Color space problem.

[KhronoS]

Yesterday i have encountered a problem with the colors, i was working on a picture in photoshop and when i was saving the picture started "lose" colors, became a little washed out, and i thought that was a Photoshop problem . Well, i was wrong and came to this solution:

Well i solved the problem, seems that the image viewer was faulty. When viewing images it was automatically converting it to sRGB. So now i see that all the people will see the image in sRGB rather then Adobe RGB.
Is there other thing to do?
At this stage i am very very confused and very much disappointed, because i am starting to see the mistake in all other photos, and i still don't know a convenient solution to this

Well, i have decided to make another post to address more specifically to the point.

So i would like to hear if anyone has any solution about this fact.
Here is a picture to illustrate the fact:

As you can see the first one has the most pop of the color. I managed to obtain the differences by a print screen. (CORECTION: i see that even the print screen converts the RGB in sRGB, so it only ilustrates the difference, the isnt the true color of it, i don't know how to explain, it's very very very confusing )
So what do you think? Anyone has any solution to obtain the same color as in RGB, but to be in sRGB? Like i did with the contrast, but i still can't obtain the same color (I know i am asking something close to impossible).

So please if anyone has any solution or care to explain me, i will gladly listen and thank him.


Thank you for the patience to read all of this.

 

[KhronoS]

I guess i've found the issue.

My camera takes the photos in sRGB, then import them with lightroom, and after that i have exported them in Adobe RGB and worked with them in RGB, so that after this i convert it in sRGB.

I think that this chain of changes made the photos to lose color.

So what do you think people, am i right?

 

[Garbz]

It's called colour space conversion. If you re-assign colour spaces it looks funky. This is what most viewers do. It's not their fault. It's the standard. sRGB is all viewers are required to understand, Colour management is a bonus.

So onto the gritties. TO convert in photoshop click edit -> Convert to Profile. Play with the settings. If you have a normal sRGB monitor then pick the settings that keep the image looking exactly the same (using sRGB IEC as the destination space). If you have a wide gamut (expensive) monitor then you will see heavily saturated colours compress at this stage.

But as long as your final image is in sRGB you can sleep comfortably knowing that your colours are in a standard format and will be seen identically by all.

Now to your method. It may sound useless but sRGB -> AdobeRGB conversion has it's benefits. 255,0,0 in sRGB is only 219,0,0 in AdobeRGB. So if you take up the saturation of the image you are increasing the colour intensity. That said unless you have a wide gamut display photoshop just clips these colours to your monitor and you'll notice no difference. This is what soft proofing is for. When you convert back to sRGB you end up in exactly the same place as you were before.

So here's the deal. Stick with sRGB unless you have any intention of using the extra colour space. Note that it's hard to edit colours you can't display, and expensive to find a good printer that can print such saturated colours.

If you start in sRGB, stay in sRGB unless you intend to artificially saturate the image. If you intend to end up in sRGB then stay in sRGB since converting mid editing is only likely to allow you to make edits you won't see and your conversion back will give you interesting results.

Finally if you want to search further Google:
- Photoshop Color Management
- Photoshop Soft Proofing

There are 2 large PDF files floating around the internet with everything and anything on the topic and it'll likely make you want to go colourblind just so your life becomes easier when you start reading them.

 

[KhronoS]

Wow, thank you a lot Garbz, you were very helpful

I will search for the pdf's... thanks again i will sleep well tonight =)))

 

[mrodgers]

If you happen to find them, please please post!

I'd look, but it's half an hour until game 2 of the NHL playoffs :mrgreen:

EDIT:

Or perhaps, this might be of some help....

http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/colormanage.htm

http://www.digitaldog.net/files/Soft Proofing in Photoshop.pdf

 

[Garbz]

http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/pscs2/download/PSCS2_colmanage.pdf

You may want to get comfortable. This one is detailed.

http://media-arts.rmit.edu.au/Les_Walkling/Colour_Management_Notes.pdf this onelooks excellent too but I have yet to read it all

Ignore the bits on profiling. Colour management still applies even without a 100% accurate calibrated display.