Hi all. Long time user and I’ve been following this site for a while for information on how to use PL. One thing that I need final clarification on is what color gamut should I be using? I have a Panasonic S5II and I want to use the profile for that camera. So I go and change the dropdown to camera profile and then I change the other dropdown to the Panasonic S5II profile. My question is at this point, should my color profile be in the Classic Legacy mode? When I choose the camera profile option, that means that the DXO Wide Gamut is no longer applied if I understand correctly and it automatically switches to the Legacy mode? Also when I’m in this mode, is it necessary to have soft proof on or is that only useful when using the DXO Wide Gamut? Thanks for your help.
PhotoLab picks the camera specific profile automatically. No need to select it manually.
If we compare an image in Legacy vs. DxO Wide gamut, differences can easily be seen. In order to preserve the widest possible range of colours during customising, stick to DxO Wide. It is much larger compared to the legacy gamut, which corresponds to Adobe RGB.
Most apps try to base their default rendering on out-of-camera previews (with DxO’s current default natural style being quite an exception) and many apps get really close. Nevertheless, perception of colour is highly subjective and one is well advised to not think of “correct” colours - unless one is into repro photography - but to strive to get the colours that match the taste or intention of the moment.
That’s not clear when looking at the settings.
That shouldn’t be. Color management should take care for an equal result.
I still think the more away the working color gamut is from the destination gamut the more problems arise.
George
Indeed. Selecting the camera specific profile manually does, in most cases, not produce different results. Therefore, the automatically selected profile must be (very close to) the specific profile. Note that selectable profiles can produce almost identical looks - even though the profiles have different names.
It should, and the differences show in hues that lie around a gamut’s borders due to what the selected rendering intent can do about such hues.
Imo, this is mostly a matter of how we think about these things. If we think of a wider gamut as something that provides a reserve of hues that can come into their own depending on how we customise an image, the more reserve we’d probably want. Tighter gamuts can’t provide such reserves and might therefore clip saturated colours in cases (customised images) more obviously.
@kxs783kms Watch this tutorial by Robin Whalley, it might help you:
It doesn’t matter that he’s using PL6, the same principles still apply now.
There isn’t much reason to choose Classic/Legacy over DxO Wide Gamut as your working color space. The working color space is just the color space in which PhotoLab manipulates the RAW camera data. You’ll get less clipping and have more control with DxO Wide Gamut. But you might notice that certain colors are more saturated and less accurate before adjustments are applied. So yes, do enable Soft Proofing and set it to whatever you want your output color space to be. (Mine is sRGB for my monitor and for web publishing.)
The camera profile option is independent of the working color space. What you’re adjusting there is Color Rendering, which affects hues, tonality, saturation, gamma, etc. I’m not aware of any rendering options that change the working color space setting automatically and can’t think of a reason why that should happen, unless what you’re selecting is a Preset that has a WCS setting hardcoded into it.
If you use sRGB displays or are outputting for sRGB, I suggest always having Soft Proofing on regardless of the WCS. Is any of this necessary? That depends on the image. Possibly not, but you’ll always have more control over the rendering of your image if you use the DxO Wide Gamut WCS and Soft Proofing.
Exception to the rule: Custom presets from pre-wide-gamut times. Some will need to be worked over - or the legacy WCS.
@kxs783kms / Kendrick: The following is excellent advice; definitely worth following.