retailer to see how colour can vary from one screen to the next.
That is why Photoshop is COLOUR MANAGED!
You have paid close on £/$850 for the two Adobe programs you are using. Unless you use them as they were intended you have wasted your money.
There are plenty of cheaper apps out there that will throughput your images without colour management.
You are obviously hell bent and steadfast in refusing to spend fifteen minutes or so calibrating your monitor and refining your colour management settings.
If all you want is for your pictures to look "right" on your own monitor, then why don’t you get a refund or sell your Adobe products and get the Gimp or PSP.
i know what color management is for, but i don’t like fussing with it and it’s additional costs. the only thing i calibrate is the gamma/brightness/contrast/geometry for my monitor. other than that i use sRGB for colors since i do web graphics.
there is another way around this issue–that is by asking adobe to add the option to not force color management for RAW photos. i dont get this color problem for non-RAW images–because color management isn’t forced for non-RAW images…
Okay.
You got me.
This is no longer funny.
I hereby officially give up.
<where’s that bottle?>
Ah That’s better!
i know what color management is for
Now that is funny.
Fellows,
Why do you press so hard on this guy? If he wants his images to look good only on his monitor, and then only in non-colour managed applications, he’s got every right to do so.
Chris, pass that bottle, will you please?
Rob
Allen – Just set your Ps working space to Monitor RGB and be done with it. Everything will match on your system and you’ll be happy. Just know that even on non raw images there is no such thing as turning CM off. That images happen to look good in you non CM applications does not mean that they are correct. They are as far off as your calibration of you monitor is from a known standard, and since you don’t hardware calibrate, and don’t really know the parameters your monitor is set to, you also have no idea if what you think you are seeing is actually what you are seeing.
ive already set my Ps working space to Monitor RGB but it doesn’t fix the color problem for RAW photos. that’s why i suggest adobe add an option to not force color management for RAW photos.
most of my graphics are saved for the web so they don’t include a color profile at the end anyways.
i suggest adobe add an option to not force color management for RAW photos.
That’s not going to happen.
Looks like you wasted a lot of money for nothing.
Sell your copy of Photoshop and start using GIMP or find a copy of Photoshop 3 or 4 on ebay. Make a print and fiddle with the monitor controls until it matches the print. You will be real happy No color management.
That is the best advice I can give to someone who does not want to hear reality.
I must say this whole thread has been a rather entertaining read.
Allen
Just a thought, you aren’t running under Windows Vista are you?
Isn’t there a bug in Vista that blows the colour profiles out of the water when a UAC dialogue pops up?
Allen, if you want your images to match what the camera LCD shows, more or less, then just shoot JPEGs and you will get just that. RAW is all about detailed management of the color and exposure of the image.
Allen: As long as you have your colour settings set to ‘Monitor RGB’ you will continue having problems.
I opened the picture in PS, set the white point (from the Bud can) and the black point (from the marker caps) and the wall is not gray as in your other photos.
I agree with Buko & Chris, sheeeeeeeesh, you’re like a brick wall.
Not using colour management is like saying
"lets not calibrate the speed cameras because everyones speedo’s arn’t that accurate" ……
"this bit of wood looks like a meter, don’t worry about a ruler to do my building plans"
no colour management is perfect, it’s all compromises but NOT colour managing at all is driving blind or with some really funky distorting glasses at best.
BRETT
personal experience: don’t let your wife pick house paint colors from the hardware store on a monitor that’s not color managed.
her over the phone: ‘oh, lets get blue44353’.
me looking at the color on my color managed screen: "erm…"
the wife is right so off i go to home depot. i have the front porch painted by the time she comes home. she gets out of the car, sees the porch and starts crying. think electric blue… SHOCKING electric blue. so blue your eyes want to bleed. the kind of blue that looks really cool on a black light poster.
*sigh*
what a great thread. i’ve been following this for days, and every time i think allen’s going to ‘get it’ because someone came up with the perfect explaination, BANG he shoots you down! 🙂
this has been the funniest on-topic thread here in a while. don’t listen to em allen! they’re just pulling your leg! buncha posers! color management is for sissies! 😛
color management is for sissies!
I protest!
Many of my friends have Colour Managed environments, and only half of them are sissies!
Yours,
H.M Cartride
I’m a sissy, eh Dave? Out in the yard boy.
Out in the yard boy.
hmm… your grass seems to have a bluish tint…
your grass seems to have a bluish tint…
So that was the problem all along. Smokin’ grass leads to bad colour management!
well if i use the white balance selector, i can get a more neutral image too. but my point is that the image should just open without color distortion.
<John Cleese> Pssst – don’t mention monitor calibration. I did once but I think I got away with it………)</John Cleese>
"Nudge nudge, wink wink. – saaaay n’more" 😉
A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind man!
well, i cant help it if you guys find this thread so irresistable 😉
"hmm… your grass seems to have a bluish tint"
Actually rose-coloured. Hmmm, everything looks fine now that I took the glasses off. Oo-oo-oo, I get it now!
Allen do you think the people disagreeing with you are a bunch of amateurs?
Does it not occur to you that, since nobody is actually agreeing with you, maybe you should change your approach?
this problem is still caused by adobe forcing RAW color management on. turn that off an no problem. 😛
Dang, how stoopid of me – I just disabled my monitor’s calibration profile and your image is indeed yellow. That’s what we’re all doing wrong, then – profiling our monitors.
So now I see your image as it is meant to be, I agree that Adobe’s got this all wrong and you of course have got it right.
While I’m at it I’ll ditch my D2x for one of those hot PowerShots as well seeing that it appears to be absolutely infallible. And change all my lighting to fluorescent bulbs that are the same as daylight.
Having done all that, I’ll start another thread complaining of Adobe’s forced "RAW color management", then maybe others will join in and we’ll change the world!
Now we’re smokin’!
Sheesh……..
I think this guy is pulling our leg. No one investing in equipment and Photoshop would ever disable their potential like he does.
When things look better without C/M, only the non-informed would blame the very fact of C/M itself.
Rob
I think this guy is pulling our leg
Yep, but it’s making for comedic reading 😉
It’s like if a carpenter was cutting two-by-fours by eye, and then complaining that when somebody got out the measuring tape, it was telling him his two-by-fours were really two-by-three and three-quarters. Then he complains that his two-by-fours don’t fit properly into some carpentry design. Then he asks if there’s some way he can stop people from designing things with their measuring tapes, so that his "two-by-fours(three and three-quarters)" would work great.
Colour management is the only way by which you can judge and measure your colour work. It is the standard one must follow for accurate, predictable colour.
It would appear this is not a joke, just somebody who totally doesn’t get it and refuses to learn:
Allen W, "Adobe Gamma doesn’t affect fullscreen programs??" #5, 23 Jul 2007 2:01 pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/4>
