photo display on wide gamut monitor vs sRGB monitor

[Larry2]

Very off topic here but I worked for a very short while at a TV salesroom when I was a student. Banks of different TVs filling one wall. Colours and contrast on all slightly (or very) different.

The manager would tell us to adjust the surrounding ones in a non flattering way when he wanted to shift a specific model.

Yes, monitors are different. Your scenario is different. Here my case is concerned about two color managed and calibrated monitors.

[pschlute]

What is your video card ?

[xpatUSA]

1. I open a photo tagged sRGB using Photoshop on two monitors. It is displayed differently with more saturated colors on aRGB monitor than sRGB monitor. For instance, drag the Photoshop window with the photo from one monitor to the other and the colors change.

I tried using different photo viewers such as Photo of Windows 10. The same result.

2. I open a RAW file in Lightroom on the two monitors. The colors are different. Drag the Lightroom window with the photo from one monitor to the other and the colors change.

May I ask if the inverse occurs.?

If you open a not-highly-saturated image on the Adobe monitor that was saved with an Adobe profile and then drag it to the sRGB monitor, do the the colors change? If so, how do they change?

[Larry2]

What is your video card ?

GeForce GTX1080Ti

[Larry2]

May I ask if the inverse occurs.?

If you open a not-highly-saturated image on the Adobe monitor that was saved with an Adobe profile and then drag it to the sRGB monitor, do the the colors change? If so, how do they change?

The same. Colors are different.

I used the dual monitor feature in Lightroom to display the photo on both monitors simultaneously and they are different in colors.

[Manfred M]

I've just spent some time recalibrating and reprofiling both my displays and have gotten them to be very close in colour.

The higher end displays often have a different profiling approach / software than the lower end ones. My Benq SW2700 ships with its own profiling software called Palette Master Element. The screen has a USB port and it must be plugged into the computer to run the software. The higher end screens have their own LUT (lookup table) that is written to the screen firmware. If you don't use this software, your profile might be problematic. Part of the workflow is to identify the required output as Adobe RGB. I have also set the screen brightness to 80 candela / sq m, which is my usual work brightness.

My lower end Dell screen does not have this feature and I use the x-Rite i1 software. I use the same settings as my Adobe RGB screen for the calibration.

When I follow this calibration and profiling workflow, the two screens are quite close with the Benq being slightly more neutral (I estimate that the Dell is slightly warm looking (in the order of 5Y CC, so darn close).

[DanK]

I use color managed software (both Lightroom and Photoshop) to display the same photo on both monitor. My understanding is that the photo will be displayed as the same on both monitors, given that the colors in the photo are with in the sRGB range. However, the photo displayed on the monitors are different in color. All colors in the photo displayed on the AdobeRGB monitor are stronger than on the sRGB monitor.

I think the core answer may be that this isn't a minimal contrast. That is, it's unlikely that the gamut coverage is the only difference between the two monitors. I have a wide gamut monitor, and when I set it to sRGB, it looks more vivid than the cheap sRGB monitor next to it. That's not a function of treatment of out-of gamut colors.

A second issue is that at least some computers running windows--in fact, all of the ones I have used since starting to calibrate my monitor years ago--maintain one profile as active at a time. It seems unlikely that the calibration software would generate the same profile for both of your monitors. Until recently, I used two sRGB monitors. I did this with two different pairs of monitors, and in both cases, calibrating for the primary monitor made the other one look off. All of the monitors were Dells.

[Larry2]

I've just spent some time recalibrating and reprofiling both my displays and have gotten them to be very close in colour.

The higher end displays often have a different profiling approach / software than the lower end ones. My Benq SW2700 ships with its own profiling software called Palette Master Element. The screen has a USB port and it must be plugged into the computer to run the software. The higher end screens have their own LUT (lookup table) that is written to the screen firmware. If you don't use this software, your profile might be problematic. Part of the workflow is to identify the required output as Adobe RGB. I have also set the screen brightness to 80 candela / sq m, which is my usual work brightness.

My lower end Dell screen does not have this feature and I use the x-Rite i1 software. I use the same settings as my Adobe RGB screen for the calibration.

When I follow this calibration and profiling workflow, the two screens are quite close with the Benq being slightly more neutral (I estimate that the Dell is slightly warm looking (in the order of 5 CC, so darn close).

This is what I expect to get. I understand and accept that they are “slightly more neutral”, or slightly different. However, in my case they are remarkably different.

One thing of my setup that is different from yours is that both my monitors use Spyder4Elite software to manage the calibrated monitor profiles.

The difference in colors on two monitors in my case is beyond what to expect from monitor calibration could make. It looks like a color management issue that sRGB is not mapped to aRGB.

[pschlute]

Are you absolutely sure that your computer and its graphics card are using the correct profile for each monitor ?

