# Spyder 3 Pro - Color space question



## Mr. Murmeli

Hi,

I bought a Spyder 3 Pro for my monitor calibration and I ran into a problem. After the calibration is done a new color space profile is been created (which you have to name your self). This profile then shows in window's display options as the current color space. Because of this, some programs show colors now differently (as happens e.g when photoshop is running at adobe RGB and windows is set to sRGB). 

This problem can be fixed by setting the window's color space back to sRGB, but does it now lose my calibration since I'm not anymore at the color space created by Spyder?

I'm pretty confused and i'd appreciate some help . I want all my software, including internet browser, to show pictures in the same way but i do want my calibration to stay put as well.


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## dhilberg

I'm assuming you calibrated your monitor to sRGB. I have Photoshop CS4 so your settings may differ.


In Windows set your monitor's color profile to the one created  with Spyder 3 Pro. Make sure it's set as the default profile.
In Photoshop under Color Settings make sure your working space is set to  Monitor RGB. This forces PS to use the same profile your monitor does. Also make sure you have Monitor Color under Settings selected.
Make sure you're shooting in the same color space you've  calibrated for, i.e. sRGB.
Also in Color Settings under Color Management Policies, make sure "ask when opening" next to Profile Mismatches is checked. When you open an image and get the Embedded Profile Mismatch popup, make sure you select "Use the embedded profile." Since you shoot in sRGB and you calibrated your  monitor to sRGB, you want to view the photos as sRGB, not anything else.
 That's all there is to it.


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## Garbz

dhilberg said:


> In Photoshop under Color Settings make sure your working space is set to  Monitor RGB. This forces PS to use the same profile your monitor does. Also make sure you have Monitor Color under Settings selected.
> Make sure you're shooting in the same color space you've  calibrated for, i.e. sRGB.
> Also in Color Settings under Color Management Policies, make sure "ask when opening"
> That's all there is to it.



No and no! This is a very VERY common problem I see mentioned around the internet. Firstly the working profile has nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilsch to do with the monitor profile. This is compounded by the statement that you should shoot in the space you've calibrated for. Well that doesn't make sense since what you shoot in is ultimately to become your working space and you should never calibrate your monitor to another colour space than it's native space. That defeats the purpose of generating a monitor profile to begin with.

*Anywho a quick primer:*

There are three profiles you need to concern yourself with in colour managed workflow. These are the input profile (embedded in the RAW processor to convert the RAW sensor data into meaningful colours), the working profile (what your file currently is set to) and your output profile (for the screen this is your monitor profile, for the printer the printer profile (duh) ). 

The input profile should be of no real concern. If you're shooting JPEG you're never exposed to it. If you're shooting RAW it's that Camera Profile tab that no one ever scrolls down to in Adobe CameraRAW. Leave this one be. 

The working profile should always be the profile you're most likely to ultimately publish. You have no reason not to set this to sRGB for the simple reason that this only applies for files that you create new. When you open a file Photoshop will automatically assume the profile of the picture as your current working profile. So if you set the working profile to sRGB then fine your new file you create will have it's values limited to the sRGB colour gamut (very handy out of the box), but if you then open an image from your camera shot in AdobeRGB, well you're automatically in AdobeRGB now, or at the very least photoshop will ask you if you want to work in AdobeRGB, it should never ignore the difference. Click Edit in Photoshop from Lightroom, and the working profile becomes whatever setting you have set in Lightroom to automatically export to Photoshop.

The monitor profile on the other hand is reported by the windows operating system. Colour aware programs (such as photoshop) can poll the WCS (windows colour system) and ask it what profile the monitor has, and will automatically then adjust the output to make sure the colours are as the colour profile (and thus the Spyder3) says they should be. Based on this you should already see that Windows should have the profile generated by the Spyder 3 set for your display.

Let me re-iterate that this has nothing to do with the working profile. Photoshop will open the image and say oooh the image has a pixel value of (255,0,0) and is in the sRGB space. This means I need to convert it to LAB space with the value of (blah blah blah). Ooooh the monitor has a profile that is MonitorRGB. That means I need to convert the value of (blah blah blah) to (230,4,0).

In this example our monitor has a wider gamut than the working space, but while it wrote it in a stupid way it shows that all conversions happen between one colour space and another via a theoretically colour space agnostic intermediary.


So...  To set up your computer, and verify the setup.

