PLv7: Wide Gamut Color Space - Soft Proofing, Export to Disk, NikCollection

[George]

@KeithRJ

You will only see a difference if your image has out of gamut colours that do not fit in the output colour space.

@KeithRJ ,
I still don’t understand what you’re saying.
Under normal conditions it is working colors pace->monitors color space. Color management is taking care for that.
When soft proof on it is working color space->soft proof color space->monitors color space.
If the soft proof color space is bigger as the monitors color space then you don’t see any difference. Color management is taking care for that. If soft proof color space is smaller as the monitors color space then you’ll see differences.

George

[KeithRJ (Keith - Perth, Australia - Win11, PL8, VP3, Canon, DJI)]

George you have SP wrong, it is:

working CS → monitor CS only and then simulate target CS. Use OOG warnings to see what will be OOG in the target CS. PL uses the target CS to calculate what colours will be OOG and provides tools for you to see what those colours are and lets you make adjustments to either change those colours or adjust how they transition to the target CS (detail recovery).

SP is only useful when the target CS is smaller than the monitor CS.

[John-M (Melbourne, Australia - Win10)]

I reckon this is worth repeating, for emphasis …

@KeithRJ

SP is only useful when the target CS is smaller than the monitor CS.

[John-M (Melbourne, Australia - Win10)]

I will explain my experience, to explain my approach;

• When beta-testing introduction of the new Wide Gamut Color Space in PLv6 - I just happened to be using an image of autumn leaves as one of my test images … with deep and saturated reds, and details in veins of the drying leaves.

• I exported the image to disk (via sRGB) only to find that the result looked very little like the version of the image I was seeing within PhotoLab - - even tho I was reviewing the exported result on the very same screen that I was using with PL.

• This puzzled and perplexed me. With some help from DxO staff, and extensive discussion with others in the EA group, I was finally able to understand what was going on.

• When working on the image, within PL, with SP NOT ON, using my more-capable-than-sRGB monitor, I was fooling myself with the colours and detail I was seeing … because I was not seeing an image constrained by the sRGB color gamut.

• When that same image was exported to disk, via ICC Profile = sRGB, then I was seeing the image constrained by the sRGB color gamut … and, that’s why it looked different.

• This is where the “Protect Saturated Color” algorithm comes into play; It applies some DxO-proprietary “smarts” during the process of “squeezing” the colors and details available in PL’s working WGCS down into the target ICC Profile (being sRGB in my case) … so that there’s limited loss of color & detail in this process (or, at least, less than there might otherwise be).

• With Soft Proofing switched ON - even tho I am working with a more-capable-than-sRGB monitor - I will then see, on screen, within PL, the same result as I will see when I export to disk (via ICC Profile = sRGB) and review the result.

• So, this is how I (personally) prefer to work;
  – I have Soft Proofing ON so that I will enjoy a WYSIWY(will)G experience … and I cannot be caught-out, unexpectedly, with the exported result being substantially different.
  – And, I have found by experience, that the “Protect Saturated Color” algorithm does an excellent job of “taming/squeezing” difficult & challenging images into the sRGB gamut.

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Yeah, I know … TL:DNR … Sorry 'bout that.

[John-M (Melbourne, Australia - Win10)]

@Wlodek

Do you think there is any reason I should use Soft Proofing?

Yes - As then you will see, while working within PL, the result of applying the Preserve Color Details (PCD) algorithm directly on your sRGB-tuned monitor (rather than waiting to see the result only after you’ve exported the image) … assuming you have PCD set for Exports too.

@Wlodek

I often change PSC to 70-80 to get what I want,

The ‘Protect Saturated Colors’ slider has a different purpose from Preserve Color Details … You can use it (P-S-C) to tune colours to your personal preference - as you describe.

The PCD algo is specifically related to optimising the process of converting from PL’s WG working color space down to a smaller color gamut - such as sRGB.

• I guess one reason it’s not explained in great detail is that it’s proprietary to DxO … and, I find it works exceptionally well !

[George]

@KeithRJ

You will only see a difference if your image has out of gamut colours that do not fit in the output colour space.

You will see only a difference when the output color space is smaller as the monitors color space.
When softproofing an image to any color space wider as my monitors color space I don’t see any differences. Except that there might be OOG warnings showing what colors are not correct on your monitor.
You can try this out for yourself. You can make it vissible.
Monitor warnings are showing you what colors of your soft proof image are out of the color space of your monitor.
Soft proof warnings are showing you what colors are out of the color space of the target color space relative to your working color space.
Try this out with a printer profile using a smaller color space as your monitor.
The most simple way to archive this is sending an image in the soft proof color space to the monitor. The only thing that must be added in the Destination gamut warning.

With SP on the histogram is reflecting the soft proof image, with SP off it’s reflecting the in memory wide gamut image.

