Comparing lens resolutions

[pjbw]

It looks a little flat to me Peter but that's probably down to Adobe RGB. I only work in sRGB. It should print well even at a size over the one you intend. Only slight problem I can see is the pale line on the horizon. Probably down to sharpening but might be a line left over from selection.

As it looked a little flat on my sRGB monitor I made a very slight adjustment - just set the black point up a little and left the rest of the tone curve straight. Hope you don't mind. People sometimes do that on here. It's good practice for them and also helps posters.

John
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Thank you for your comments John,
Yes, it would look flat in sRGB. Adobe RGB (1998) has a wider colour gamut or whatever than sRGB. However it is possible/probable that 23 did not transmit the full gamut. Trying to find a printer who does is difficult but PhotoBox does, straight off my files- no fiddling about with profiles!
('...left over from selection.'. That was the bug in PSP 9.0. It would leave a 'shadow' of the marquee behind if you moved a selection on a layer.).
The pale line on the horizon is from sharpening . It happened in Photoshop CS5 as well when I got the foreground sharp enough. You are the first one to notice, thank you! It would be possible with PSP 9.02's superb interface to selectively sharpen the horizon area. I have been encouraged to submit the picture for a local competition. I will be interested to hear if anyone notices the over-sharpening.
One expert well-known internationally said the picture would benefit from being printed off bigger, 18" x 12" say rather than my 12" x 8". This would be 19+MP @ 300 DPI; maybe I should think about an RX10?
Peter

[Polar01]

Peter if you are going to print at 12"x18" I would suggest that you look to the sky, now they may be birds in the far distance but printed at that size they will look more like dust bunnies (spots on sensor) and take away from the image.
It does not matter if it is sRBG, Adobe RGB or ProPhoto, your monitor will only display sRGB, the other two colour spaces will allow the printer to print over a larger gamut than the monitor will show, that is unless you have a high end monitor which, can product Adobe RGB. I believe that you do not know this as you use the term "whatever", a dead give away.

Cheers: Allan

[ajohnw]

As far as I know Peter the image has an Adobe RGB profile and 23hq don't do anything with images other than store them and allow them to be viewed.

Allan makes a good point. If your not using a calibrated monitor for Adobe RGB it's rather difficult to be sure what colours and contrast other people will see. The same applies to sRGB as well. I was utterly amazed by the difference once I had calibrated my monitor.

As to a bigger gamut I had the impression from Adobe RGB monitors that it used 10 bits per colour channel but it seems that it actually uses 8 just like sRGB but has bigger steps for want of a better word in order to cover the wider gamut. It misses some shades of colour because of that. There is plenty of information about on the subject.

If I print - very infrequently - I use sRGB. There are people on here that even use colour profiles to suit the paper that the print will be finishing up on and use Adobe RGB. Some even have experience of using ProPhoto even though the full gamut can't be seen on an Adobe RGB monitor. Certain printers cover that range as well. There is a decent video on the various colour gamuts here

http://digitaldog.net/files/ColorGamut.mov

This might be view as a sample and pay for any more. Not sure.

Sharpening - there are a number of tutorial linked to from the CinC home page but you may need to search for it off the tutorial page. I think you will find it covers avoiding this problem.

Software - I run Linux so everything I use is open source. To avoid the sharpening problem I would use an application called Rawtherapee for that. The tonal range that is sharpened can be restricted - in fact it wont sharpen hard white and has a halo control option as well.

John
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[xpatUSA]

Thank you for your comments John,
Yes, it would look flat in sRGB. Adobe RGB (1998) has a wider colour gamut or whatever than sRGB.
Peter

Just a reminder that if an ICC color profile is embedded in the file, any color space should look OK (e.g. not flat) on a monitor. I say "should" because the viewing application should have color-management, e.g. FireFox does by default, Chrome (when I last used it) does not.

Bottom line, as has been said, if people say an image looks 'flat' it needs a profile to be embedded in the file.

Cheers,

[ajohnw]

Not so sure about that Ted and all my browsers are colour managed. I can convert an Adobe RGB into sRGB but there are problems so the colours don't match. Any missing from either can't be displayed actually as Adobe RGB doesn't have more colours just a wider gamut so will miss some sRGB colours. And the same happens the other way round. There are some web page about that show the actual colour differences. Even greens get distorted. I also said a bit flat.