1. Set up windows so the colour profile for your display device is the colour profile from your Spyder 3.
2. Open up Photoshop. Click edit -> Colour Settings. Under RGB "Working profile" click the down arrow. Now LOOK BUT DO NOT SELECT the Monitor RGB profile. This will show you what photoshop has already loaded. It should say "Monitor RGB - yourcolourprofile.icc" If it says "Monitor RGB - sRGB IEC6....... .icc" then Photoshop has not correctly loaded the colour profile from Windows. This is usually always the fault of Windows. Don't ask me why but it happens. Go back to step one and start debugging.
3. While you're in Colour Settings, set your working space to sRGB. If you work for a professional printing house then maybe you have a reason to set it to something else, but otherwise sRGB will save you headaches. Also check to make sure the options for profile missmatches further down on the window are either set to Use the Embedded profile, or Ask, NEVER ignore. 


Now we are probably back to square one and Photoshop will be showing colours differently. This is normal. The vast majority of windows applications are simply not colour aware. They will read your sRGB(255,0,0) and display an oversaturated (255,0,0) on your monitor whereas infact you really want a value of (230,4,0). This is very common with wide gamut monitors. To illustrate the effect have a look at this picture below:

On the left: ACDSee Pro2 correctly displaying the Photo identically to Photoshop on my wide gamut monitor. On the right, the preview in my Directory viewer, a non colour profile aware program which has no idea what monitor I have and just assumes everything in its little world is sRGB.







The key here is that ultimately if your Spyder 3 Pro did it's job correctly then Photoshop is the only right application on your computer. Everything else may look different but Photoshop is the one that you should trust. This is also why I browse with Mozilla Firefox. If you type about:config in your browser bar and set gfx.color_management.display_profile to the full path of your icc profile then Mozilla too can be trusted, but it does not read the profile from windows.


Welcome to colour management


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## Mr. Murmeli

Thanks a lot for the answers, especially Garbz with your huge one .

But i'm still just a bit lost. I did everything as you said but i don't understand one thing: If i set my windows default to the profile created by Spyder, why don't windows apps show colors right? Isn't the whole point of this new profile to make regular programs understand colors as well?? You said that applications other than Photoshop usually don't understand color profiles but it just seems crap that i can't get the same, true colors to each program. Especially since with my very color rich monitor (Lenovo L220x) the colors look A LOT more flat and less vibrant now in photoshop compared to other "color space ignorant" programs. So Photoshop versus other apps, the difference is now huge!

Second issue: I fixed firefox's ICC path to look like this: C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color\Kalibroitu.icm ("kalibroitu.icm" is my spyder created profile), but it shows colors exactly like most of my other applications, i.e. very differently than photoshop. 

One observation: on my student exchange period in USA i had one photography course, in which the teacher told us to use wider gamut color space on CameraRAW, and afterwards convert the pictures to sRGB (apparently this compresses the large gamut to sRGB space, whereas using sRGB from the beginning something is lost(?) ). So in other words he meant that you should, for instance, use ProPhoto RGB in cameraRAW, then press done in these pictures after you've done with your adjustments, and in the end convert the pictures to sRGB, say, whilst doing jpeg conversion in Image Processor.

And last questions: you were talking about camera's color space. So should it be set to sRGB or something more fancy?


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## Garbz

Very good question, please direct it to the Microsoft complaints department. Unfortunately the operating system flat out doesn't care. The framework provides profiles to applications which are colour aware, but it ultimately still relies on the applications to implement the colour conversions themselves, or call a system API to do it. I was kind of hoping that Windows 7's radical new interface would address this. ... Nope. Essentially all the operating system does is give the application a dictionary. The application still needs to have a basic concept of how to use this dictionary to translate the colours.

Second solution (hopefully): set gfx.color_management.mode to 1. There may be problems with the profile. Are you given any options in your software? ICM files are a windows format and I'm not sure if Firefox understands them. What I do know is that Firefox does not understand ICCv4 profiles, only version 2, and this is because a recent change in the colour management engine which dramatically improved it's speed does not yet understand the v4 profiles. You should be able to select what output you want in the Spyder software, if not there should be plenty of applications around the net that can convert between the various different formats for colour profiles. 


