Color profiles, working space, etc.

Stosh

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I thought I understood this concept, but it's becoming apparent I don't. I use Windows Photo Viewer (with Windows 7) to leaf through my photos, then when I decide what I'd like to work on, I pull it in to Picture Window Pro 5 to edit them. Most on here are probably not familiar with Picture Window Pro, but that shouldn't matter. I started with it because of its price and support for stacking astronomy pics many, many years ago when no other affordable software would stack images.

OK, so I shoot with a 5Dm2, use Canon's own Digital Photo Professional to change basic exposures, color balance, noise reduction, etc., then I'll pull the jpg into PWP5 to do more work on it. PWP5 supports color managament. Here are the different settings and I've bolded those that I think I should use:

Color Management: (enabled, disabled)
Color Engine: (Windows Default, LCMS)

Working Color Space: (a whole bunch of options including Chrome 2000 D50, SRGB IEC61966-2.1, and a color profile done by Spyder 2 Pro for my monitor)
Assumed File Profile: (a whole bunch of options including Chrome 2000 D50, SRGB IEC61966-2.1, and a color profile done by Spyder 2 Pro for my monitor)
On Profile Mismatch: (always ask, ask on mismatch only, convert, don't convert)

Assumed Scanner Profile: (None) - I don't have one
Monitor Profile: (a whole bunch of options including Chrome 2000 D50, SRGB IEC61966-2.1, and a color profile done by Spyder 2 Pro for my monitor)
Monitor Rendering Intent: (Maintain Full Gamut, lots of other options on what to maintain first)

Proofing Profile: (a whole bunch of options including Chrome 2000 D50, SRGB IEC61966-2.1, and a color profile done by Spyder 2 Pro for my monitor)
Proofing Rendering Intent: (Maintain Full Gamut, lots of other options on what to maintain first)
Monitor Proofing Rendering Intent: (Maintain Full Gamut, lots of other options on what to maintain first)


OK, so if I have everything above correct (which I believe to be), Windows Photo Viewer and Picture Window Pro 5 do NOT show the exact same image. The only difference I can see is the extremely dim areas of the pics. Anything in the darkest of shadows when viewed in Windows Photo Viewer becomes pure black when brought into PWP5. It's a small difference, but important to me. I make the dim shadows a certain way so they can be just barely seen, then suddenly they're pure black. No good.

Is Windows Photo Viewer not following the rules correctly, PSP5 not following the rules correctly, or am I doing something wrong?

As I was typing this I checked out the way pics look in Digital Photo Prefessional and guess what? They're different again! All 3 programs show the shoadows differently! And yes, I have DPP's working space set as sRGB and the monitor profile from Spyder2 is selected. What's going on here?
 
8-bit?

Right click on an image and take a look at the properties under the details tab and what is the color representation there?
Keith will be around too... he has much better knowledge than I do in this instance. These are just my first two guesses!
 
The Color representation under properties shows as sRGB. What do you mean by 8-bit? Bit depth (3 lines up from Color representation) is 24.
 
If they are Jpeg's they can only be 8bit
 
Ever since Windows changed to WCS in Vista/7, they kinda F'd everything up. Try this, In windows control panel, Go to Hardware & sound and then Color managemnt. Go to the Advanced tab and Rendering intent. Try changing between Perceptual, and Relative Colorimetric. See if that helps get the two to look closer
 
Didn't make any difference. After looking at several more pictures, since it's only in the extreme dimmest pixels, I'll just have to deal with it. On any photo that's well exposed, there is no perceivable difference. It's just the principle that bugs me. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
Try changing between Perceptual, and Relative Colorimetric. See if that helps get the two to look closer

Perceptual usually only works properly when converting between two version 4 profiles (eg printer profiles, the sRGB v4 profile). It doesn't work very well with v2 profiles - look at the end of the name of the sRGB profile the OP quotes: sRGB IEC61966-2.1. Version 2 profiles are very basic, matrix-based profiles (ie they contain very little information and are only designed to be used with Relative Colorimetric). Version 4 profiles are Look-Up Table based and usually contain much more information, suitable for different rendering intents. Look at the file sizes of your profiles to get an idea which is which.

To clear it up: 8-bit is sometimes called 24-bit. It is 8 bits per pixel per channel. There are three channels in this case (R, G and B) so it works out at 24 bits per pixel.

Your problem sounds a bit like a BPC problem (Black Point Compensation). Not all colour engines do that, or offer it as an option, when converting.
 

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