[cs4] How to Proof Colors (⌘+Y) with open GL ?

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:30:50 -0700 (PDT), HaHaHaHa wrote:

Hi,

I have change video card in my mac to NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. I discover that images opened in a Photoshop looks bit darker than before.
When I turn OFF Color Matching in Preferences> GPU Settings > Advanced Settings >
every things look perfect ( I use Eizo CG monitor ) in every application – colors/gamma are the same in Safari, Photoshop, mail, ect.
But now I am unable to proof colors (⌘+Y)!!!
Do I have to disable whole GPU for photoshop – to use color proofing?

This is a common experience. The standard solution, and the conventional wisdom, is to purchase a calibration device – I generally recommend something like the i1 Color display or Spyder Pro. Avoid the Huey. But be careful – you can spend quite a bit of money on calibration, but do your homework first.

Here are several scenarios that may help get a handle on your situation. Scenario 4 has a few words about soft proofing.

Scenario 1: You say that you are happy with the color when you disable color management. This tells me that your images, whether they be from your camera, or other source, are a good match for your monitor. Why should you change anything at all? If your prints are a reasonably good match for what you see on your monitor, then I would have to recommend that you turn off color management, and consider your problem solved and move on to more interesting questions of creating and presenting your images. If your monitor offers an sRGB adjustment, rely on the fact that Eizo is one of the best monitor manufacturers in the world, and their calibration gear costs more than most people’s first divorce :-).

Scenario 2: your images look good on the screen, but do not match your printer. Solution – use the printer color adjustments to make your printer match, *reasonably* closely, what you see on the screen.

Scenario 3: your images look good on the screen, the printouts do not match, and you do not want to do a manual adjustment. Turn on color management Then set your monitor to sRGB (either using Eizo’s settings, or using a calibration device), and then set your printer to the default settings, or sRGB if that is available. If your display and prints match pretty well, consider your job done. Do not hesitate to use manual adjustments to either your display and printer, after you calibrate.

Scenario 4: your screen is good, but your prints do not match, or you would like an accurate printer profile for soft proofing. First, try one of the manufacturers canned profiles for your paper/printer/ink combination. If that is not satisfactory, go to one of the sites, such as www.cathysprofiles.com, and have them do a profile for your printer for about 50 bucks.

Re soft proofing: this is a great idea that really, IMHO, hasn’t panned out the way it should. The idea of soft proofing is a good one: use a larger gamut device, such as your excellent Eizo monitor, to simulate a smaller gamut device, such as a printer. There are two reasons this doesn’t work very well. The first is that certail pure printer colors, such as bright and/or saturated magenta and yellow, cannot be accurately displayed on a monitor. So, do not rely on soft proofing for judgements about these particular colors. The second problem is that accurately simulating paper white results in a bad looking image with poor contrast and an overall drab look. This may be dealt with, to some extent, by hiding all of Photoshop’s non-image information, including palettes and cursor, and allowing some time for the eye to adjust to the image.

If you are interested in calibration for its own sake (as am I) or have more money than sense (which also describes me in some situations), get a Color Munki, which will do a number of interesting things besides accurately calibrating your monitor. Please be aware that you can spend a lot of money on calibration, and end up with not much more than a knowledge of the shortcomings of calibration. There is no such thing as a perfect, or even near perfect monitor or printer, when it comes to color. In general, it is better to spend your money wisely, as you have done, on basic good equipment, rather than on devices to calibrate that equipment.

AFAIK, OpenGL is a lower level software interface, and has nothing to do with Photoshop’s color performance.
—
All the best,
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

On 1 Maj, 19:06, Mike Russell wrote:

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:30:50 -0700 (PDT), HaHaHaHa wrote:

Hi,

I have change video card in my mac to NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. I discover that images opened in a Photoshop looks bit darker than before.
When I turn OFF Color Matching in Preferences> GPU Settings > Advanced Settings >
every things look perfect ( I use Eizo CG monitor ) in every application – colors/gamma are the same in Safari, Photoshop, mail, ect.
But now I am unable to  proof colors (⌘+Y)!!!
Do I have to disable whole GPU for photoshop – to use color proofing?

This is a common experience. The standard solution, and the conventional wisdom, is to purchase a calibration device – I generally recommend something like the i1 Color display or Spyder Pro.  Avoid the Huey.  But be careful – you can spend quite a bit of money on calibration, but do your homework first.

Here are several scenarios that may help get a handle on your situation. Scenario 4 has a few words about soft proofing.

Scenario 1: You say that you are happy with the color when you disable color management.  This tells me that your images, whether they be from your camera, or other source, are a good match for your monitor.  Why should you change anything at all?  If your prints are a reasonably good match for what you see on your monitor, then I would have to recommend that you turn off color management, and consider your problem solved and move on to more interesting questions of creating and presenting your images.  If your monitor offers an sRGB adjustment, rely on the fact that Eizo is one of the best monitor manufacturers in the world, and their calibration gear costs more than most people’s first divorce :-).

Scenario 2: your images look good on the screen, but do not match your printer.  Solution – use the printer color adjustments to make your printer match, *reasonably* closely, what you see on the screen.
Scenario 3: your images look good on the screen, the printouts do not match, and you do not want to do a manual adjustment.  Turn on color management Then set your monitor to sRGB (either using Eizo’s settings, or using a calibration device), and then set your printer to the default settings, or sRGB if that is available.  If your display and prints match pretty well, consider your job done. Do not hesitate to use manual adjustments to either your display and printer, after you calibrate.
Scenario 4: your screen is good, but your prints do not match, or you would like an accurate printer profile for soft proofing.  First, try one of the manufacturers canned profiles for your paper/printer/ink combination.  If that is not satisfactory, go to one of the sites, such aswww.cathysprofiles.com, and have them do a profile for your printer for
about 50 bucks.

