Adobe Gamma newbie

Gandalf wrote:

My CANON EOS digital camera creates picture embedding the sRGB profile.
I have Adobe Gamma Loader set to ADOBE RGB and I have set Photoshop CS to use the same profile and to convert automatically any profile emebedded in a picture into this profile.
The color management of my video card is disabled, not to have any conflict.
The problem is that when I watch the pictures using Windows Picture & fax Viewer, they appear differently than in Photoshop. I thought that the Adobe Gamma Loader was applying the profile to the whole hardware and not o nly in Photoshop.

To have the picture look the same, I had to set Adobe Gamma and photoshop to use sRGB profile and to preserve the picture’s profile (in case of mismatch).

Is this normal? How can i have a picture to be displayed with ADOBE RGB profile in all applications?

Adobe Gamma should load your monitor profile, not your Photoshop workspace profile! You should NOT set it to load AdobeRGB, because your monitor cannot display AdobeRGB. Use Adobe Gamma to calibrate your monitor, give this profile a logical name (like ‘AdobeGamma monitor profile) and set Adobe Gamma Loader to load this one.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Gandalf wrote:

My CANON EOS digital camera creates picture embedding the sRGB profile.
I have Adobe Gamma Loader set to ADOBE RGB and I have set Photoshop CS to use the same profile and to convert automatically any profile emebedded in a picture into this profile.

No. This is not the way to go. Use Adobe RGB as your working profile, if you must, but run the Adobe Gamma wizard, and use a normal monitor profile as your display profile, not Adobe RGB.

The color management of my video card is disabled, not to have any conflict.
The problem is that when I watch the pictures using Windows Picture & fax Viewer, they appear differently than in Photoshop. I thought that the Adobe Gamma Loader was applying the profile to the whole hardware and not o nly in Photoshop.

Adobe Gamma will change your display based on the profile, but that is only half the equation. If the profile is not in the system display control panel’s color tab, it is not being used.

To have the picture look the same, I had to set Adobe Gamma and photoshop to use sRGB profile and to preserve the picture’s profile (in case of mismatch).

This is closer, because sRGB targets an average monitor, but also wrong. Use a display profile, created in the usual way with Adobe Gamma, for your display. I would indeed recommend that you use sRGB as your working color space because this matches your camera.

The notion that Adobe RGB has a larger gamma is, IMHO, overblown, and there is the constant danger of producing images that can have faded colors when viewed outside of Photoshop.

Is this normal? How can i have a picture to be displayed with ADOBE RGB profile in all applications?

Short answer: you can’t. Use sRGB instead, as it was designed to address this problem. If you decide to use Adobe RGB as your working space, take pains to ensure that you export sRGB images when those images may be viewed on the web.

Another situation where sRGB is desirable is when you are sending RGB images to prospective customers. If they look at your images outside of Photoshop, they may take one look and decide that your pictures all have drab colors.
—

Mike Russell
www.geigy.2y.net

ok, if I got it rite…

1. calibrate the monitor and have Adobe Gamma to load this profile
2. have photoshop to load sRGB colorspace, since my CANON EOS D
uses sRGB colorspace

Questions…

1. This way, won’t my pics look differently when viewed with anothre picture viewer which is not using sRGB colorspace, like for example MS Pict & Fax Viewer (very fast way to show pics to friends)?
2. I’m using very often a notebook, an ACER FERRARI 3000: where can I get
an ICC profile?

Thanks 4 all the reply 🙂

Gandalf wrote:

ok, if I got it rite…

1. calibrate the monitor and have Adobe Gamma to load this profile
2. have photoshop to load sRGB colorspace, since my CANON EOS D
uses sRGB colorspace

Questions…

1. This way, won’t my pics look differently when viewed with anothre picture viewer which is not using sRGB colorspace, like for example MS Pict & Fax Viewer (very fast way to show pics to friends)?