John
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[pjbw]

As far as I know Peter the image has an Adobe RGB profile and 23hq don't do anything with images other than store them and allow them to be viewed.
Allan makes a good point. If your not using a calibrated monitor for Adobe RGB it's rather difficult to be sure what colours and contrast other people will see. The same applies to sRGB as well. I was utterly amazed by the difference once I had calibrated my monitor.
As to a bigger gamut I had the impression from Adobe RGB monitors that it used 10 bits per colour channel but it seems that it actually uses 8 just like sRGB but has bigger steps for want of a better word in order to cover the wider gamut. It misses some shades of colour because of that. There is plenty of information about on the subject.
If I print - very infrequently - I use sRGB. There are people on here that even use colour profiles to suit the paper that the print will be finishing up on and use Adobe RGB. Some even have experience of using ProPhoto even though the full gamut can't be seen on an Adobe RGB monitor. Certain printers cover that range as well. There is a decent video on the various colour gamuts here
http://digitaldog.net/files/ColorGamut.mov
This might be view as a sample and pay for any more. Not sure.
Sharpening - there are a number of tutorial linked to from the CinC home page but you may need to search for it off the tutorial page. I think you will find it covers avoiding this problem.
Software - I run Linux so everything I use is open source. To avoid the sharpening problem I would use an application called Rawtherapee for that. The tonal range that is sharpened can be restricted - in fact it wont sharpen hard white and has a halo control option as well.
John
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CnC has just gone down in the middle of this post (All my other tabs in Opera Ok). I hope I can remember what I was rambling on about. There is a prompt 'Restore Auto-Saved Content' at the bottom of this dialog but I don't think I will chance it.

Back to school, Peter!
All I know is that when I set my R1 to Adobe RGB (1998) the pictures look much better on the monitors via BreezeBrowser than when I have the R1 set to sRGB. My monitors are NEC MultiSync LCD2090UXi's. I don't know if they are top-end but they certainly cost enough! (From 20 years programming I must have twin monitors, identical.)
I used to print using DSColour and the prints came back matching the monitors. However then an order came back looking dull/flat (sRGB?). I queried this and was told I would have to download their profile and use this in future. Life's too short and so I switched to PhotoBox, sending the exact file which I have uploaded above.
I looked at the digital dog movie John. I hope I never have to profile my monitors!
An advantage of Paint Shop Pro is that it can run Photoshop 8-bit plugins. (The one I use mostly is a Russian one 'Altostorm' for perspective and lens correction. The R1 does not need any lens correction but Altstorm's corrections cause noticeably less degradation of my Adobe RGB files than PSP's or PS's standard offerings) I have not felt the need to use more complicated sharpening software, but the time may come.

[ajohnw]

I can't find much on the monitor your using but it's definitely sRGB and not Adobe. There is a full review on the 24in version here

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_2490wuxi.htm

The site can be useful as it gives a good idea of what brightness and contrast levels to set before calibration a particular monitor. Like me you are using a pre calibrated monitor if it's in sRGB mode and you haven't played with custom settings. I'm using a 27in Dell Ultrasharp. The calibration on both isn't too bad as they come but as you can see from the 24in review there is a lot of scope for improvement if you buy and use a calibrator. Yours also uses a CCFL back light. These drifts/age so need calibrating more often the LED types seem to.

I'd guess what you are currently doing - shooting Adobe RGB and then adjusting on a sRGB monitor would cause many people on here to shake their head in sorrow. Me too I'm afraid. I've been there a long time ago. Your monitor can only show 3/4 of the Adobe gamut. It's possible I suppose by guessing what's going on in the colours you can't see but on the other hand some aren't even in the gamut.

I don't print so have no idea really on how people manage sRGB for the web and Adobe RGB for printing but feel that a wide gamut monitor is needed that does cover Adobe RGB.

The restore content works by the way.

John
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[xpatUSA]

As far as I know Peter the image has an Adobe RGB profile and 23hq don't do anything with images other than store them and allow them to be viewed.
John
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According to ExifToolGUI, the file _DSC2822mcZlpmcO.jpg, which I downloaded from http://www.23hq.com/pjbw/photo/15099119/original, has no embedded profile. This means that most apps will assume that it is sRGB and display it thus.