The photography course seems to have a somewhat basic grasp of this. Gamuts are not like bitdepth. They simply define how big the colour space is. This should ultimately be determined by the final destination of the image. If you are taking a photo and processing it knowing you're only ever going to be posting it on the internet, then there's no point in working in a large colour space if you know you will convert to sRGB at the end. There should be no difference between working in sRGB vs converting at the end since ultimately the bounds of the gamut are the same. There's a big difference between working with 8bit images and 16bit images as suddenly there is more information to describe the various shades of colours inside the bounds of the gamut, but changing the bounds of the gamuts before or after makes no difference.

To gain a benefit from a larger colour space like AdobeRGB you firstly need an image worthy of it, for instance crystal clear water in a reef shot with a polariser will produce a shade of cyan outside of sRGB, shooting into a sunset should produce an orange colour that's out of sRGB as well. However the vast majority of photographs fit nicely within the sRGB gamut. Also you need a proper output. Working in a wide gamut is pointless unless you're going to take your print and have some professional printing company do a wonderful chemical print for you, or you use one of those 8 colour printers. Your average mom and pop stores will not produce a wide gamut print.


Camera colour spaces where? Are you talking about the settings in your camera? This determines the "working profile" of the image that the camera is going to save. In the camera ALWAYS set this to sRGB. The reason is JPEGs are 8bit and 8bits only just cover the possible values in the sRGB range. There is not enough info in an 8bit file to cover every possible colour in AdobeRGB for instance. 

If you're going to use something more fancy then likely you're shooting in RAW anyway, in which case what you set in the camera doesn't matter at all. The RAW program again will give you the option what working profile to export in. As I mentioned above there are a few situations when setting a larger colour gamut makes sense, but for the vast majority of situations sRGB will be your final destination anyway.


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## Mr. Murmeli

Thanks a lot for the answers, again!

My Firefox fixed itself overnight, i guess reboot helped somehow. So now those colors look just as, well dull, as in Photoshop. 

I guess the enormous difference between "color dump software" and PS now is only due to my specific monitor and how it's set up in the factory (?). Of course there should be a difference but the lack of saturation in calibrated world was disappointing.

For instance, i have one picture (RAW) which looks SO nice and well saturated on normal programs but now that i take it to CameraRAW i have to increase the saturation by almost +40 to get a similar looking result. This feels like a lot. Although, i guess the very well saturated picture isn't reality either. It simply looks nice but i doubt human eye would see those colors that vibrant in real life (I simply don't remember how the scenery looked when i took the picture).



I assume that you have a really well calibrated monitor and so on. Could you take a quick look at some of the photos on the first page of this link:

Flickr: Erkki H's Photostream


Do the photos look somewhat too yellow to your eyes also? These pics are mine and now that i'm back to using my own desktop screen (instead of crappy laptop) and my monitor should be calibrated the colors look a lot worse than they did when i was finished with photoshopping with my laptop. I just want to make sure my calibration makes now sense .


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## Garbz

They do have a warm tinge to them.

What monitor are you using as a matter of interest? The specifications should quite easily tell you if there is a big difference in saturation to be expected.


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## Mr. Murmeli

My monitor is Lenovo L220x. It's got S-PVA panel so not the best but as far as i know, better than TN at least. Other specs i'm not too familiar with


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## Garbz

> 92% color gamut



The above is from the specs of the L220x. These are typically quoted as percentage of the NTSC gamut which is very similar in size of the AdobeRGB gamut. My NEC SpectraView has 93.8% coverage of the NTSC gamut so our monitors would perform similarly in that regard. Standard monitors conforming to sRGB I think have a 72%-75% NTSC gamut coverage.


So the good news is that yes the desaturation you experience in photoshop is actually correct. The bad news is colour management is something you need to deal with. ACDSee Pro2 is a good image viewer that supports colour management if you're using windows XP. I know in Windows 7 the picture and fax viewer will correctly render images. Not sure about Vista. 


Also I mentioned earlier that it makes sense keeping all workflows in sRGB unless you specifically intend to print them in a very good printing process. However I retract that since your monitor clearly has the capability of using some of the extended gamuts. It may make sense to work in AdobeRGB and then convert to sRGB as the final step before saving, and also take note that with any large gamuts like AdobeRGB you should NEVER in any stage of the process convert to 8bit before converting the gamut to sRGB or you'd end up with banding and posterisation.


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## Mr. Murmeli

Thanks a lot for answers, again! :thumbsup:

It's good to hear that everything should be fine now. I am running on XP but i've been thinking about upgrading (maybe try 64bit Windows 7).