George

[George]

John,
Compare the image between softproofing to sRGB and your monitors profile. They may not be the same.

George

[Wolfgang ([ Win10, PL+VP+FP, Nik7 / 3.3 ])]

Hi @Stenis … and all interested,

It’s not easy, but not too complicated either.

Use DxO WGCS as internal/working color space (remember: in LR we have “Melissa” as internal WGCS) to start with maximum quality (color, saturation…), or in other words, don’t ‘degrade’ your image too early.

Now for evaluation purposes, skip your own images for a moment so you are not influenced by the subject, your camera/lens, DxO’s color engine/interpretation (aka profiles … ) and use an image created for testing.

Checking e.g. this site https://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-test-images/ you can get a variety of test images. Scrolling about halfway down you see the “Outback print image”

and the link to download from → https://web.archive.org/web/20100103025218/http://www.jirvana.com/printer_tests/

When extracted, you will receive a TIFF file in the ProPhoto color space that shows a variety of subjects as well as color swatches with highly saturated colors, which simplifies the assessment here.

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Your monitor shows you what fits into its color space. To see if there is anything beyond that, in PL 6/7 enable Monitor Gamut Warning (blue overlay). This means you will see the corresponding display on your P3 monitor the way others see it on their AdobeRGB or sRGB screen.

So why a Soft Proof?

Activate Soft Proofing and select the ICC profile corresponding to your monitor’s color space and enable Destination Gamut Warning (red overlay) … and the same area as before will be shown as being out of color space.
Disable this warning and toggle Soft Proof (SP) ON/OFF. If you look at the different motifs you may or may not notice any change, just the color swatches. Why this?

What you see now is the result of the Preserve Color Details function.

To check this, move the slider all the way to the left “0” and turn SP ON/OFF. Everything looks exactly the same. – Move the slider to the right “100” and the subtle change becomes more noticeable.

That said … if you are exporting to your monitor’s color space, you may or may not want to use SP (and the same for others on a AdobeRGB or sRGB screen).

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If you care about “your customers” (the people you want to show your images to) and you don’t know what monitors they have and whether they use (or know how to use) a color managed app, this is better/ safer to export (convert) the images to the usual sRGB color space.

Before exporting to sRGB from your P3 capable monitor (and the same goes for others on an AdobeRGB screen), you can use Soft Proof (SP, then set to sRGB) to simulate the result and also use the Preserve Color Details (PCD) feature.

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Now, for real images you will use PL’s color engine, develop your (raw) file to your liking and possibly invoke the Protect Saturated Colors (PSC) function (e.g. instead of the HSL tool).

All of this affects what colors are in your target color space, which could be P3 for example.
You may also want to export (convert) the result to sRGB… and possibly use soft proof. – You decide how you work.

Wolfgang

[John-M (Melbourne, Australia - Win10)]

@Wolfgang

Before exporting to sRGB from your P3 capable monitor (and the same goes for others on an AdobeRGB screen), you can use Soft Proof (SP, then set to sRGB) to simulate the result and also use the Preserve Color Details (PCD) feature.

[AkkiMoto]

Servus @Klick ,
@Wolfgang und @John-M und all die anderen haben schon viele gute Sachen geschrieben und das will ich hier nicht wiederholen. Ich hab nur selbst auch einen langen Gedankenprozess durchgemacht wie Du ihn jetzt gehst und wollte Dir nur mein Ergebnis mitteilen.

WGCS gibt es seit PL6 und am Anfang habe ich den sogar ein paar Monate noch abgelehnt. Jetzt empfehle ich auch auf jeden Fall den WGCS zu nutzen. Im Gegensatz zu Dir gehen meine Bilder nicht nur in sRGB ins Internet sondern werden auch gedruckt (zu Hause und in der Druckerei).

Aus diesem Grund und weil DxO und ich ( ) empfehlen, Softproofing nur in einer virtuellen Kopie vorzunehmen, nutze ich NICHT permanent Softproofing. Da ich in mehrere Ziele ausgebe, kann ich nicht den kleinsten Farbraum hier als Master nehmen. In Deinem und Johns Fall mag das anders sein.

Das von @Wolfgang genannte Monitorsymbol nutze ich im Master permanent

Aber da wirst Du kaum Probleme haben, da Dein Monitor genauso wie meiner P3 kann.

Was die Ausgabe in sRGB für das Internet betrifft, bin ich über den Punkt hinweg, mir darüber zu viele Gedanken zu machen. Das Problem ist hier ja nicht die perfekte Darstellung auf Deinem Monitor, sondern die Darstellung auf den Monitoren der Betrachter, die in der Regel nicht kalibriert sind und im Zweifel nicht mal sRGB anzeigen können. Bei wichtigen Bildern mach ich hier ggf. auch schon mal einen Vorab-Export und schau mir das auf einem Zweitmonitor (mit Absicht habe ich hier einen normalen Büromonitor, die aus arbeitsergonomischen Gründen oft blaustichig sind) und auf meinem Standard-Handy an.