No. Programs that do not use ICC profiles will almost always use sRGB by default.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Gandalf wrote:

ok, if I got it rite…

1. calibrate the monitor and have Adobe Gamma to load this profile
2. have photoshop to load sRGB colorspace, since my CANON EOS D
uses sRGB colorspace

Correct.

Questions…

1. This way, won’t my pics look differently when viewed with anothre picture viewer which is not using sRGB colorspace, like for example MS Pict & Fax Viewer (very fast way to show pics to friends)?

Johan answered this one, sRGB images, will look very similar in and out of Photoshop. On windows they will be very close. On Macintosh they will be a bit lighter, but not too bad..

2. I’m using very often a notebook, an ACER FERRARI 3000: where can I get an ICC profile?

Just run Adobe Gamma and use the profile it generates. Notebook displays don’t really get along with Adobe Gamma. I find that I get very good results by simply setting gamma 2.2, and leaving everything set to the defaults. Keep in mind that the appearance of the image will be different on a crt versus a notebook’s LCD display.

The expensive LCD’s are very trustworthy, but the average notebook display can be deceptive, and it is easy to miss color casts and impossible colors on a notebook.
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

"Gandalf" wrote in message

MS Pict & Fax Viewer (very fast way to show pics to friends)

BTW, this is definitely not very fast way of showing your pics.

Very fast and handy way would be with ACDSee Clasic or IrfanView

—
.. .::xcat
:.:.:.:.:.:.

The expensive LCD’s are very trustworthy, but the average notebook display can be deceptive, and it is easy to miss color casts and impossible colors on a notebook.

Well my notebook is a pro one: 15.1" 128MB Video RAM and 1400 by 1050 resolution

I’ve heard somewhere on the web that LCD monitors have a linear gamma equation so it is not really necessary to use Adobe Gamma Loader

My ATI graphic card has as usual a Color management tab in its properties: is it better to use this one and not load Gamma Loader at startup, or the contrary? Or should I disable bot and just use sRGB profile in Photoshop?

Actually more than the gamma itself, what i really cannot match is the green level between my notebook display and my camera’s lcd display: the camera’s lcd display has brightest greens.

Gandalf wrote:

The expensive LCD’s are very trustworthy, but the average notebook display can be deceptive, and it is easy to miss color casts and impossible colors on a notebook.

Well my notebook is a pro one: 15.1" 128MB Video RAM and 1400 by 1050 resolution

It’s not the resolution of the monitor, but the purity of the colors. The newer digitally driven monitors are designed for fine color work, and are excellent.

I’ve heard somewhere on the web that LCD monitors have a linear gamma equation so it is not really necessary to use Adobe Gamma Loader

The electronics are more linear. The purpose of running Adobe Gamma and the loader is not so much to change your display, but to give Photoshop access to your display characteristics.

My ATI graphic card has as usual a Color management tab in its properties: is it better to use this one and not load Gamma Loader at startup, or the contrary? Or should I disable bot and just use sRGB profile in Photoshop?

Adobe Gamma will take care of all this for you. You may then decide independently of all this whether to use sRGB or Adobe RGB, or even one of the Macintosh rgb color spaces as your working space – being able to make this choice independent of your display characteristics is one of the main "benefits" of this whole can of worms 🙂

The advantage of using sRGB as your working space is that your images will look better when viewed externally, by non color-savvy applications such as Internet Explorer.

Actually more than the gamma itself, what i really cannot match is the green level between my notebook display and my camera’s lcd display: the camera’s lcd display has brightest greens.

Interesting. This could be due to a number of things. For example, your camera’s LCD is probably much brighter than your computer screen. This will make all colors seem more saturated, though I haven’t heard of greens being particularly brighter.

I have also never heard of "profiling" the LCD display of a camera in any way – here’s a new target market for the colorimeter vendors. Imagine a tiny suction cup that you put on yoru camera’s display 🙂 —

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

Actually more than the gamma itself, what i really cannot match is the green level between my notebook display and my camera’s lcd display: the camera’s lcd display has brightest greens.

I meant more saturated, sorry about that: maybe u’r rite, the lcd of my camera is quite bright…