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## Stangs55

I googled my way over here and ended up registering for two reasons...first to say Thanks! to Garbz. Your posts were extremely helpful. I've got a Dell 3007wfp wide gamut display and have been using a Spyder3 for a while. I had previously set my PS to 'Monitor Color', but have since changed after reading your post.

Second, to ask a couple questions. I saw that you mentioned that there are applications on the net that can convert between icc v4 and v2 for use in firefox...I've searched and searched, but I've been unable to find a way to do this. Would you mind providing a link to a program that can do this?

Also, I've moved to Lightroom for the majority of my basic workflow and frequently use the 'Edit in Photoshop' export command. In the lightroom settings, the default color profile for exporting to photoshop is Prophoto RGB...it even has as tooltip that says it's the best choice for preserving color. But if my picture is originally in sRGB and I play to output in sRGB...wouldn't it make sense that I should export in sRGB and avoid an unneeded conversion? The only reason I can imagine that this would be the wrong choice would be if Lightroom is making changes to the image that result in colors outside the sRGB space...

Anyways, thanks for the help!!!


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## Garbz

Sorry I was certain the ICC profile inspector on the ICC website was able to do this, but it looks like it can only read and display lots of useless information and not save. I had another search and you're right, it doesn't look like there's an immediately obvious way to convert a v4 profile to a v2. Are you sure your calibration app doesn't give you the option of which format to save in?


What picture was originally in sRGB? If you are shooting in RAW then what your camera is set to doesn't matter. Lightroom has a working space known as MelissaRGB which is basically ProPhotoRGB except with gamma curve of 1 (linear) which makes a lot of sense when working with linear sensor data. So Lightroom from a RAW file will always have a huge colour space and a high bitdepth so there's no such thing as avoiding a conversion. It will get converted from MelissaRGB to something one way or the other. 

Even when editing JPEGs in Lightroom the edit in photoshop function will convert it to a 16bit tiff with a wide colour gamut. The only reason is that sliders to alter the gamut of an image. If you have a colourful sRGB image and you crank up the saturation little to nothing may happen, however if you aren't arbitrarily limited then it'll simply increase the saturation out of the gamut. So it's quite possible to open and manipulate an sRGB image such that it takes up a larger gamut when it's done. The result doesn't look pretty but it can happen.

Realistically though there is an unneeded conversion if the ultimate goal is to create an sRGB file. I however have set export to be AdobeRGB simply because I have my work flow down pat in a way that I can't ever forget to convert to sRGB, and because I like you have a wide gamut screen I can actually see some of the prettier colours that may creep into the occasional image. 

Just remember if you're editing in photoshop in a wide colour space either use the "save for web and devices" tool to save since it has a nice checkbox saying convert to sRGB, or simply save, close, and export the file from Lightroom. That way you can avoid forgetting to convert to sRGB before saving a file.

/edit: sorry about the gramma I've been drinking.


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## alvinngan

Hi all. I'm a photoenthusiast, and I use Lightroom 3 to post-process. 
I am using Windows Vista, and I've noticed that under Color Management options on Windows, I've had it set at sRGB ... (with a bunch of numbers following it). 

I recently got the Spyder 3 to calibrate my monitor, so I"m assuming since this profile was created, Windows has switched to using this, instead of sRGB. 

The problem is, in Lightroom, all my photos (which are RAW format) seem less saturated / vibrant, and in particular the blues are slightly more purplish, and the reds more magenta.  This is identical to Windows Photo Gallery (which as I understand is also color aware, using windows color management, which is using now my spyder profile).

However, when I export jpegs, the photos now appear like I am used to seeing them - vibrant, and proper coloration. When I export it to the web, and html editors (like dreamweaver), they look great! But now when I return to lightroom, it looks bad!

Switching windows color management back to sRGB seems to make everything ( in all programs, including lightroom ) looking well again... Am I simply fooling myself here, and the "true color" is what the spyder profile is creating?


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## Garbz

That's what your bought it for right? What model monitor do you have. If you have a wide gamut monitor then yes your use of the spyder will mean that only colour aware applications will see colours correctly. Dreamweaver (at least CS4) was not colour aware. All internet browsers except for Firefox 3 aren't either, and even with firefox you need to play around in about:config before it works.


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## padang

Something else I would like to add: if one use Spyder3Express, it comes with a resident program which makes a system-wide adjustment to the color setting. Calibration can be set on or off, and all applications are immediately reflecting the change (color managed or not, even the desktop is changed).

