Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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mojosam
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Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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I currently process my RAWs in Raw Photo Processor, which exports the image in the Lab color space. I then want to change the color space to ProPhoto.

In the image's Layers panel, I change Lab to RGB. If I go to the Documents panel, I see that the ICC-Profile is listed as None.

In PhotoLine's Preferences dialog, I go to Color Management. I assume I want to look at the Standard page (instead of Devices). Under the popup menu for RGB, it is currently set to System. There are also a bunch of other choices there, but ProPhoto is not among them.

So I go out to my Mac's System Preferences and look at the Displays > Color page. The currently selected Display Profile is "iMac". OK. I assume that tells the computer how to display colors on the screen.

What does PhotoLine use? The manual states: "PhotoLine normally uses the CMS of the operating system". That implies that RGB images are using the magical, mystical "iMac" color profile?

What is my best course of action to get my images in PhotoLine to use ProPhoto? (ideally without munging up the rest of the colors in every other application on the computer)
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russellcottrell
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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In the image's Layers panel, I change Lab to RGB. If I go to the Documents panel, I see that the ICC-Profile is listed as None.
At this point you want to double click ICC-Profile and set it to ProPhoto. (Or Tool - Color - Set Color Profile). I am not using a Mac but I think your installed profiles should be in Users/username/Library/ColorSync/Profiles.

The Standard profiles in Color Management are what PL assumes untagged images to be. But as far as I can tell it does not actually assign the profile. Feature request - could this be an option? In that other program, a dialog pops up asking to set the profile of an untagged image (always a good idea), or to convert the profile if it is different from the default (can be annoying and is best disabled).
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mojosam
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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russellcottrell hat geschrieben: Mo 03 Jun 2019 01:43 At this point you want to double click ICC-Profile and set it to ProPhoto.
I suspected that would be the process. Apparently I don't have a ProPhoto profile on my system. Where would I get one?

You hit on the bigger issue, of course, which is how to assign all of my RGB images to ProPhoto?
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russellcottrell
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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http://www.russellcottrell.com/photo/Ph ... /setup.htm
or
https://sites.google.com/site/chromasoft/icmprofiles

Note that ChromaSoft has some alternate versions of the profiles. That other program allows you to roll your own profiles; I made my own called ProPhoto2255, because I calibrate on gamma 2.2 and color temperature D55. RawTherapee now lets you roll your own profiles as well; I haven’t tried it yet.
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mojosam
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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I swear. I really did read your site. I guess it's time for a reread.

Thanks for the links.
bkh
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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mojosam hat geschrieben: So 02 Jun 2019 22:07 I currently process my RAWs in Raw Photo Processor, which exports the image in the Lab color space. I then want to change the color space to ProPhoto.

In the image's Layers panel, I change Lab to RGB. If I go to the Documents panel, I see that the ICC-Profile is listed as None.
I suggest you don't change your colour space in that way. Use "Convert with Color Profile" to go directly from LAB to ProPhoto. This will also tag your photo as ProPhotoRGB, so that it will look correct in most other Mac apps. Merely setting (assigning) the colour profile may (and in most cases: will) change the interpretation of colours, i.e., the way colours look (maybe simply switching to RGB works if you set the standard profile in PL to ProPhotoRGB, but see below).
mojosam hat geschrieben: So 02 Jun 2019 22:07In PhotoLine's Preferences dialog, I go to Color Management. I assume I want to look at the Standard page (instead of Devices). Under the popup menu for RGB, it is currently set to System.
As Russell already explained, this only refers to the import of untagged images. This is not PL's working colour space (PL will use whatever colour space the image has), so I suggest to set this to sRGB because most untagged photos are in sRGB.
mojosam hat geschrieben: So 02 Jun 2019 22:07 What does PhotoLine use? The manual states: "PhotoLine normally uses the CMS of the operating system". That implies that RGB images are using the magical, mystical "iMac" color profile?
The CMS and the iMac colour profile are two totally different things. The CMS is the part of the OS which is responsible for translating between different colour spaces. The iMac colour profile is the colour profile of your display (it comes with your Mac, you can replace it with your own calibrated display profile). It is used to translate the colours of your working colour space to the right colours on your screen. Don't change it unless you know what you are doing.

Cheers

Burkhard
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mojosam
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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bkh hat geschrieben: Mo 03 Jun 2019 09:58 I suggest you don't change your colour space in that way. Use "Convert with Color Profile" to go directly from LAB to ProPhoto. This will also tag your photo as ProPhotoRGB, so that it will look correct in most other Mac apps. Merely setting (assigning) the colour profile may (and in most cases: will) change the interpretation of colours
I see your point. That little popup menu is dangerous then. It sounds like what I should do when importing a Lab image is to immediately use "Convert with Color Profile" to change the document to ProPhotoRGB.

