ICC/Colors are not correct by B/W pictures

[Sbidy]

Hey,

today I finally found the issue why I wasted tonnes of expensive Hahnemühle paper......

The Issue:

The ICC profile is mismatched by Black and White pictures is no "Black and White" Adjustment Layer was added.

Publisher tries to interpret the, already B/W pictures, as colorized one.

To explain it a little bit better here my workflow to reproduce:

1. I added a JPG picture exported from Capture One (sRGB) in a Picture Frame on a sRGB plank page in Publisher
2. I made some small adjustment without adding a B/W adjustment layer because I exported it as B/W from C1.
3. I hit "print" and configured my Epson P600 with the for the paper defined settings - I disabled the color correction from the printer! All settings are standard end recommended from Hahnemühle Photo Rag Smooth paper (attached as print_settings - German).
4. In the Publisher Print Setting I added the ICC profile form Hahnemühle and switched the "Color Handling" to "Performed by App" (attached as Publisher_settings)

Now the "magic" happens:

I've done Step 1-4 with two different B/W pictures with the same settings. But in the print preview both pictures are completely different. One will show up correct and the other one got an "yellow punch". Both pictures are exported identically from Capture One with the same settings. And the real magic is - this behavior is random. It works maybe for 1-3 pictures but with the 4th the print preview will get an "yellow or blue punch" ...

The Workaround:

After a really long time testing and debugging I found a "workaround" for that: To avoid a "color correction" from Publisher you have to add a "B/W Adjustment Layer". After that the picture will be processed with the right coloring. See in Publisher_Settings_1.jpg

To show the difference between with and w/o B/W Adjustment I've attached the pictures from the print preview - with_BW.jpg and without_BW.jpg. I think the difference is clearly visible.

And that's not all ....

This is also the case for Affinity Photo - there is the same behavior/issue.

 

So I think this is not a normal behavior an appears only in the serif apps.

 

At the end I wasted much time and money (because at the first time I thought that my screen was wrong calibrated).

I can not trust the Affinity apps anymore about how the ICC will applied.

Some Details:

1. The behavior depends not on the JPG type or any other information in or from the picture
2. The behavior variate between identical exported pictures from Capture One
3. All tested pictures are from the same camera
4. The pictures are converted from RAW to JPG in Capture One
5. Pictures are printed with "Perceptual" setting

 

Dose someone see a "error" in my workflow? I think this can be a really ugly and "bad" bug in the color handling software stack ...

If needed I can provide two pictures to reproduce the behavior.

 

Additional Info:

Publisher Version: 1.8.5.703

Printer: Epson SureColor SC-P600

Paper: Hahnemühle Photo Rag Smooth

ICC: From the Hahnemühle Page https://www.hahnemuehle.com/en/digital-fineart/icc-profile/download-center.html

Source Pictures: JPG 8bit with sRGB

[Gabe]

Hi @Sbidy,

Welcome to the forums.

There is no bug here. 

The "without_BW.JPG" image is simply not black and white. It has that "yellow" tint to it, the one you see on paper. If you don't see a difference between the 2 images you've attached on your screen, then your screen it's not calibrated properly. Whenever not sure, check with the colour picker. For B/W images, the RGB values must be identical. 

 

 

[Sbidy]

On 2/3/2021 at 4:59 PM, Gabe said:

Hi @Sbidy,

Welcome to the forums.

There is no bug here. 

The "without_BW.JPG" image is simply not black and white. It has that "yellow" tint to it, the one you see on paper. If you don't see a difference between the 2 images you've attached on your screen, then your screen it's not calibrated properly. Whenever not sure, check with the colour picker. For B/W images, the RGB values must be identical. 

 

 

 

Hey,

I can't confirm that. My monitor is calibrated monthly (with Spyder X Pro).

I've also checked every pixel in the exported JPG programmatically (via Python). The result is that 1.663px from 7.192.487px (2.190 × 3.285) have non-equal RGB values.

In my opinion ~0,2% of the pixel can not have an impact on the color. I think these are "errors" from the compression algorithm in Capture One. So it is fact that the "color" change is "applied" in the Publisher App.

I also attached a screen shot from a spot check in Publisher with the color picking tool.

To be more precise: booth Zebras are the same picture - the screenshots are taken form the "Print Preview" of my Epson printer. The first (left) without the additional B/W layer added and the second (right) with this B/W Adjustment Layer. So it not depend on the monitor and not on the printer and not on the ICC profile - because these parameters are not changed.

Maybe this makes my issue little bit clearer.

Thank you 🙂

[Gabe]

12 hours ago, Sbidy said:

To be more precise: booth Zebras are the same picture - the screenshots are taken form the "Print Preview" of my Epson printer.

Ah, I would not have known that. Can you zip and attach the image exported from Capture One? 

Another thing that worries me is that your "R: G: B:" text below your colour picker is yellow. That should be white, so I thing there's a colour management issue going on there. 

Can you attach a screenshot of your Windows > Colour Management > Advanced and Colour Management > Advanced > Change System Default > Advanced windows? 