If I use a program like Picasa 3.8 (just released) or DPP (from Canon), they allow us to turn color management ON or OFF. It seems like for Photoshop it's always ON, correct ? It will automatically detect if there is a default profile with Windows.

I guess if the resident program is ON, apps need to be OFF - to avoid two "layers" of calibration.


One would think that enabling calibration with the resident program and disabling in the app would give the same result than the vice-versa configuration. For some reason it is not the case. Maybe I am making some wrong assumptions somewhere.


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## Garbz

Err I don't think you understand how things work on the whole. The resident program is just a quick management tool and all calibrators come with them. What it does is ensure the correct correction curves are loaded into the video card / monitor LUT assuming it supports hardware lookup tables. Unless you're doing something very strange with your calibration (like trying to force a monitor to be sRGB when it's not which is definitely not the right way to go about things), then things run like this:

- The resident program checks to ensure the correct curve is loaded into the videocard / monitor LUT, as well as ensure the correct profile is set in windows.
- The video card's output will ensure consistent colour across the tonal range and set your white point to the one you selected. If you have a monitor with hardware lookup table then this is handled by the monitor and the video card output remains as per normal. This only provides consistency and temperature nothing more.
- The software you are using is still required to recognise the colour profile to know just how red that value of red is and what it actually should be. What the software will assume is that your monitor colour is consistent (something the video card LUT is ensuring). 

Short answer: All calibrators come with a little program like that. All software needs to have calibration turned on. This is far more important if your monitor doesn't have an sRGB gamut.


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## padang

ok, thanks a lot - it clarifies. I naively thought all adjustements could be made in the video card, hence did not understood the need for these two layers of adjustement. I made some research over the last few days and you're the only one who came with a good explanation !

Something interesting though: I just calibrated two different DELL monitors (laptop Latitude E6410 and monitor SynchMast 225BW) under the same dim light and the pictures are significantly different in saturation. Both were set to factory default. By significant I meant changing the mood of the pictures - one punchy the other desaturated, the equivalent of a +20 in PS. But still, calibrating brought the two much closer.

I repeated the experiment twice, same results. I will have to print to see which one is the best... and let's hope the shop has calibrated printers 



Garbz said:


> - The resident program checks to ensure the correct curve is loaded into the videocard / monitor LUT, as well as ensure the correct profile is set in windows.
> - The software you are using is still required to recognise the colour profile to know just how red that value of red is and what it actually should be. What the software will assume is that your monitor colour is consistent (something the video card LUT is ensuring).


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## Garbz

Just a quick guess was the Latitude E6410 the desaturated one? I use a Dell Latitude E6400 at work and it has to have the worst screen I have ever used. 

One thing to note is that a profile will only define the limits of the colour gamut for the display. Say you have a wide gamut display and a normal display and you are opening a standard sRGB image in an application like photoshop that understands colour profiles. The image should look identical on both monitors. However if you have a very saturated and colourful AdobeRGB image then it will look far more saturated and punchier on the wide gamut monitor which is capable of displaying the full colour range. 

The same could happen if you have an sRGB monitor and a monitor that isn't even capable of displaying that gamut and open a sRGB image, or surf the web on a colour managed browser. The actual sRGB monitor will look punchier and be the accurate one of the two. 

I'm not sure what software you're using to calibrate, but often it'll draw the gamut triangle for you. Can you see if there's any appreciable difference between the gamuts in the profiles using that software?

By the way you're not comparing the Syncmaster connected to the Dell are you? Because try as I might I've never been able to properly get colour management software working on a laptop video card. One of the screens will always drop out or both screens end up with the same curves or something stupid. Mind you I've never tried very hard.


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## padang

Actually no  The dell laptop E6410 is the most saturated. I don't feel it is as hazy as my previous dell, 3 years old. Maybe they made some progress. 

But still - I am able to saturate more the picture on the Samsung SynchMaster 225BW; do you think it can still be a gamut limitation of the device then ?

I use SpyderExpress 3 for calibration. The monitors have different computers. Out of curiosity, I could try to link the synchmaster to the laptop - just can't find the cable ')


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## Garbz

I'd finger a problem with the calibration profile not being loaded then. Using photoshop on both?