The curious part is that the image doesn't really look like an 'aRGB' image rendered as sRGB. It's almost as if the data has somehow been converted to sRGB and, with no ICC profile embedded, there is no clue how that might have happened! Or, maybe it was viewed in sRGB, looked seriously flat, and got some heavy post-processing until it looked right on a sRGB monitor?

Something is not right, IMHO.

[xpatUSA]

Not so sure about that Ted and all my browsers are colour managed.

Color management is such a minefield that we could waste lots of energy even talking about it.

I can convert an Adobe RGB into sRGB but there are problems so the colours don't match. Any missing from either can't be displayed actually as Adobe RGB doesn't have more colours just a wider gamut so will miss some sRGB colours. And the same happens the other way round. There are some web page about that show the actual colour differences. Even greens get distorted.

Can't comment on that, not knowing the app. you use for conversion that gives so much trouble, the rendering intent you use, the working space, the bit depth you use, no examples of non-matching colors. All part of the minefield, eh?

I also said a bit flat.

Yes, I missed the significant words "a bit", sorry.

Cheers,

[xpatUSA]

The curious part is that the image doesn't really look like an 'aRGB' image rendered as sRGB.

Something is not right, IMHO.

So that we're clear about the difference between images with profiles and those without:

These three have ICC profiles embedded:




These three do not:




In FireFox on my sRGB monitor, the top three look the same, the bottom three look different.

Both sets are in the color space order: ProPhoto, aRGB, sRGB.

(yes, you can have a ProPhoto jpeg!)

Cheers,

[pjbw]

According to ExifToolGUI, the file _DSC2822mcZlpmcO.jpg, which I downloaded from http://www.23hq.com/pjbw/photo/15099119/original, has no embedded profile. This means that most apps will assume that it is sRGB and display it thus.
The curious part is that the image doesn't really look like an 'aRGB' image rendered as sRGB. It's almost as if the data has somehow been converted to sRGB and, with no ICC profile embedded, there is no clue how that might have happened! Or, maybe it was viewed in sRGB, looked seriously flat, and got some heavy post-processing until it looked right on a sRGB monitor?
Something is not right, IMHO.

xpatUSA and John,
I am completely lost here.
I have managed to find the manual for for my 2006 NEC monitors. Very different ones from the 2490wuxi one you found reviewed John. Only 20.3" 1600 x 1200 pixels, (exactly 16" x 12", very handy for desktop publishing) and only £500 each or so if I remember right..

In the manual under Color Control Systems it has:
1,2,3,and 5: increases or decreases Colour temperature....
NATIVE, sRGB: Original colour presented by the LCD panel that is unadjustable.
PROGRAMMABLE: The colour tone that was set up with the downloaded application software is reflected.

I have long since lost the manual for the Radeon X1650 graphics card, also dating from 2006.

No way am I going to poke about in the configuration of my monitors; if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

This is the Exif assigned by the R1 to my original photo (PSP loses the Exif when saved as TIFF and BreezeBrowzer can be used to copy it back in after a fashion):
File: _DSC2822.JPG
File size: 4,309KB
Camera Model: DSC-R1
Date/Time: 2013:03:17 17:30:01
Shutter speed: 1/320 sec
Aperture: 8
Exposure mode: Program
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Spot
ISO: 160
Focal length: 16.3mm
Image size: 3888 x 2592
Rotation: none
White balance: Cloudy
Color space: AdobeRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Contrast: Normal

Probably from my ignorance it seems that at the moment PhotoBox's Fuji printer setup prints off the exact RGB value of each pixel that I send them without any 'profiling'.
My real worry now is that they will sometime in the fuiture start insisting on their orders being profiled. Then I will really have to start to learn about this colour gamut 'minefield'.
Peter

[ajohnw]

Interesting Ted. I'm off to do me exercises shortly, ti chi so not much time so will continue this post when I get back. Have to agree on appearance but that must mean that the card only shows colours in all 3 gamuts. There is also the 3x8bit channels aspect - if so there can't be numerically more colours in aRGB against sRGB.

It's a curious subject. For instance raw doesn't have a gamut,, it just has a colour bit depth. It should have a profile that is needed to correctly render the colours and tone levels the camera sensor and bayer mask the camera generates to some accepted standard. Those colours are then displayed - that does need a profile sRGB or aRGB etc and again if the image is printed.