I only use a single monitor. How do you tell your computer to use which profile for which ?

[xpatUSA]

The same. Colors are different.

I used the dual monitor feature in Lightroom to display the photo on both monitors simultaneously and they are different in colors.

I wish I knew something about that Lightroom feature. Can't help but feel there's a clue there.

[Manfred M]

How do you tell your computer to use which profile for which ?

This is not a problem. Both the profiling software and the operating system have no issues identifying the specific computer screen. My video card supports up to four different screens.

[Manfred M]

The difference in colors on two monitors in my case is beyond what to expect from monitor calibration could make. It looks like a color management issue that sRGB is not mapped to aRGB.

Which video card are you using?

[Larry2]

Problem resolved. Thank you all for your help.

Solution: Inspired by what Manfred M has done to recalibrate the monitors, I recalibrated the two monitors and the problem is resolved.

Test: The photo displayed on both monitors are now the same using Lightroom with the aRGB monitor to show slightly neutral colors. The same as Manfred M observed.

1. If I use the dual monitor feature of Lightroom to display the photo, the photo shows the same color on both monitors.
2. If I drag the Lightroom window from the sRGB monitor to the aRGB monitor, I can see the colors are pushed to more saturated ones on the aRGB monitor while I hold the mouse button, and the colors are adjusted back to the same as on the sRGB monitor as soon as I release the mouse button.
3. If I use Photos app of Windows 10 to display the photo, it shows different colors on the two monitors, which is expected as Photos app of Windows 10 is not color managed.

Possible cause: I guess the monitor profile management software, in my case Spyder4Elite, screwed up the LUTs to have prevented the color profiles from working. Recalibrating the monitors rectifies it.

Motto: Recalibrate monitors on a regular basis.

[ST1]

Which video card are you using?

Manfred, Larry answers this question at #24


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[ST1]

Problem resolved. Thank you all for your help.

Solution: Inspired by what Manfred M has done to recalibrate the monitors, I recalibrated the two monitors and the problem is resolved.

Test: The photo displayed on both monitors are now the same using Lightroom with the aRGB monitor to show slightly neutral colors. The same as Manfred M observed.

1. If I use the dual monitor feature of Lightroom to display the photo, the photo shows the same color on both monitors.
2. If I drag the Lightroom window from the sRGB monitor to the aRGB monitor, I can see the colors are pushed to more saturated ones on the aRGB monitor while I hold the mouse button, and the colors are adjusted back to the same as on the sRGB monitor as soon as I release the mouse button.
3. If I use Photos app of Windows 10 to display the photo, it shows different colors on the two monitors, which is expected as Photos app of Windows 10 is not color managed.

Possible cause: I guess the monitor profile management software, in my case Spyder4Elite, screwed up the LUTs to have prevented the color profiles from working. Recalibrating the monitors rectifies it.

Motto: Recalibrate monitors on a regular basis.

Pleased to see you have overcome the issue, I use the Spyder to calibrate my two monitors ( a Dell plus anLG) I have used the Spyder option “Studio Match” which in theory creates a calibrated profile for use across numerous displays.
Have you that option available with your Spyder software?
Just for clarity in my PC I use the Motherboard onboard graphics (Intel 4000) graphics and the Spyder creates two calibration profiles one for each display. The calibration being loaded to each display on system start up and confirmed with a splash screen as the calibration becomes active. I can see the colours of the Win10 screen image change as the calibration becomes active.


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[Manfred M]

Manfred, Larry answers this question at #24


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Thanks - missed that.

I don't know the current state but a few years ago nVidia viewed Lightroom and Photoshop as "professional" applications and according to their own literature did not support the consumer level cards and effectively forced people to buy the workstation Quadro cards for proper colour support. This was one of the reasons that I switched to a more affordable AMD Radeon Pro workstation card.

I was looking for other possibilities as to why this problem might be occuring.

[Manfred M]

Possible cause: I guess the monitor profile management software, in my case Spyder4Elite, screwed up the LUTs to have prevented the color profiles from working. Recalibrating the monitors rectifies it.

Motto: Recalibrate monitors on a regular basis.

I'm glad to read that you have found a solution.

In the "old days" of CRT screens I would do this once or twice a month because these would definitely experience colour drift over a relatively short period of time. I was only running a single screen at that time as the 24" "monster" Sony I had took up considerable desk space.

Back then I used the "original" i1 and thankfully the software and hardware have improved over the past 15 years. I would get a "bad" profile at least once a year for some unknown reason and would have to go back and redo the calibration / profiling operation. The newer unit / software seems to be much more consistent and I can only remember a single case where I got a strange profile that needed to be redone.

That being said, much like Dan, I find that the less expensive screen does not do the colours / contrast quite as well as the more expensive one, but they are close enough.