Open any image and click edit -> Colour settings, and then click the down arrow next to RGB working profile. Take note of (BUT DON'T SELECT) what Monitor RGB is. It's name will be what monitor profile was loaded. If it's sRGB then something is wrong.

Basically a good way to test the absolute saturation is to create an image with the sRGB working space and just fill it with a rainbow gradient.


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## padang

thanks for helping troubleshoot.

I am positive it is loaded... because in picasa I can turn color management off and I do see the difference; I also do see the difference if I turn the resident program on or off. Can also see "Monitor - <profile>" in photoshop.


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## padang

ok... I solved my problem 

I disabled the "ambient light sensor" on the laptop, then re-calibrated after that. It was the source of the problem.

I made prints at adorama.com, they were too much on the yellowish side. But then tried my local shop and it now almost matches my screen !! 

Thanks a lot for all the help !


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## Garbz

Good to hear. Technology is getting way too clever for our own good. For its own good actually


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## lynxstormcat

Hi Padang, 

can you post your .icm profile that you calibrated for your e6410? 

thanks!


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## lica2

Sorry, I don't agree with the Garbz's point. Maybe I'm wrong. But I really don't see any benefit using the spyderpro like this way.

After the calibration, new ICC profile did apply the change to all non-colorprofile aware programs like I.E. 6 or FF2.x. or Window Picture & Fax viewer. However, PS & ACDSEE , color-profile aware program, have the options not to use customized profile, but it doesn't mean it's the correct way. (e.g. still set working color space to sRGB)

After the calibration, windows color profile has been changed to customized ICC file.
Then I did a test. There is a sample jpg in C:\Program Files\ColorVision\Test Image\PDI Test Image.jpg. (Spyderpro 2.35) Everyone can remember the last step during the calibration. Spyerder pro shows a picture comparison between before/after calibration. That it is. If I open this picture in a non-colorprofile aware program. (IE, irfan-viewer).  which will show the same color as the after-calibration image in sypder pro. which means spyder-pro did help non colorprofile aware program show more accurate color. 

Then I use Photoshop to open that picture using sGRB working colorspace, the color is washed and dimmed, which is not acceptable. It means Spyder's ICC file is not in use then. The difference is very apparent which can be identified by many users here. However, to change the working profile to spyder's ICC profile. PS show the same color as non colorprofle aware program does, which is also the same pic as spyderpro calibration program shown to us after the calibration. So to set PS's color working-space to monitor customized profile can help editor adjust the picture in calibrated environment, produce more accurate colored picture (Sample pic proof) and same result viewed in different programs. The final goal is to let us get the same (or closest)  color display of the same picture, whatever picture viewer programs you and your friend use, and on whatever calibrated monitors and pcs.


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## Garbz

You are confusing two issues, that of the colour profile, and that of the correction curve.

When you calibrate your monitor two things are done. 

1. The output of the video card (or the lookup table of the monitor) is modified to make grey tones read the exact selected colour temperature (often 6500k) and tonecurve (nearly always gamma 2.2). This ensures accurate color tracking thoughout the range of the monitor. This is applied by programs such as AdobeGamma Loader or any number of custom programs that will apply these curves when the operating system starts. This correction is available to ALL programs by virtue of the fact that the video card lookup table or monitor lookup table is directly modified. But this only gets you half of the way there.

2. The other thing that is done is a colour profile for your device is created. This colour profile has information about the absolute colour properties of the device. Just how red is RGB(255,0,0)? Just how green is RGB(0,255,0). This colour profile is set as default in windows, however don't confuse this with it actually having any effect. The next part of the equation relies on software itself to call functions to the Windows Colour System (WCS). WCS has APIs that provide programs with information about the device's colour system, as well as APIs that will handle colour conversion IF they are used. 

Now in many cases if you have a monitor that conforms to the sRGB colour space then I would agree step 2 is redundant and all the benefits of calibration happen as soon as that before and after shot is seen. However if your monitor does NOT conform then the after shot will be wrong depending if the program recognizes how to correct for it or not (the BasICColor for instance doesn't apply the the colour profile to it's preview, just the initial correction). 

So accurate colour is a two step process. The Monitor needs to display the correct colour for every input value (step 1), and the program needs to know what colour the monitor displays for every value (step 2). 


Now your biggest issue. The WORKING Profile has absolutely NOTHING to do with colour calibration. I can have 100% accurate colour regardless if my working profile is sRGB, AdobeRGB, my Monitor profile, any number of CMYK profiles, or even a greyscale profile. The working profile defines ONLY the limits of what can be displayed in a given image, and how the data is stored in the image.