Now some one will tell me that cameras do have separate sRGB and aRGB icc profiles but that depends what colour chart was used to determine the profile. It might not have any aRGB specific colours in it. What the camera does according to the clearest web page I have found is apply either of the profiles it has internally to jpg's or tiffs if it happens to produce them. No camera I have includes PP. As far as I am aware only one standard card is used to generate a camera's icc file. On my EM-5 the biggest difference between a generic raw conversion and the use of the correct icc file is a huge difference in tonal gradation and light levels.

Then comes out of gamut colours. My calibration reports are in a mess but on a correctly calibrated monitor with all colours but one grey having a delta E of well below 1 a patch came out with a delta E of nearly 5. That is easily visible and it seems the problem with it is well known. There are also sRGB shades that are missing form aRGB but I suspect that the differences are small.

One good thing that I hadn't noticed is that my raw conversion software does have the ability to embed a profile.

As to the rest but I did ask some software people what happens to out of gamut colours in another context relating to display - answer - they are clipped. This suggest the software just aims to get there and doesn't make it. That explains the problem colour patch mentioned. It can't make it unless an aRGB monitor and profile are used.

I get the impression that few understand this area to the degree that I need to find it acceptable but that's just me. Maybe others just use it.

John
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[ajohnw]

There is a part decent discussion on intent etc here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

One thing I am now curious about is does this nvg image have a colour profile in it? Maybe some one can look and tell me.



John
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[xpatUSA]

One thing I am now curious about is does this nvg image have a colour profile in it? Maybe some one can look and tell me.-

Yes John, it has an ICC sRGB profile embedded and looks pretty standard, proper white point, etc.

cheers,

[xpatUSA]

xpatUSA and John,
I am completely lost here.

Peter, you're suffering from TMI! (too much information)

Might be better to learn one bit at time. Consider the effect of selecting either Adobe RGB or sRGB on your camera. These selections affect the pixel data that goes into the JPEG file. Consider a particular green bit in a scene you shoot. If you select sRGB then that color might show up in the image file as, say, RGB = 119, 173, 49. If you select Adobe RGB that very same green will be 135, 171, 61. Bare numbers mean little but these predict that showing the Adobe file rendering of the scene's green as if it were sRGB will cause a lower saturated (64% vs. 70%) green to show on the screen (or in the print) . . unless the image has a profile embedded.

This is the Exif assigned by the R1 to my original photo:
File: _DSC2822.JPG
. . . .
Color space: AdobeRGB
. . . .

If you're thinking that this entry will cause a viewing or printing application to use an Adobe RGB profile when rendering the image, that would not be correct, AFAIK.

Probably from my ignorance it seems that at the moment PhotoBox's Fuji printer setup prints off the exact RGB value of each pixel that I send them without any 'profiling'.

Don't know about PhotoBox, others might. If asked to guess, an image with no profile would be automatically printed as if it were sRGB when no profile is found by their stuff.

My real worry now is that they will sometime in the fuiture start insisting on their orders being profiled. Then I will really have to start to learn about this colour gamut 'minefield'.
Peter

Unlikely, IMHO. Perhaps someone here knows or you could just ask them.

Good luck,

[ajohnw]

Photobox print in sRGB. It's all on their web pages. It appears that they ignore built in profiles but do provide profiles for soft proofing for the paper they use. One dodge if some one uses a package that doesn't allow calibration files to be selected is to install them system wide and select as needed.

It looks to me that if Peter wants to calibrate his monitor, which will be pretty good anyway he would have to buy the NEC kit but I can vaguely remember reading that it's possible to do it with "normal" calibrators and software. This would probably be somewhere on tftcentral uk or northlight-images uk. There is a chance it might be on the Argyll colour management or DispCalGui pages. Plenty of info on colour management on all of these pages anyway. If some one buys a calibrator it might pay to look at certain Dell monitor reviews. They have added hardware calibration to some of the monitors but have tied it down to a specific make of calibrator. I'm not sure if the software is available separately though.

