Affinity Photo - Color Shift when opening and exporting pictures

[KevsterZA]

Hi all. Apologies if this is simple to solve, but I have not been able to find a solution despite a significant amount of research.

Any image that I open in Photo has significant color shift from what it looks like in any other image program (generally looking significantly warmer / saturated in Photo). It doesn't matter the source, whether my own photos or images downloaded from the web. The reverse is also true, if I work on the image in Photo and export it the same shift is there with the exported picture looking significantly cooler and desaturated than what it looks like in Affinity Photo.  Attached are 2 screenshots of the same image ("Affinity Version" vs "MS Photo Version") which show the shift clearly.

No amount of messing with color preferences seem to make a difference. I have included my current color preferences for reference.

I am using Windows 10 with NVIDIA 2015 GPU.

Thanks for any assistance

[v_kyr]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

How do you generally open ( via "File > Open ...") & export the images in APh? - Are those images you open/work with in APh, of 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit RGB format?

[KevsterZA]

Hi, yes I generally open via "File-> Open" or drag and drop from the desktop. Don't use APh. Not sure of the bit rate, but I generally don't do any processing in other software before bringing them into Affinity Photo. Some of the photos are taken in Canon raw (.Cr2), but that doesn't seem to make a difference as the same thing happens with images from other sources. Thanks.

[NotMyFault]

Which display color profile do you use in Windows settings?
which color profile is active in the display settings of the display itself?
if in doubt, use sRGB on both.

Why do you use AdobeRGB linear? For 32bit

[KevsterZA]

The color profile seems to be the monitor's profile (Dell S2240L Color Profile, D65): 8 Bit Depth, Color Format = RGB, Color Space = SDR.

I see no option to change format to sRGB

The Windows Color Management = sRGB

I have included attachments showing detailed settings.

Will the display profile = RGB vs system profile =sRGB cause problems?

Thank you

[KevsterZA]

Don't know what I was smoking but the graphics card I am using is a NVIDIA 1050 not 2015

[NotMyFault]

So far everything looks ok.

Can you try to reset the display settings (using the OSD menu on the display itself)?

https://dl.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_display_projector/esuprt_display/dell-s2240l_user's guide_en-us.pdf#page8

If this doesn’t help: Affinity has issues with certain types of icc profiles. Could you try to use a generic windows sRGB profile instead of the Dell icc profile in Windows display settings?
 

The next thing we could check is the nVidia driver settings (assuming you have the current nVidia Studio driver installed).

Btw: using HDMI cables? (Not VGA)

[PortraitsOfLife]

I'm having the same problem...  I'm using the latest version of AP, with default settings.  The left side of the screenshot is the image immediately after opening the raw image in AP, the right side is opening the JPEG image from the camera using Preview.  I've only recently switched from Photoshop to AP, and have never seen even the slightest color shift when I have done the same comparison with a raw file imported into Adobe Camera Raw.

Edited April 22, 2023 by PortraitsOfLife

[kayjay47]

I have the same problem. All my work has a very warm appearance when using other image viewers, i.e. windows, Faststone, Photoscape. I can correct for it by adding blue in the curve or levels panel. Love AP2 but this has me aggravated. Help please.

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, kayjay47 said:

I have the same problem. All my work has a very warm appearance when using other image viewers, i.e. windows, Faststone, Photoscape. I can correct for it by adding blue in the curve or levels panel. Love AP2 but this has me aggravated. Help please.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

We'll probably need some screenshots and sample files.

Edit: However, I recommend you start your own topic, to keep things organized and less confusing. Having multiple conversations in one topic is difficult to manage.

 

[walt.farrell]

On 4/22/2023 at 3:08 PM, PortraitsOfLife said:

I'm having the same problem.

Sorry we seem to have missed your post. I recommend you start a new topic for this if you're still having the problem, to keep things organized.

And, by the way, i think you're having a different issue. The RAW images you view in Affinity Photo generally will not look close to the JPG images from the camera, as those JPG images have a number of adjustments already made to them, that the RAW image doesn't have yet. You will add those manually.