Also, attach a screenshot of Affinity > Preferences > Colour. 

Sounds like you've got the common "yellow is white" issue going on. 

12 hours ago, Sbidy said:

I've also checked every pixel in the exported JPG programmatically (via Python). The result is that 1.663px from 7.192.487px (2.190 × 3.285) have non-equal RGB values.

Yeah, that should not really make everything look yellow. That's why I'm thinking it's a colour management issue somewhere. Applying the B/W will force everything into the same RGB value per pixel, so I reckon something is wrong at import, or a wrong ICC profile with the original file. We shall see when you attach your original zipped image. 

[Sbidy]

11 hours ago, Gabe said:

Ah, I would not have known that. Can you zip and attach the image exported from Capture One? 

Another thing that worries me is that your "R: G: B:" text below your colour picker is yellow. That should be white, so I thing there's a colour management issue going on there. 

Can you attach a screenshot of your Windows > Colour Management > Advanced and Colour Management > Advanced > Change System Default > Advanced windows? 

Also, attach a screenshot of Affinity > Preferences > Colour. 

Sounds like you've got the common "yellow is white" issue going on. 

Yeah, that should not really make everything look yellow. That's why I'm thinking it's a colour management issue somewhere. Applying the B/W will force everything into the same RGB value per pixel, so I reckon something is wrong at import, or a wrong ICC profile with the original file. We shall see when you attach your original zipped image. 

Ah, sorry - I marked this "RGB" white text with an yellow "text marker" in the screen shot. This numbers are white :-) .. sorry for that.

I've attached the "JPG" original picture. But I can use any B/W exports from Capture One. So it is not a issue of the picture itself.

I attached the settings as pictures too.

Maybe there are mismatches in the setting but I don't changed anything here.

_DSC1723.zip

[Gabe]

Ah. It must be your colour ICC profile then. 

On 1/30/2021 at 8:26 PM, Sbidy said:

In the Publisher Print Setting I added the ICC profile form Hahnemühle and switched the "Color Handling" to "Performed by App" (attached as Publisher_settings)

Your image is sRGB, but you're printing using a different ICC profile. So values will shift slightly.

You should always soft proof when you're using a different ICC profile for your output. 

If you add a soft proof adjustment with the output ICC, you will see how the image will look like after the export. Just make sure you turn the soft proof adjustment off before you export/print. 

Ideally, you would want to be working in the colour space you're gonna be printing. If you convert your image in a Hahnemühle icc, the RGB values will be different. What the B&W filter does is just forcing the RGB values to be identical. 

[Sbidy]

I'm using a Soft Proof and additional the Print Preview from the printer driver. And the color shift is only visible in the Print Preview not in the Proof with the same ICC!! That is why i wasted so much paper!

In my opinion the image was not correctly passed through the Publisher Color Engine to the printer driver.

 

So it also can't be a problem of the ICC profile because I use the same for both pictures. The only change between the two example pictures is the B/W Adjustment Layer.

If it is a ICC problem (witch is used many times form other users) the color shift should be stay regardless if I add a B/W adjustment layer or not.

You can easily reproduce this behavior with any ICC profile. I tested it on an different computer with the same picture with the ICC profile "Japan Newspaper 2002".

The result see attached - I printed the picture with the "Microsoft PDF Printer" from Windows 10 to check if it is a issue from the Epson printer driver.

So the result is:

1. You can use "any" printer driver/engine it makes no difference
2. You can use "any" ICC profile - it makes no difference
3. You can use "any" computer or Windows color configuration
4. You can Soft Proof the picture and you will NOT see the color shift
5. You can only see the color shift in the printed picture or print preview!
6. You can only fix the color shift by adding a B/W Adjustment layer to force the engine to be B/W

So in my opinion this must be a bug - because I do so much testing to try to find "my error" in the workflow but it is fact that the "Serif Color Engine" do some magic stuff.

 

Please try to reproduce this - you can use any ICC with any printer.

 

Left: Without BW Adjustment ---------- Right: With BW Adjustment -------- Both same Printer, same ICC (Japan Newspaper 2002) same picture (from the zip).

----> The color of the shift will variate between the ICC profile type! By "Japan News Paper" it is a blue one.

 

[Gabe]

The main issue in your workflow is converting from one colour workspace to another at print/export time. Which is wrong. You're also using a Perceptual intent, which will change ALL values to the new colour space. (more or less). Your b&w adjustment works because when you send something to the printer, the app will convert the doc to your chosen colour space, then apply the adjustment. By doing so, the "yellow" image (because you convent from one space to another) will be turned into a black and white image. Not the most accurate conversion, but expected for your workflow. 

As suggested, you should be ideally doing all this conversion before printing. Convert your sRGB image to your paper ICC, apply a b/w filter to convert all pixels to same RGB values. When you print, make sure the printer profile matches your document profile. This way, there should be no conversion, so no colour cast. 

Using your sRGB to ${any other icc} workflow at print/export, a conversion will happen which will lead to a cast(more or less visible).