FastStone Viewer Color Management Alert . .

[xpatUSA]

This post is prompted by embarrassment suffered on another site

The subject was color profiles and the consequences of not having one embedded in your masterpiece. You know, the one about "I posted my picture but Explorer 8 shows it as dull and flat . ."

So, I took a raw file and saved it (not from FastStone) as an sRGB file, an Adobe RGB file and a ProPhoto (wide gamut) file. I opened them in Explorer 8 (brushing the dust off it first) and, sure enough, each file looked different (screen shot):



Then I resized the images in FastStone Viewer and "saved as" JPEGs to post in a forum. Embarrassingly, people said they all looked the same, even those with Chrome or older Explorers. So, I looked in my files with the excellent ExifToolGUI and, to my horror, FastStone had stripped out all the profiles carefully embedded therein by my editor (Sigma Photo Pro).

Therefore, my readers' non-color managed browsers had assumed the sRGB default and rendered the images all the same. That doesn't sound right somehow but it is what happened, according to said readers (all two or three of them).

Yes, the CM box is checked in my Viewer settings.

Up 'til that point, I was getting to like FSV for quick and dirty work . . .

[dje]

Ted I checked this with my copy of FSV by re-sizing a jpeg with an srgb colour profile (embedded by PS) and found that the srgb profile remained. Could it be something to do with the version of FSV you have or perhaps your Sigma editing software ?

Dave

[xpatUSA]

Ted I checked this with my copy of FSV by re-sizing a jpeg with an srgb colour profile (embedded by PS) and found that the srgb profile remained. Could it be something to do with the version of FSV you have or perhaps your Sigma editing software ?

Dave

Could easily be, Dave. Also a possibility of finger-trouble, so I went back and did a jpeg with ACR5.4->PSE6:



Hopefully it can be downloaded for your inspection . .

Then I cropped it in FSV V4.6 and "saved as" another jpeg, 90%, 4:4:4:



ExifToolGUI is not showing an embedded ICC, so I'm assuming FSV doesn't keep the profile when "saving as".

I shoulda perhaps used a ProPhoto image where the difference would be visible but downloading both for your info should do the trick?

[edit] I just downloaded them both and the PS one still has an embedded profile and the crop still doesn't.

I also re-sized one and saved it, as opposed to "saved as" and the profile disappeared again.

How did you check for the presence/absence of a profile, out of interest?

[dje]

Ted I used both ExifTool and Opanda Exif to look at the Colour Space field. Maybe I should be looking somewhere else ? I downloaded both your images and they both indicate a Colour Space of sRGB.

Dave

[xpatUSA]

Ted I used both ExifTool and Opanda Exif to look at the Colour Space field. Maybe I should be looking somewhere else ? I downloaded both your images and they both indicate a Colour Space of sRGB.
Dave

Ahh . . now it is clear. You're talking about one field, perhaps in the EXIF metadata. I'm talking about an entire embedded ICC profile. See this screenshot from ExifToolGUI ('ALL' button clicked):



Everything from the ICC profile heading down to APP14 . . .

This image has it:



This one does not:



They should look different if your browser is 'color-managed' . . .

[dje]

Thanks Ted. Makes more sense now ! Something else for me to learn more about.

Dave

[revi]

This post is prompted by embarrassment suffered on another site

The subject was color profiles and the consequences of not having one embedded in your masterpiece. You know, the one about "I posted my picture but Explorer 8 shows it as dull and flat . ."

So, I took a raw file and saved it (not from FastStone) as an sRGB file, an Adobe RGB file and a ProPhoto (wide gamut) file. I opened them in Explorer 8 (brushing the dust off it first) and, sure enough, each file looked different (screen shot):

(...)

Then I resized the images in FastStone Viewer and "saved as" JPEGs to post in a forum. Embarrassingly, people said they all looked the same, even those with Chrome or older Explorers. So, I looked in my files with the excellent ExifToolGUI and, to my horror, FastStone had stripped out all the profiles carefully embedded therein by my editor (Sigma Photo Pro).

Therefore, my readers' non-color managed browsers had assumed the sRGB default and rendered the images all the same. That doesn't sound right somehow but it is what happened, according to said readers (all two or three of them).

Yes, the CM box is checked in my Viewer settings.

Up 'til that point, I was getting to like FSV for quick and dirty work . . .

If the images w/o embedded profiles all looked the same on a non-managed browser,
that means that the colour information in them was the same. And that would mean that
FSV not only strips out the ICC info, but also converts the images to the sRGB colour space.
(Not too crazy a way of doing things in a fast and dirty editor, as sRGB is, at least de facto,
the standard colour space for jpeg for screen/web use and standard commercial printing.)