That means you’ve to correct your diagram and leave out the conversion to the monitors profile as a part of PL. And read over that copy I posted here again.
George
Yes, exactly …
With regard to how PL handles soft-proofing, there’s one significant difference between PL and how other applications “do soft-proofing” - in that PL leverages DxO’s proprietary Protect Color Details (PCD) algorithm;
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See step#s 6, 7 & 8 in the Colour Management pipeline (as reproduced here).
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PCD applies only to matrix based ICC profiles (for display profiles, not printers).
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In this case PCD replaces user-specified “Intent” settings (Perceptual OR Relative) with a combination of Perceptual/Relative-like settings appropriate to the specific image - with the aim of optimising retention of both detail & faithful colours in the image.
You can readily see this working as follows;
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Choose an image (or part of an image) where the Toggle Gamut Warning feature is highlighting LOTS of out-of-gamut warnings (then disable gamut warnings).
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Enable Soft Proofing with ICC Profile = sRGB
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Slide the “Preserve color detail” Intensity slider back and forwards between 0 & 100 … and watch those areas where o-o-gamut warnings were strongest.
Note: Don’t get “hung up” in deciding which degree of intensity setting is best for PCD … The default setting (50) works very well, in my experience, and the algorithm seems to be smart enuff to adapt to each image, as appropriate for its “characteristics”!
I think one must distinguish between the conversion of a larger color gamut to a smaller color gamut and soft proofing. The rendering intents used are just ways to deal with the out of gamut colors during a conversion.
Normally PL sends an image to the monitor in its working color space. When SP is on the image is first converted to the desired output gamut and then send to the monitor. Color management of the OS is taking care for further actions.
In the histogram screen you can set the monitor warning and the destination gamut warning. Both are relative to the image send to the monitor, working color space when SP is off and selected color space when SP is on.
So one has to take care with SP. What you see on the monitor is in the monitors color space. The gamut warnings are showing you those places on the screen that are OOG in the conversion from working color space to desired color space. The monitors warning what are the OOG colors between monitors color space and the output color space. Adjusting the image so no warnings are show means you’re adjusting for the monitors color space.
George
Thank you @George you explanation has clarified things for me.
Thanks John-M for your detailed replies in #19 and following!
Yes, I do understand that the purpose of soft-proofing is the simulation of output media other than the device that I am editing the raw image on, although I probably tied myself in knots badly explaining that!
And I have sometimes done exactly as you described in editing an image on the calibrated/profiled wide gamut display of my laptop, and then being disappointed in the result viewed on my calibrated/profiled sRGB gamut desktop monitor… so your practice of using the soft-proofing feature with the standard sRGB ICC profile is something I will definitely use from now on, as the bulk of my images are going to be looked at on limited gamut devices anyway.
Simply hadn’t though of using soft-proofing for non-printing devices… I can always set the white border of the soft-proofing editing window back to the dark grey it usually is, if it proves distracting.
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@Oldjstein
The problem as I have experienced it with my Benq profiles is that the file data will differ if you have developed say a JPEG with an sRGB biased monitor or if you have done it with Adobe RGB profile or for that matter Display P3 profile.
What you will do to a picture in Photolab will differ depending on which profile bias you will do the job with. On top of that I with my Benq always have to make sure I have a synch between say my Display P3 in the monitors LUT-table and the ICM-file that has been created for the Windows OS since I have found that if I change to another color space the ICM corresponding to that color space will not follow automatically.
I always have to control that manually so the right ICM will be marked as “Default”.
This is important when using “Legacy” -applications still depending only on the Windows ICM.
Some applications have interfaces for managing which Windows profile to use and others have not. In XnView it looks like this when my Display P3 from Windows is used in XnView:
If the checkbox is unchecked the profile in the file will be used.
Unprocessed RAW without ICC can use the custom profile I guess
The JPEG-files can either use the active default “System” ICM-file in Windows or a custom ICM that I define. I have specified my Display P3 as “custom ICM” just not to be affected by an eventual unsynch between my monitors active color space (in LUT-table of the monitor) and Windows ICM
@Stenis what you are telling me is that some software will override your hardware profile with the system default? This is exactly what hardware calibration is supposed to avoid, facilitating the use of different devices on the same monitor without having to think about color management.
I’m just wondering how 2 monitors work on a pc.
The videocard must be big enough to contain the contents of these monitors. In my assumption it uses a canvas/image big enough to contain 2 monitors. From there parts of it is send to these monitors based on the selection the user wants.
If color management is done at creation time of that canvas/image then there can be only one ICC involved. It’s only at creation time the OS knows an image is involved. Sending the content of that canvas/image to the monitor is just that, sending pixels.