Now here's an explanation for your likely results which make you think this way: When converting an image between two working profiles you should only ever see a difference if you're going from a larger to a smaller one. Also if Photoshop did not correctly load your colour space then it will assume your monitor is sRGB and simply output the numbers with no correction what so ever.

If you monitor is different from sRGB and Photoshop is not reading the monitor profile from windows (read my posts above to find out how that is) then the picture will look wrong if the working profile is sRGB. Now if you set (set, not convert, just set) the working profile to the same as your monitor profile, things will look just great... On your computer and on your computer alone.


So in summary:
- Colour profiles is a two step process involving a correction curve and a colour space.
- Working profiles have nothing at all to do with displaying a correct colour providing your colour system is working correctly.
- Working profiles should at all time be standard, either IEC sRGB, AdobeRGB, or ProPhoto, or if you work for a magazine / newspaper one of the CMYK spaces. There is never a good reason to set your working space to the profile created by your Spyder.
- Applications must be colour aware for things to work properly.
- If this doesn't work, DON'T fudge the settings through the working profile, it may look good on your screen, but your colour system is screwed somewhere and will put you in a world of hurt when you send your pictures somewhere else. 

- Once should *NEVER* have to set a different working space in Photoshop. If this ever has to be done then something has gone wrong along the way (someone sent you a non-standard picture with no embedded profile, scanner software setup incorrectly, etc). Colour spaces should only every be converted, and a colour space conversion should nearly always look identical to the original save for obvious things like the target colour space being much smaller than the original and the monitor colour space.


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## FPG

OK, old post but I have the same issue. Garbz thanks for your expertise.


So I set my Windows Color Management to the Spyder 3 Elite profiles (different one for each monitor)
I set my Firefox to use the Spyder profile fro the monitor I use Firefox on.
Firefox gfx.color_management.mode is set to 1. When I do the sRGB test here: BEST FIREFOX TEST PAGE How To Enable FULL COLOR MANAGEMENT of ICC Profiles in FF31 Fire Fox thru FF 3.6 it works fine.
I left my Photoshop color working profile ALONE as sRGB per your recommendation.
But Photoshop photos look washed out unless I View>Proof using the Monitor Profile. The same photo in Firefox is much more vibrant.

Is that washed out Photoshop color what most people will see or do I have something setup wrong? I don't understand if Firefox is handling color correctly why it doesn't look the same in Photoshop.

Thanks.


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## Ysarex

FPG said:


> OK, old post but I have the same issue. Garbz thanks for your expertise.
> 
> 
> So I set my Windows Color Management to the Spyder 3 Elite profiles (different one for each monitor)
> I set my Firefox to use the Spyder profile fro the monitor I use Firefox on.
> Firefox gfx.color_management.mode is set to 1. When I do the sRGB test here: BEST FIREFOX TEST PAGE How To Enable FULL COLOR MANAGEMENT of ICC Profiles in FF31 Fire Fox thru FF 3.6 it works fine.
> I left my Photoshop color working profile ALONE as sRGB per your recommendation.
> But Photoshop photos look washed out unless I View>Proof using the Monitor Profile. The same photo in Firefox is much more vibrant.
> 
> Is that washed out Photoshop color what most people will see or do I have something setup wrong? I don't understand if Firefox is handling color correctly why it doesn't look the same in Photoshop.
> 
> Thanks.



Sounds like you have something set up wrong. The same photo viewed simultaneously in Photoshop and Firefox should appear identical with Firefox set to clr_manage value 1.

Photoshop should be using the display profile by default and if you go to View > Proof and set Photoshop to use the display profile then what you're seeing shouldn't change in the slightest since Photoshop should be using the display profile to begin with.

Here's a screenshot of PS and Firefox (value 1) on my system displaying the same photo.




 

May be a conflict with dual monitors?

Joe


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## FPG

Hey Joe,

If I have Windows Color Management setup to use the Spyder profile(s) and I open a photo in Photoshop when I change proofing between srgb and Monitor Display there is a huge saturation difference.

Look at this attachment. Toggling the proofing back and forth (Monitor Profile looks like Firefox) and sRGB looks like the Photoshop or Windows Photo Viewer.


