Color preferences in Affinity Photo v2

[mdlucero]

Hello,

I'm new to Affinity photo and want to make sure I get color/profile issues straightened out from the beginning.

I shoot raw out of a Nikon camera and import into On1 Photo Raw, which is set to ProPhoto. If I need to go into Affinity Photo from On1, I have a dialogue that appears where I can check that the file gets converted to either Tif or PSD and stays with the ProPhoto profile, 16 bits, 360 dpi (Epson print resolution) when opened in Affinity Photo.

When in Affinity Photo the only way that I can see to check the document specs (size and color) is to go into the Document menu. If I go to the convert or assign profile menus I am expecting to see the ProPhoto profile highlighted in the pull-down menu but it is not. The preferences for convert always revert back to rgb/8. The assign dialogue has nothing highlighted. Is this the correct behavior? Do I always need to go to this menu and select ProPhoto or Romm rgb?

Some more things....

1. If I change the profile preferences to ProPhoto or Romm RGB , the next time I open Affinity Photo the pull-down menu is set to srgb again...how do you get ProPhoto to "stick" as the default?

2. When I open the preferences with an open image, sometimes ProPhoto is a choice and sometimes it is not. What is up with this?? ROMM rgb is always an option. Is this exactly the same as ProPhoto.

3. If I open an images that does not have prophoto embedded Affinity Photo does not try to change the profile. It does not ask or warn even if this is checked in the color preferences.

4. What are wsRGB and wscRGB, and why do these have an * next to them??

Thanks in advance for helping out!

Regards, Michael

[walt.farrell]

46 minutes ago, mdlucero said:

When in Affinity Photo the only way that I can see to check the document specs (size and color) is to go into the Document menu.

When you Open the image, the View Tool is selected by default, and it's Context Toolbar has the info you're looking for:

 

48 minutes ago, mdlucero said:

1. If I change the profile preferences to ProPhoto or Romm RGB , the next time I open Affinity Photo the pull-down menu is set to srgb again...how do you get ProPhoto to "stick" as the default?

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Can you provide a screenshot of what you're changing?

[mdlucero]

Thank you for the response. So when I "send to" AP from On1 I get a window that verifies the format/settings to send over...

As you can see here, it comes over with a different profile...the prophoto profiles is not listed here. ProPhoto is also set in preferences with warning checkbox checked.

The "convert to" or "assign to" dialogue boxes show srgb

Changing the profiles in the Color Preferences to ProPhoto or ROMM RGB doesn't "stick". When I open the window again it shows as srgb again

 

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, mdlucero said:

As you can see here, it comes over with a different profile...

That could be because you haven't successfully set your Preferences in Photo 2, yet, and you're set to sRGB and set to Convert to the working profile.

11 minutes ago, mdlucero said:

Changing the profiles in the Color Preferences to ProPhoto or ROMM RGB doesn't "stick". When I open the window again it shows as srgb again

What OS do you use?

Does this happen if you immediately re-open the Preferences dialog after you Close it? Or is this after closing the complete program and restarting it?

 

[mdlucero]

One of those things....I just tried to "Open" one of the raw files instead of "Sending" from On1 to AP...now the preferences is staying at ROMM RGB. After this, I tried "Sending" from On1 again and the preferences remained at ROMM RGB...weird. I am the newbie...I will take blame, although I have no clue why this did not work until I "opened" a file.

I notice that ProPhoto remains an option in the pull-down list if I send a file to AP with this profile. If not, only ROMM RGB is available. Is this normal and will this cause any issues when I send the file back to On1 for organization purposes or additional edits?

BTW...this is a newly built PC running Windows 11 Home Edition.

[Dan C]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums @mdlucero 

14 hours ago, mdlucero said:

I notice that ProPhoto remains an option in the pull-down list if I send a file to AP with this profile. If not, only ROMM RGB is available.

From your description, it sounds as though the profile is embedded within the image you are opening from ON1, but if the profile is not installed in your OS, the Affinity app cannot select/use the profile without having an image opened where the profile is embedded, or use this profile as the default in colour settings.

Therefore you will need to download and install a ProPhoto.ICC file into Windows, such that Affinity can set this as the default profile.

From a Google search, I have found the following site offering the ProPhoto ICC file as a download, here - 

https://sites.google.com/site/chromasoft/icmprofiles

If you download & extract this folder, then install the ProPhoto.icc file through Windows and restart Affinity, you should find you can select this profile in your Colour Preferences to set images to use this profile by default.

I hope this helps!

[mdlucero]

Thank you for the reply.

Very strange...the prophoto rgb profile resides in the window OS default folder but is not being recognized. What is also strange is that prophoto is an option for preferences once an image with the embedded prophoto profile is opened, but that profile is not available if you just open preferences with no image opened...

I think I will just "stay happy" with using the ROMM RGB profiles. I am going to assume that they are exactly the same profiles...or close enough.

BTW, I can import the profile using the File>import icc menus, but the icc does indeed exist in the windows/system32/spool/drivers/color....folder already. Weird that the profile is not always available. Learning a new program is always fun...!

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, mdlucero said:

I think I will just "stay happy" with using the ROMM RGB profiles. I am going to assume that they are exactly the same profiles...or close enough.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProPhoto_RGB_color_space:

Quote

The ProPhoto RGB color space, also known as ROMM RGB (Reference Output Medium Metric), is an output referred RGB color space developed by Kodak.