Re soft proofing: this is a great idea that really, IMHO, hasn’t panned out the way it should.  The idea of soft proofing is a good one: use a larger gamut device, such as your excellent Eizo monitor, to simulate a smaller gamut device, such as a printer.  There are two reasons this doesn’t work very well.  The first is that certail pure printer colors, such as bright and/or saturated magenta and yellow, cannot be accurately displayed on a monitor.  So, do not rely on soft proofing for judgements about these particular colors.  The second problem is that accurately simulating paper white results in a bad looking image with poor contrast and an overall drab look.  This may be dealt with, to some extent, by hiding all of Photoshop’s non-image information, including palettes and cursor, and allowing some time for the eye to adjust to the image.

If you are interested in calibration for its own sake (as am I) or have more money than sense (which also describes me in some situations), get a Color Munki, which will do a number of interesting things besides accurately calibrating your monitor.  Please be aware that you can spend a lot of money on calibration, and end up with not much more than a knowledge of the shortcomings of calibration.  There is no such thing as a perfect, or even near perfect monitor or printer, when it comes to color.  In general, it is better to spend your money wisely, as you have done, on basic good equipment, rather than on devices to calibrate that equipment.
AFAIK, OpenGL is a lower level software interface, and has nothing to do with Photoshop’s color performance.
—
All the best,
Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com

Hi Russell,

first of all I greet for all you have done!
I am mac user, and I watch with envy pc-ps-users, who can use your software.
And never even dream that we can meet on Usenet.

I am professional retoucher based in Poland. With over 10 years of experience in color editing, and color management.
AFAIK my sensitivity for color is far, far beyond mortal 😉 When I say: "images opened in a Photoshop looks bit darker than before" – the difference is really tiny. But I am sure that is an issue of OpenGL, or the manufacturer of graphic card.
I can completely relay on my CG211 – my clients often call me to thanks that images looks exactly same on print as on the screen. Since I change my monitor to CG211 – I almost forgot about my Epson x880 ploter. No need to proof my works… I do it only when I am asked to do so.

Mike, can you confirm or deny that different graphic chipset may be variously interpreted gamma, or color correspondence?
Are there any comparative studies for this issue?

Why I cant use ⌘+Y (proof colors) when I turn OFF Color Matching in "Preferences> GPU Settings > Advanced > Settings > Color Matching" ???
It seems that OpenGL handle color management in Photoshop! Am I right?

Tomorrow I will install CS5 – And I will try to describe how it works on new software.
—
Wojtek Stopinski
www.retouchone.com

On Tue, 11 May 2010 01:31:28 -0700 (PDT), Wojciech Stopinski wrote:

first of all I greet for all you have done!
I am mac user, and I watch with envy pc-ps-users, who can use your software. And never even dream that we can meet on Usenet.

Thanks – I wish I had a Mac version of curvemeister out there. Maybe the next product will work on both platforms.

I am professional retoucher based in Poland. With over 10 years of experience in color editing, and color management.
AFAIK my sensitivity for color is far, far beyond mortal 😉 When I say: "images opened in a Photoshop looks bit darker than before" – the difference is really tiny. But I am sure that is an issue of OpenGL, or the manufacturer of graphic card.
I can completely relay on my CG211 – my clients often call me to thanks that images looks exactly same on print as on the screen. Since I change my monitor to CG211 – I almost forgot about my Epson x880 ploter. No need to proof my works… I do it only when I am asked to do so.

It’s one of the best monitors out there. Even the Eizo cleaning cloth that comes with the monitor has powers that cannot be measured – I found one in Prague years ago and still use it.

Mike, can you confirm or deny that different graphic chipset may be variously interpreted gamma, or color correspondence?
Are there any comparative studies for this issue?

I can confirm that different graphics cards will display different colors and overall brightness. There are driver adjustments that will address this, though in your case you also have the option to adjust the monitor’s own LUT tables.

Why I cant use ⌘+Y (proof colors) when I turn OFF Color Matching in "Preferences> GPU Settings > Advanced > Settings > Color Matching" ???

I tried this on windows and ctrl-Y is available with color management disabled in the color prefs. It’s possible that this is different on the Mac, and that Photoshop disables this function when color management is turned off.

Although it’s not the standard way of doing things, and will raise some eyebrows, you can leave color management turned on, and set your monitor profile to match your RGB working profile. For example, if you are using Adobe RGB, set your monitor profile to Adobe RGB. You may need to do this in the display settings, rather than in Photoshop.

It seems that OpenGL handle color management in Photoshop! Am I right?

Problems have been reported with printer color management on the Mac , even with the latest version of OSX and Epson drivers. I have not heard about monitor or openGL issues.

Tomorrow I will install CS5 – And I will try to describe how it works on new software.

Interested in your results – I think your best approach will be to adjust the brightness in the Eizo monitor settings.
—
Mike Russell – http://www.curvemeister.com

Tomorrow I will install CS5 – And I will try to describe how it works on new software.

Interested in your results – I think your best approach will be to adjust the brightness in the Eizo monitor settings.

I am testing CS5 – the OpenGL engine is complite new, and I experience that images displays much sharpen.
The first feeling was like if I tore out the veil!
Colors and contrast looks perfect.
I definitely change to CS5.