I spent some time reading gobble de guke on ICC's pages. It seems that intent comes into just how say an aRGB image will be displayed on an sRGB monitor and that colour accuracy may not be possible. Hardly surprising really. The info related to built in colour profiles so it's wrong to say that the colours will be correct if the image has an inbuilt profile. Saturation levels appear to be a different matter.

John
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[pjbw]

Peter, you're suffering from TMI! (too much information)
Might be better to learn one bit at time. Consider the effect of selecting either Adobe RGB or sRGB on your camera. These selections affect the pixel data that goes into the JPEG file. Consider a particular green bit in a scene you shoot. If you select sRGB then that color might show up in the image file as, say, RGB = 119, 173, 49. If you select Adobe RGB that very same green will be 135, 171, 61. Bare numbers mean little but these predict that showing the Adobe file rendering of the scene's green as if it were sRGB will cause a lower saturated (64% vs. 70%) green to show on the screen (or in the print) . . unless the image has a profile embedded.

Thank you Ted (#75) and John (#76),
That is what I found when my original printer's prints became flat and dull. PhotoBox have presumably tweaked the files somehow to make them look like Adobe RGB.
Since I started this thread it is obvious that I have been living a charmed life. Short of posting you my prints you will have to take my word for it that the prints by all accounts are very good. However it actually happens they are faithful to the camera's EVF, the BreezeBrowzer viewer and monitors. They do look dull in PSP but since I know that the colours are right I only need to crop, resize, sharpen, Adjust Histogram (Levels in PS speak but with a vastly better intereface), paste in swans, etc. in PSP.
I get the impression that ICC are as confused as I am with aRGB, SRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), ProPhoto RGB...
Ok, going right back to first principles Red is represented as 256 'shades' of brightness (0-255), Green and Blue similarly.
But how is Red defined? Is it a range of wavelengths of visible light or just a specific wavelenght?
At last I found a set of good websites to clear this up for me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red
eg. Red a range of wavelengths 620-740 nm!
On from these I can go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...or_Coordinates
Elementary my dear Watson but now I will have something to start from for when my current camera/monitor/processor/printer combination start to let me down.
Peter.

[ajohnw]

You can get an idea about what goes on with the RGB by googling info on white power LED's Peter. Colour is obtained by mixing various values of rgb. In camera terms one make and type might have specific red, green and blue and another different "values" of rgb. So to generate an ICC file for a specific camera some one some where photographs a standard colour patch card at some specific colour temperature. Software then analyses the image that the camera produced and calculates corrections so that in theory all cameras can have the same colour response. In fact some people obtain the correct colour patch card and photograph it dead on local noon and then use software to calibrate their own camera as cameras do vary. Your camera already has 2 profiles in it. One takes raw and converts to aRGB and the other converts it to sRGB - these are for the jpg's. The raw file doesn't have a gamut as such. An icc file is used to convert it to one or the other or a generic conversion is used. I've not used aRGB so have no idea when the colour profile is attached to the image but from profiles on my machine it isn't attached until an output icc file is specified. That suggests the same camera input profile is always used what ever the output will be. Makes sense as any adjustments made to the raw file will be in an output colour space as it's being viewed on a monitor. There is a good explanation of colour spaces here

http://dpbestflow.org/color/color-sp...color-profiles

(The 2 shots look different to me and my browsers are colour managed)

Now to Peter. I assume you are working from raw but it wouldn't matter if you worked from jpg's, The monitor forces you to have an sRGB output colour space so when you make adjustments that is what you are adjusting to what ever you have told the software to do. That's fine for Photobox because they will print on the basis of sRGB what ever is in the file. Sounds like you did use some one who took notice of the aRGB tag in the file and used an aRGB profile for their printers. Photobox use an sRGB one and offer a proofing profile that accounts for the effects of the paper they use so you should be able to see what it will look like after printing on a sRGB monitor.

There is nothing wrong with the exif info that comes with a download - bit long but I can't help that.



Need to repeat that I used the term a bit flat. Tastes vary.

John
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[pjbw]

There is a good explanation of colour spaces here

http://dpbestflow.org/color/color-sp...color-profiles

(The 2 shots look different to me and my browsers are colour managed)
John
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As far as I know my Opera browser and monitors are not colour managed. To me the left-hand photo of the girl is darker and redder. Even before I noted that it was Adobe RGB based the right-hand is more natural.