Adobe 1998 to SRGB

[puppychew]

Hi - I usually work in SRGB but the colors appear more correct in Adobe 1998. My question is if I send a jpeg to someone that I created in PS using Adobe 1998, would the colors in the jpeg from this Adobe 1998 profile be viewed the same (or close) by the receiver? Or should I just stick to SRGB?

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @puppychew

First, a requirement to have a chance to the receiver to see the Adobe RGB image correctly or near correctly you have to embed the Color Profile in with the image. Without doing that the image would likely be viewed less saturated. Given the Color Profile is embedded with the image:

If the receiver is using a color managed application, the colors may be similar. If they are not using a color managed application, the colors could look less saturated (that's because Adobe RGB with its wider gamut uses small color numbers to represent the same color as in sRGB.
The good news is that most browsers are color managed. There are a number of applications that still are not. As I recall the Photos App (the default image viewer in Windows 10 and 11) is not. They would have to install the older Photo Viewer application for it to be color managed.

Do note also that unless the receiver has an sRGB display instead of a wide gamut display, even with color managed application, the color management will map you Adobe RGB to the smaller gamut of their display and they would see no advantage to your wider gamut image.

Its easy to test with any receiver. Send then one image with sRGB and another with sRGB (profile embedded in each) and ask them if they see a difference in any of their viewing applications.

There are a lot of other nuances yet that is the basics.
Hope that helps
John Wheeler

 

[puppychew]

So if I am trying to match a paint chip color by entering the hex#, it will look less saturated in most cases. Do you think it may be safer for me to work in SRGB and increase the saturation by eye in the image to match the actual paint chip color. Does this make sense since most people probably have an SRGB monitor?

 

[thebestcpu]

So if I am trying to match a paint chip color by entering the hex#, it will look less saturated in most cases. Do you think it may be safer for me to work in SRGB and increase the saturation by eye in the image to match the actual paint chip color. Does this make sense since most people probably have an SRGB monitor?

It's really your call on which color space to use. Your workflow could be simpler by just using sRGB is you are OK with a slightly smaller color gamut.
Your are correct, the standard assumption when you are using HEX codes is that you are in sRGB. However, if you use the Hex code in Adobe RGB you would be using larger numbers than what Adobe RGB would use for the same color. Therefore using the Hex code in Adobe RGB would look over saturated. And if you were trying to compensate, you would need to desaturate. I do not recommend that approach as there are more accurate ways to have the right color numbers in Adobe RGB.

Yet it begs the question, if you are using the sRGB HEX codes then why do you need Adobe RGB. Unless you are going to be having/using colors that are outside the sRGB color gamut, for monitor viewing purposes there is no real need to use Adobe RGB.

Another way to think about it, if you created your image sRGB, and converted it to Adobe RGB, it should look exactly the same (same saturation etc). So I might be confused about the situation where Adobe RGB seems better for you.

If you want to use sRGB HEX codes when editing in sRGB color space, there is a workaround yet why bother if staying in sRGB provides all the colors you need and is a simpler workflow?

Let me know what you want to do and I or other Forum members will help you do it.

 

[puppychew]

Thank you for your detailed explanation! I have read it about 10 times so far.
I have created a paint color chart in PS. When viewing in PS -
- If I convert the profile to SRGB - the tans look great but the reds for example look dull.
- Converting it to Adobe RGB the reds and richer colors look perfect (when comparing them to a hard copy paint chart from the store) but the tans etc. look too saturated.

I thought of using a SRGB profile and adjusting some of the dull colors saturation manually.
I use a wide gamut screen but most people I work with say while showing them PS colors on a zoom call do not.

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @puppychew and you are welcome.
Glad you are making progress in understanding color spaces. It took me a long time to warp my brain around that when I first started learning about Color Spaces/Management.

Sometimes is easier to think of Color Spaces as Color Scales. A parallel is temperature scales. If you were going to visit a city in which a friend lived and they said it was going to be 50 degrees out so dress accordingly. If you thought they were quote temperature in Fahrenheit you would dress for cool weather, yet if your friend was quote the temperature in Celsius, they your would have dressed incorrectly. 50 C is actually 122 F in temperature.

So it is with Color Spaces (Color Scales), the same color numbers will mean different color look depending on the Color Scale (Color Space).

