AP, Windows, set color panel to color space ?

[cgidesign]

Question:

Is it possible to let AP show the colors of the color panel according to the color space of the document instead of the color space the monitor is in?

Background of the question:

I am using AP 1.10 on Windows with two monitors.

Monitor 1 is calibrated to D65 sRGB color space but with 2.2 gamma (internal hardware calibration).
Monitor 2 is calibrated to D65 native color space also 2.2 gamma (software calibration).

If I put a view of the same image on monitor 1 and 2 each they look nearly identical. The document is in sRGB color space.

So, even though monitor 2 is in native wide gamut, AP takes care that the document is shown in sRGB representation.

This is fine for me.

But, on monitor 2 the color panel does not respect this. There the colors are shown in the wide gamut color space.

Reason why it is relevant for me.

Monitor 2 is the pen display to draw on the images. But even though I see the image in the desired output color space (sRGB) I can't pick colors accordingly. This makes choosing a color more or less guesswork. Unfortunately I can't just set monitor 2 to sRGB color space because of limitations of how this is implented in the hardware.

[thomaso]

Do you see this different UI colours only in layout objects and only after using one of the two pickers, – or does it also occur correspondingly in the various UI panels with colour wells & swatches (tools, colors, swatches, context toolbar)?

Does it influence the issue if you choose for a colour selector UI (e.g. sliders in the Colours panel) a different color space + switch back to the initial?

I wonder whether your issue with UI color appearance is really related to monitor profiles but rather to a known issue in Affinity (mac) with displaying colour swatches in the correct document's respectively the swatches space, as discussed / illustrated in this thread:

 

[cgidesign]

Thanks for your reply. Color shown in any color panel is affected by this. Changing color modes (hsl, hex cmyk, etc.) does not make a difference.

I try to explain:

1. use a monitor which is set to wide gamut
2. calibrate it to get D65 and a proper gamma curve
3. use a second monitor which is set to sRGB (not only the gamma curve but also the RGB primaries - most wide gamut monitors have a preset for that)
4. in AP set working color space in preferences to sRGB
5. create a document in sRGB
6. on the monitor which is set to sRGB (limited gamut with less saturated colors) pick a color e.g. a 255 red and fill the canvas with it

as a result the filled canvas and the color in the panels look the same.

But if you move AP to the second monitor which is set to its native wide gamut, the 255 red is shown very saturated in the color panels but it looks like the less saturated 255 red in the document.

My assumption is, that the color panels are not color managed at all. They just send 255 red to the graphics card without taking ICC profiles etc. into account. As a result the red on the sRGB monitor looks like the "dull" sRGB red because this is the maximum red the monitor can display, but on the second monitor the maximum red from the wide gamut is shown, which is way more saturated.

On the other hand, the document does seem to undergo a color managment. The red in the document looks the same on both monitors. AP seems to do the following:

1. check on which monitor the document is shown
2. check which color space is used (in my example sRGB)
3. check if there is an icc profile for the monitor
4. read out of this icc profile "how much more saturated the red of this monitor is compared to the sRGB red"
5. compensate this "more saturated red" so it looks like the sRGB red and send that compensated data to the graphics card

as a result the red on the wide gamut monitor looks like the dull sRGB red.

 

As written in the initial post, the document color management is fine for me, because I can set it according to my needs. E.g. I can change the document profile to adobe rgb if needed and work in that space - all good. But to work in a specific color space the color panels need to work in that space as well - otherwise I "don't see what I get". If I am not just missing a setting somewhere to make the color panels color managment aware, I am very limited in using AP as painting app on the pen display.

[DWright]

Can you please provide more information on the model of your drawing tablet that you are using for your monitor 2

[cgidesign]

Yes, I happy to do so:

Monitor 2: Huion Kamvas Pro 24(4K) (spec. says 140% sRGB color space)

Monitor 1: BenQ SW 270C

 

[DWright]

I have not been able to replicate this issue using my two HP monitors when I set the colour spaces to the same as yours it may be something unique to the graphics tablet I will test this with my XP-Pen Pro graphics tablet.

[cgidesign]

I don't think it is related to the type of monitor.

Are your HPs wide gammut ones?

[cgidesign]

This is another step by step:

1. Set monitor 1 to native wide gammut preset in the on screen menu
2. Set monitor 2 to sRGB preset

Cross check result:

1. open Microsoft paint and fill canvas with 255 red.
2. move paint from one monitor to the other
3. On the wide gamut monitor the red should look very saturated on the other it should look less saturated.

If the red looks the same on both then the monitors are not really wide gamut but more standard sRGB ones. In that case the issue does not happen.

[RichardMH]

When you change monitors are you dragging AP across? Or are you restarting it on the new monitor?

[cgidesign]

I am dragging it across.

AP internally detects on which monitor the open document is shown and switches the color management acordingly. It is a nice feature and very helpful in a multi monitor setup. It just seems that this only works for the shown document but not the color panels or the rest of the ui.

[cgidesign]

@DWright

19 hours ago, DWright said:

I will test this with my XP-Pen Pro graphics tablet

I read in another thread that you are using the XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro. This won't show the issue because it is an sRGB pen display. It does not have a wide gamut panel and can't show any colors more saturated than the "dull" sRGB red.

[cgidesign]

Any news on this?