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## Ysarex

FPG said:


> Hey Joe,
> 
> If I have Windows Color Management setup to use the Spyder profile(s) and I open a photo in Photoshop when I change proofing between srgb and Monitor Display there is a huge saturation difference.
> 
> Look at this attachment. Toggling the proofing back and forth (Monitor Profile looks like Firefox) and sRGB looks like the Photoshop or Windows Photo Viewer.
> 
> View attachment 134934



There we go -- you should not proof to sRGB. You should not proof to a monitor profile either. Soft proofing is for output devices.

Joe

Edit: When you remove the soft proof from Photoshop you should see your photo the same as in Firefox. That's your calibrated display and that's correct.

Windows Photo Viewer will display your photo incorrectly because it does not properly use the Spyder display profile -- that you can't do anything about.


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## FPG

Right, and I normally don't have proofing on at all.

OK, just tried this again. It's tricky because when you change your default Windows color profile you have to restart Photoshop. Here are the results....

If I set Windows Color Management default to Spyder then Photoshop no proof or proof sRGB look the same, but Monitor Display is more saturated.

If I set Windows Color Management default to sRGB then Photoshop no proof, proof sRGB or Monitor Display all look saturated.

So maybe it is back to normal?


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## Ysarex

FPG said:


> Right, and I normally don't have proofing on at all.
> 
> OK, just tried this again. It's tricky because when you change your default Windows color profile you have to restart Photoshop. Here are the results....
> 
> If I set Windows Color Management default to Spyder then Photoshop no proof or proof sRGB look the same, but Monitor Display is more saturated.
> 
> If I set Windows Color Management default to sRGB then Photoshop no proof, proof sRGB or Monitor Display all look saturated.
> 
> So maybe it is back to normal?



Windows Color Management should be set to your Spyder display profile. Photoshop should be set to no proof unless you have an ICC device dependent profile (read: your printer) installed. Do not proof to sRGB or the Monitor profile. Photoshop no proof and Firefox should then look the same.

Joe


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## FPG

OK, so there are three places to specify the default profile in Windows Color Management.

Devices tab>ICC Profiles
All Profiles tab>ICC Profiles (Add /Remove)
Advanced tab> Device Profile (Dropdown)

Does one change all 3 or just the Devices tab?


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## Ysarex

FPG said:


> OK, so there are three places to specify the default profile in Windows Color Management.
> 
> Devices tab>ICC Profiles
> All Profiles tab>ICC Profiles (Add /Remove)
> Advanced tab> Device Profile (Dropdown)
> 
> Does one change all 3 or just the Devices tab?



Devices tab -- your Spyder display profile should show as default.
All Profies -- nothing to do here.
Advanced tab -- you Spyder display profiles should show as the Device Profile.

Joe


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## Ysarex

Got to run to the grocery store -- I'll check back and see how you're doing later.

Joe


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## FPG

_Advanced tab -- you Spyder display profiles should show as the Device Profile._

Only lets me specify one. I have two monitors.


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## Ysarex

FPG said:


> _Advanced tab -- you Spyder display profiles should show as the Device Profile._
> 
> Only lets me specify one. I have two monitors.



Back under the Device tab you can chose between your two monitors.

Also make sure the system settings are the same.




 

Joe


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## FPG

Thanks Ysarex. On the Advanced tab if you put in one monitor profile and go back to the Devices tab you'll see you can't specify one for each monitor. Not sure how to work around that.


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## FPG

Ugh, feel like I'm getting nowhere. Got my Spyder profiles for monitors one and two but any screenshots I make from Firefox and paste into Photoshop (without proofing on) are all washed out. Something seems really messed up. Any way to reset everything, maybe uninstall and reinstall Datacolor and try again?


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## Ysarex

FPG said:


> Ugh, feel like I'm getting nowhere. Got my Spyder profiles for monitors one and two but any screenshots I make from Firefox and paste into Photoshop (without proofing on) are all washed out. Something seems really messed up. Any way to reset everything, maybe uninstall and reinstall Datacolor and try again?



I was just going to post that you should be able to set a Spyder profile for each display -- sounds like you've done that.

Screenshots do not have assigned ICC profiles -- they are not color managed. You can't compare the color in a screenshot with anything. Once you place a screenshot in Photoshop you could try Edit > Assign Profile and see if that helps but a screenshot is not color managed.

You can open the same file in both Firefox and Photshop and place the two windows side by side to compare.

Joe


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