George
That’s not my experience with my hardware profiled Dell monitor, connected to a Win 10 Pro PC with Dell Display Manager running. Opening one of my photo editors triggers Dell Display Manager to invoke the hardware calibration profile. There is an annoying flicker of the display as this happens but it means I can’t miss that the monitor has switched modes.
Unless I’m not noticing that at the same time Windows is feeding ‘bad data’ to the monitor because it’s ignoring the hardware profile…? Perhaps though I wouldn’t notice such interference because the Dell supplied default .icm for my monitor, which is set as the default in Windows colour management, is not that far off from the hardware profile…?
I’m not going investigate this though, the effort is way too much when the way my system behaves works for me. My prints are near enough to what I see on screen for my needs. Plus, others I’ve shared stuff with don’t comment that the colours are off.
OK, DxO’s customer support has just responded to my original support request (quoted at the head of this forum thread) with this answer:
"In DxO PhotoLab 6, the traditional ICC profile management for display has been replaced by the soft-proofing tool due to the introduction of the Wide Gamut color space. This change means that the software no longer uses ICC profiles for display management during regular editing. Instead, you can select a display profile directly from the soft-proofing palette, which allows you to simulate how an image will appear when converted between color spaces. This feature is particularly useful for ensuring color accuracy across different devices.
For your setup with multiple screens, the soft-proofing tool is essential to manage and simulate the display profiles effectively. Without activating soft-proofing, the software does not apply ICC color management to the display screen."
Not sure what to make of it… it implies I must use my ArgyllCMS generated display profiles in the soft-proofing feature, otherwise the image appears on the screen(s) without appropriate display device corrections. On the other hand, using a soft-proofing profile for another output device (e.g. a printer/paper combination) in the soft-proofing feature means that the soft-proofing will not include display screen profile corrections. Or does their answer really imply that? Not sure.
In any case, I cannot verify any of this right now. When I have the time, I’m going to play around with loading false color display profiles as default screen display profiles, and also images with embedded false color profiles, and see how PL deals with these various peculiarities.
I am also way behind in reading other posts in this forum thread… I thank people here for their attention and will get around to it.
I think that means that if you don’t use soft-proofing then, whatever PL is feeding to the monitor will only be colour managed by what is set in Windows, or by your monitor’s hardware profile (if you have a monitor that can be hardware profiled).
I think that’s what I experience. I’ve never bother with PL’s soft-proofing feature. The colours I see in PL on my hardware profiled monitor (100% Adobe RGB) looks the same as the colours I see in Affinity Photo (working in Adobe RGB) on my hardware profiled monitor.
However, even if I’m completely misguided I’m not bothered. What I’m doing works for me.
My way of working. I have two monitors. A Adobe RGB and an sRGB. Both have been calibrated and by selecting the colour management under the control panel and in the resulting dialogue. I click on the display panel and select my Adobe RGB monitor, and in the checkbox underneath. I tick that to use my settings and in the properties window. I search for my calibration and then select that as default. This should mean that Windows will always used that setting for my Adobe RGB monitor. I used to set this monitor to 80 CMD but as I sometimes need to move other things onto that monitor due to my dimming and old age eyes, I have increased it to 100 CMD, which means comparing it with my printer output. It is slightly brighter.
In the soft proofing window which I always have set and the paper and ink tick box ticked. There is barely any difference between printed output and the image on the screen… The advantage of this seems to be that it switches the image in photolab (not the whole screen) to the printers output. Resulting in a much closer match to the printed output, with the option to do any further modifying.
Hopefully that makes a little more sense for you.
Edit: I forgot to say I have my printer also calibrated and I select this calibration in the soft proofing’s ICC profile option.
That would mean that PL is switching off the color management of the OS. I doubt that.
What I read, without being sure, that PL used to send the image to the screen after a conversion to whatever. ICC contains a reference to the Profile Connection Space. In theory that conversion can be done anywhere on the route to the screen. They limit the use of ICC profiles for SP.
Vague. PL isn’t aware of multiple screens.
George
Does that take us back what profile is used then?
You mean the working color gamut?
George
Yes if not using soft proofing and PL uses windows profile for which moniter if as it looks liky it nesther deals eith molti moniter or hsrd profiling. Be interesting with my latop as via my docker I could use two moniters and the laptop screen
It’s not my experience, either. But I don’t use software that does color management on the display other than soft proofing. What PhotoLab appears to be doing is adopting the profile of the display on which most of the window is centered. I use extended display mode, but I do not stretch windows across them. I just use a standard sRGB profile on the second display, because its adjustments are too coarse to make a a big difference. On the BenQ monitor, I use Adobe RGB and create three profiles assigned to hotkeys.
If this happens on application level, then that application must be knowing the image is divided over 2 screens and for what part. I doubt that.
George