So after doing that, is it safe to use that popup menu in the Layers panel to change the space of new layers back and forth between Lab and RGB? I would assume that since the document is now ProPhotoRGB that changing a layer from Lab to RGB will automatically assign ProPhotoRGB to that layer? I did some experimenting, and it seems to be doing this.
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mojosam
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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OK, I'm misunderstanding something, or maybe I did things out of order and will have to reprocess my image.

I have a photo that I imported from RPP as Lab. I added three curve layers above that. One manipulates the Lab L channel, one manipulates a, and one manipulates b. The whole image is gorgeous.

Note that PL is able to do a Web Export, and the JPG looks as good as my PL Lab version. That tells me that my gamut is still within the sRGB boundaries.

Then we had this discussion, and I decided to convert the bottom layer to ProPhoto.

I went to Tool > Color > Convert with Color Profile and changed it to ProPhoto. The whole image turned browninsh/yellowish/ghastlyish. If I turn off the three Lab curve layers, all of that ghastlyness goes away, but so do my improvements.

Apparently the Lab curves interact differently with the underlying ProPhoto layer than when it was Lab. I had assumed that the colors of my image would map from one space to the other with minimal change.

Is this what I should have expected? Or am I doing something wrong or is something not set properly?

In the future, I will convert to ProPhoto before doing any manipulation. I have 40 or so images that I processed my old way. I'd like to be able to tweak them some more.
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Hoogo
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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Your result was nice when you exported to sRGB. So why do you want to convert to ProPhoto at all?
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mojosam
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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Hoogo hat geschrieben: Di 04 Jun 2019 08:22 Your result was nice when you exported to sRGB. So why do you want to convert to ProPhoto at all?
In this specific case, I wanted to save out an RGB-based TIFF that I could take into Topaz Sharpen AI.

More generally, I'm trying to understand how all of this stuff interacts. It looks like I have to choose a color space for the background layer at the very beginning and live with it forever like a bad life decision.
bkh
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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mojosam hat geschrieben: Di 04 Jun 2019 05:29 I went to Tool > Color > Convert with Color Profile and changed it to ProPhoto. The whole image turned browninsh/yellowish/ghastlyish. If I turn off the three Lab curve layers, all of that ghastlyness goes away, but so do my improvements.
The problem here is that all the adjustments are relative to the working colour space. Curves, blending modes etc. all work very differently, depending on the colour space (and in general, it's not possible to "readjust" them). If you look at the curves adjustment, you'll notice that now your curves are applied to the RGB values. In your case, it should be possible to just change the Curves mode to Lab, and get the original result (but other adjustments may still show different results).

Cheers

Burkhard
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

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mojosam hat geschrieben: Di 04 Jun 2019 09:02 It looks like I have to choose a color space for the background layer at the very beginning and live with it forever like a bad life decision.
At least, you can open the finished Lab TIFF image and convert it to whatever colour space is needed. It's an extra step in the workflow, sure, but nothing is lost (as long as you're using 16 bit colour depth). There's also Batch Convert, to convert multiple files at once, you'll just have to record the conversion step as an action.

It's also possible to open your Lab .pld file as a placeholder in another .pld file and set (!) the colour space of the new .pld to ProPhotoRGB. Saving that file will automatically do the Lab to RGB transformation.

Cheers

Burkhard
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russellcottrell
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

Beitrag von russellcottrell »

Note that PL is able to do a Web Export, and the JPG looks as good as my PL Lab version. That tells me that my gamut is still within the sRGB boundaries.
I think it tells you that the gamut is still within your display profile’s boundaries. Which hopefully is larger than sRGB.

I went to Tool > Color > Convert with Color Profile and changed it to ProPhoto. The whole image turned browninsh/yellowish/ghastlyish. If I turn off the three Lab curve layers, all of that ghastlyness goes away, but so do my improvements.
To second what bkh said, it does this with other adjustments as well, such as the hue of a hue/saturation layer when colorizing a b/w image.

I recommend a workflow that always starts with a big gamut (preferably ProPhoto and 16 bit) then works down as needed. And when converting, do it to a copy of the image, either a flattened exported tif or jpg, or at least a stamped image layer above your adjustment layers (may be risky, keeping track of it all).

The gamut of my printer, and even the native gamut of my display, are both larger than AdobeRGB, the first by quite a lot and the second just a little. That is why I always advocate for ProPhoto. Even though you can’t see it all on the display, you can learn to edit your images with plenty of saturation, then do a soft proof then a hard proof to see how it will print, and adjust as needed. And obviously you can export for web with sRGB to see how that looks. That other program has an option to desaturate your display’s colors to compensate for a larger gamut; I never used it.

It looks like I have to choose a color space for the background layer at the very beginning and live with it forever like a bad life decision.
If you are starting with a 16 bit Lab, ProPhoto is not too bad a decision.
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mojosam
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Re: Assigning ProPhoto to an Image

Beitrag von mojosam »

OK. All of this is making sense now. I came at this with some knowledge but not enough to stay out of trouble. I feel educated now. I probably know enough now to get into deeper trouble somewhere else.