Es ist erstaunlich, dass es bei vielen Farben auch bei sRGB keine Probleme gibt. Kritische Farben (wie z.B. Türkis), die am Rand von sRGB sind, schau ich mir schon mal mit Soiftproofing an. Ansonsten nutze ich Softproofing hauptsächlich für den Druck auf herausfordernden Medien (z.B. Leinwand). Denn das Softproofing ist a nicht nur zur Darstellung da, sondern auch, damit man hier eingreifen kann (z.B. mit dem HSL-Werkzeug).

Wenn Du mir eine Nachricht schreibst, kann ich Dir gern mal die Seiten zum Softproofing. aus meinem Buch ( eBook zu DxO PhotoLab erschienen ) zusenden.

Also, einfach auch mal fünfe gerade sein lassen :-D. Nur meine Erfahrung.

Liebe Grüße
Akki

[George]

@KeithRJ

working CS → monitor CS only and then simulate target CS.

And how is that simulating done? By sending the image in target color space to the monitor, in the meanwhile converting it to the monitors color space.

I remember having posted this before. From the Manual of Photography.

As you can see the image is converted to the target color space and that image is converted to the monitor color space.

From my post.

@George

If the soft proof color space is bigger as the monitors color space then you don’t see any difference.

From your post.

@KeithRJ

SP is only useful when the target CS is smaller than the monitor CS

To me we don’t disagree.

George

[Klick (Manfred (Nikon & M1 Mac, PL7 FP VP Nik))]

Hallo AkkiMoto,

danke auch dir für deine Erfahrungen und Tipps.

Ich bin seit PhotoLab 2 oder 3 bei DxO und komme mit der Software an sich gut zurecht. Nur war die Einführung des WGCS eine tiefgreifende Veränderung. So wie du, habe auch ich ihn gemieden - nicht nur zu Beginn, sondern bis dato. Das möchte ich ändern und deshalb schätze ich die vielen Hinweise und die Diskussion zu diesem Thema hier sehr.

Was die Erstellung von VCs für das Softproofing betrifft, so kann ich den Nutzen davon nicht ganz nachvollziehen. Wodurch sollten Bilddateien beim Softproofing gefährdet sein, so dass eine VC nötig ist? Ich sehe keinen wirklichen Grund. John-M hat dazu auch schon mal angemerkt, dass er in seinem Workflow keine VCs verwendet.

Was die Darstellung und Überprüfung exportierter Bilder angeht, so machst du im Grunde das Gleiche, was aus Softproofing ermöglicht. Nur führst du es mit Softproof-“Hardware” (sRGB-Monitor oder Handy) durch.

Eingreifen lässt sich mit dem HSL-Tool, oder eben auch mit den Möglichkeiten, die das Softproofing selbst anbietet (PCD-Regler).

Ich schätze vielfältige Meinungen. Von daher nehme ich dein Angebot bezüglich der Seiten aus deinem Buch zum Thema gerne an und werde dir eine kurze Nachricht senden.

Danke und liebe Grüße
Manfred

----- ENGLISH -----

Hello AkkiMoto,

thank you for your experience and tips.
I’ve been with DxO since PhotoLab 2 or 3 and am getting on well with the software. But the introduction of WGCS was a profound change. Like you, I also avoided it - not just at the beginning, but up to now. I want to change that, which is why I really appreciate the many tips and the discussion on this topic here.

As for the creation of VCs for soft proofing, I can’t quite understand the benefit of that. Why should image files be compromised during soft proofing so that a VC is necessary? I don’t see any real reason. @John-M has commented that he doesn’t use VCs in his workflow either.

As far as displaying and checking exported images is concerned, you are basically doing the same thing that soft proofing allows. Only you do it with softproof “hardware” (sRGB monitor or cell phone).
You can intervene with the HSL tool, or with the options offered by the soft proofing itself (PCD slider).

I appreciate diverse opinions. Therefore, I will gladly accept your offer regarding the pages from your book on the subject and will send you a short message.

Thank you and best regards
Manfred

[Translated with DeepL]

[KeithRJ (Keith - Perth, Australia - Win11, PL8, VP3, Canon, DJI)]

@George

And how is that simulating done?

Find which data in the displayed image is outside of the target profile and display them using the OOG warnings. No conversation necessary at all as the image is still displayed in the monitor profile.

[George]

Without conversion you’ll have wrong color by definition.
Conversion doesn’t mean that the original image is converted, it’s done on the fly by the Profile Connection Space as the diagram shows.
With SP ON the displayed image is the image in the target profile, with SP OFF it’s the in memory image in WG.

George