If the Color Scale is always included with the image, the Color Management System helps convert the color numbers to be correct (or correct as possible) when moving between Color Spaces/Scales. The analogy has it limits as each color space/scale have different maximum boundaries so highly saturated colors in a wide gamut space have to be mapped to less saturated colors into a smaller gamut Color Space/Scale. (e.g. Adobe RGB to sRGB)

It would be fine to create you image in sRGB and adjust saturation to your liking. If you over-saturated, you will clip those colors and lose the detail if you push the saturation to high. Note that it is impossible for sRGB to represent the most saturated colors in Adobe RGB. To use the most saturated colors in sRGB means also lower the luminosity a bit.

You might want to begin to understand the "soft proofing" capabilities of PS (if you have not already) as that helps you visualize how a wider gamut Color Space/Scale image will appear in a smaller gamut Color Space/Scale

I was a bit confused about you example you gave as you mention converte to sRGB and also converting to Adobe RGB which implies that you started conversion from yet a thired Color Space? So hard to comment as I was a bit confused. Do note that trying to do a visual compare to a chart from a store does have its issues. Printers along with the ink and paper have their own Color Space / Scale and don't cover the entire Color Space of sRGB let alone Adobe RGB. The Color you see also depends on the illumination source color content. That said, a lot is said for adjusting the colors until they look good just for you.

One thing I cannot comment on is the Color Management if any on Zoom Calls. For accurate colors, the application needs end to end color management. If you are transferring image files with embedded coo and the receipient is using a color managed app then the colos would be Color managed.

My brother runs a Photography club over Zoom so will drop a note to him and let you know what I find out.
John Wheeler

 

[puppychew]

Hi @puppychew and you are welcome.
Glad you are making progress in understanding color spaces. It took me a long time to warp my brain around that when I first started learning about Color Spaces/Management.

Sometimes is easier to think of Color Spaces as Color Scales. A parallel is temperature scales. If you were going to visit a city in which a friend lived and they said it was going to be 50 degrees out so dress accordingly. If you thought they were quote temperature in Fahrenheit you would dress for cool weather, yet if your friend was quote the temperature in Celsius, they your would have dressed incorrectly. 50 C is actually 122 F in temperature.

So it is with Color Spaces (Color Scales), the same color numbers will mean different color look depending on the Color Scale (Color Space).

If the Color Scale is always included with the image, the Color Management System helps convert the color numbers to be correct (or correct as possible) when moving between Color Spaces/Scales. The analogy has it limits as each color space/scale have different maximum boundaries so highly saturated colors in a wide gamut space have to be mapped to less saturated colors into a smaller gamut Color Space/Scale. (e.g. Adobe RGB to sRGB)

It would be fine to create you image in sRGB and adjust saturation to your liking. If you over-saturated, you will clip those colors and lose the detail if you push the saturation to high. Note that it is impossible for sRGB to represent the most saturated colors in Adobe RGB. To use the most saturated colors in sRGB means also lower the luminosity a bit.

You might want to begin to understand the "soft proofing" capabilities of PS (if you have not already) as that helps you visualize how a wider gamut Color Space/Scale image will appear in a smaller gamut Color Space/Scale

I was a bit confused about you example you gave as you mention converte to sRGB and also converting to Adobe RGB which implies that you started conversion from yet a thired Color Space? So hard to comment as I was a bit confused. Do note that trying to do a visual compare to a chart from a store does have its issues. Printers along with the ink and paper have their own Color Space / Scale and don't cover the entire Color Space of sRGB let alone Adobe RGB. The Color you see also depends on the illumination source color content. That said, a lot is said for adjusting the colors until they look good just for you.

One thing I cannot comment on is the Color Management if any on Zoom Calls. For accurate colors, the application needs end to end color management. If you are transferring image files with embedded coo and the receipient is using a color managed app then the colos would be Color managed.

My brother runs a Photography club over Zoom so will drop a note to him and let you know what I find out.
John Wheeler

 

[puppychew]

Hi John -
I originally created the color chart in SRGB and then converted and assigned the Adobe profile - when back and forth a few times comparing.

 

[thebestcpu]

Thanks for the clairty @puppychew

You may already know this yet "Converting" and "Assigning" are two totally different operations.
Color management process is always "Converting" such as in Edit > Convert to Profile... which preserves the color appearance as best as possible between color spaces by changing the color numbers to the destination Color Scale/Space.

