Preview what an image will look like on a monitor with different colour gamut?

[lineweight]

Is there a way of previewing what a wide-gamut image will look like to someone looking at it on a narrower gamut display?

For example, I have an image which takes full advantage of the AdobeRGB colourspace, and I have a monitor that can near enough display the full AdobeRGB gamut. But I would like to see how it would appear to someone with an sRGB monitor in two potential scenarios

(1) I don't change the image, the file is tagged as AdobeRGB, and they view it in, say, a web browser on their sRGB display

(2) I convert & save the image as one within the sRGB colourspace, and the file is tagged as such.

I thought this might be possible using the "soft proof" adjustment layer. After all this is what it does for printed images - it offers a preview of what the image would look like on various combinations of printer/paper. So I thought that if I used this but selected the sRGB profile instead of a printer profile, I would see the image as it would appear on an sRGB monitor. However, I don't think that happens, because the image I see doesn't change at all when I turn on that adjustment layer. If I tick the "gamut check" box, then I think it does correctly show me the portions of the image that are out of the sRGB gamut ... and hence would be clipped or remapped if viewed on an sRGB monitor.

But it doesn't let me preview the image, as far as I can see. Is there a way of doing what I want to do in Affinity Photo?

[lineweight]

52 minutes ago, BofG said:

Unfortunately RGB soft proof of an RGB image doesn't seem to work. In theory it should, but it seems like it either does nothing or shows a nonsensical result.

Your best bet is option (2). If it's being viewed as you say though, it's only a rough guide. There are plenty of very badly setup monitors out in the wild, and a lot that don't even cover close to all of the sRGB gamut.

Ok, thanks. It's not just me missing something then - it's not actually possible to do what I want in Affinity.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, lineweight said:

Is there a way of previewing what a wide-gamut image will look like to someone looking at it on a narrower gamut display?

It depends -- a wide gamut image will never look the same on a monitor that is incapable of reproducing every color of the image as it will on one that can display all its colors, but not all images using a wide gamut color space use all the colors of that space.

[NotMyFault]

It should be possible to infer a LUT from sRGB / Adobe RGB exports, and use the LUT as softproof life filter.

Need to test if it accurately matches and sRGB export

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, NotMyFault said:

It should be possible to infer a LUT from sRGB / Adobe RGB exports, and use the LUT as softproof life filter.

But how would doing that make it look the same to someone viewing the image on a monitor incapable of showing all the image's colors as someone viewing it on a monitor that could?

[NotMyFault]

color format conversion has been a primary use case for LUTs. It is less accurate  compared to dedicated conversion functions, but fast and universally available.

 

 

[walt.farrell]

Couldn't you just as easily Export a copy of the file converted to sRGB, and then look at the original and the sRGB version side-by-side on the higher-capability monitor?

 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Couldn't you just as easily Export a copy of the file converted to sRGB, and then look at the original and the sRGB version side-by-side on the higher-capability monitor?

I think I may have misinterpreted what the OP meant but I assumed this was about someone other than the OP with a narrow gamut display trying to see what the wide gamut image should look like on the OP's wide gamut display, not the other way around.

[NotMyFault]

15 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Couldn't you just as easily Export a copy of the file converted to sRGB, and then look at the original and the sRGB version side-by-side on the higher-capability monitor?

 

Yes, but the OP asked for a live filter type preview. This is the reason why i suggested using LUTs.

10 hours ago, lineweight said:

Is there a way of previewing what a wide-gamut image will look like to someone looking at it on a narrower gamut display?

[...]

I thought this might be possible using the "soft proof" adjustment layer.

 

I tried to create a LUT for that purpose, but it doesn't work correctly. Might be "by design" how Affinity is treating color spaces and adjustment layers.

[v_kyr]

Well previewing such comparisons makes mostly only sense, if viewed on a very high gamut supporting monitor. Since a plain sRGB monitor isn't capable of showing much of the higher gamut color difference here then at all. - As one easily can check here ...

• Comparison between normal and wide-gamut images
• Interactive Image Comparison

For other gamut related comparisons and explorings tools like ...

• Gamutvision

... are useful.

 

[lineweight]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:21 PM, walt.farrell said:

Couldn't you just as easily Export a copy of the file converted to sRGB, and then look at the original and the sRGB version side-by-side on the higher-capability monitor?

 

yes I could do this, but I was hoping for an easy and instantaneous preview which would work like the softproof function.

[lineweight]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:26 PM, R C-R said:

I think I may have misinterpreted what the OP meant but I assumed this was about someone other than the OP with a narrow gamut display trying to see what the wide gamut image should look like on the OP's wide gamut display, not the other way around.

yes... you have it the wrong way around.

I want to check what it will look like to someone with a narrower gamut display than what I have.

There are a number of different possibilities for what would actually happen. In theory if I convert the image to sRGB then I have control over how exactly it's converted (for example are saturated colours clipped or remapped) and then in theory, what I see when I look at that image on my monitor would be the same as they saw (obviously this would only actually happen if both monitors were precisely calibrated to the same standard). In my scenario (1) in my OP I don't have any control over the conversion, because it would happen at their end, carried out by some kind of combination of their operating system and whatever application (eg a web broswer) they were viewing it in.

 

 

[lineweight]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:46 PM, v_kyr said:

Well previewing such comparisons makes mostly only sense, if viewed on a very high gamut supporting monitor. Since a plain sRGB monitor isn't capable of showing much of the higher gamut color difference here then at all. - As one easily can check here ...

• Comparison between normal and wide-gamut images
• Interactive Image Comparison

For other gamut related comparisons and explorings tools like ...

• Gamutvision

... are useful.

 

Thanks. I'm already familiar with the site your first two links go to. They are useful for seeing how different web browsers deal with colour management - I see clear differences depending on whether I'm using firefox, safari or chrome.

I'm on mac not PC so that Gamutvision app doesn't work for me ... however macos has a built in colorsync utility that allows you to do some similar stuff.

[lineweight]

On 1/14/2022 at 10:36 PM, NotMyFault said:

 

I tried to create a LUT for that purpose, but it doesn't work correctly. Might be "by design" how Affinity is treating color spaces and adjustment layers.

Thanks for trying anyway!

 

This stuff is quite complicated and I'm on a steep learning curve trying to get my head around it...

One thing that I've discovered so far is that many applications don't actually do their colour management properly, especially once you are dealing with things outside of sRGB.