"Assigning" with Edit > Assign Profile, is typically not used except is special circumstance. "Assigning" keeps the color numbers the same, does no color number conversion to the destination Color Space/Scale and therefore does not maintain the same colors. All "assigning" does is it gives it the destination color scale/space label. Going back to the analogy of temperatures and 50 C. If I convert to Fahrenheit I end up with 122 F. If I assign temperature scale 50 C becomes 50 F which does not represent the original temperature of 50C

One specific example of when you use "Assign" is if the image is not assigned any profile yet you want it to be color managed. To do so you have to assign the profile. You assigned the Color Scale/Space if you know it or you may have to guess which Color Scale/Profile to Assign based on if the color looks right.

Best to avoid Assignment and Stick with Conversion or it may throw you really off for understanding Color Spaces/Scales and Color Management.
John Wheeler

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @puppychew

I did hear back from my brother about color management and Zoom Meetings.
In brief, it was important to have the browser settings for Color Management set properly.
And to avoid various other issues, they all converted to sRGB before sharing on Zoom
I am quoting his response below:

Our camera club was worried about that when we initiated viewing and judging of images online with the pandemic. Some folks kept blaming zoom for images not looking right. Zoom said they don't mess with the color and just send along what the presenter's screen shows. They don't make specifics available in their information pages as far as we could see.

We then did a three way test with me and two other officers having a small set of identical images. We took turns being the presenter. Our conclusion was that images via Zoom seemed to look a little different than what we might see when viewing the images directly with LR or Photoshop or Bridge, but the differences were very small. I had the highest resolution and widest-gamut monitor. When I was the host, perhaps a few more fine details would be visible. The others did not notice color differences, but how could they when they did not have wide enough gamut available to see a difference? When viewing the two others presenting, I could see slight differences in detail and color compared to using my own photo viewer, but not big differences. One presenter had trouble with limited bandwidth, which seemed to affect reliability of fine detail transmission.

More important impact than Zoom itself is the audience member's browser settings, since Zoom is viewed via browser. Firefox has color settings that might make a difference and that are not ideal when left a defaults. On Mac systems, Safari might do ok with defaults. For critical participation, ideally the audience member should have a calibrated monitor (as well as a browser that is set to respect color settings being received).

If the presenter is showing images via a dedicated software than correctly manages color, Zoom will transmit the image pretty much as shown on the screen. If the presenter shows images via some other software, results may vary.

The other way issues can arise is when those preparing images start out with a color space other than sRGB and fail to convert to sRGB before sending, or fail to include the color space indicator in the metadata. The person complains that their image looks better on their computer than what they see in the online meeting, but they don't realize the impact of color space differences. We instruct members to enter images AFTER conversion to sRGB to minimize such complaints, but we still run across members who do the conversion during export and don't bother to look at what they are sending.

I don't know how much the Zoom person knew about color management, but out testing provided enough reassurance for us to feel comfortable having our events via Zoom. Still, we mostly have critical judging done ahead of the meeting, with the judges downloading the images and viewing on calibrated monitor with dedicated photo software having appropriate color settings.

I learned something from his experience and hope it is helpful for you as well
John Wheeler

 

[puppychew]

I greatly appreciate all this information!
As for assign vs convert to profile, this is something I read so much about but never really understood. I understand it much better now thank you. With my playing around with this file I had used both assign and convert back and forth many times.

I will correct my settings and make it all SRGB
Looking at my Color Settings. It is set to Custom. I know North American Gen purpose should be set but then I will miss the asking to change profile to working space.

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @puppychew
There is nothing wrong with having your own custom Color Profile Settings.
I too want to have the warning options all checked to give me a heads up for profile mismatches or missing profiles.
Just as a note, you can save your custom profile on the right side of the Color Profile Settings with the "Save" command. Just rename the file being saved and that will be that name saved in the Color Settings Profile options. You even can write in your own notes about your custom profile which will display at the in the dialog box at the bottom of the Color Settings panel. Might be helpful in keeping it all straight.
John Wheeler

 

[puppychew]

I think I am all set - your help is greatly appreciated

 

[thebestcpu]

You're more than welcome @puppychew
John Wheeler