Greyscale color profile - sGray

[JosepKosarin]

Hello, I'm looking for an alternative to photoshop to create / edit some texture work I do for my 3d modeling. I downloaded the demo version of Photov2 and I need the greyscale color profile to be sGray in order to control exactly how the render engine sees the gray scale. Sadly seems that the only greyscale profile available in photo is greyscale D50, my question is. Is there a way to add the desired profile, or I'm stuck to this (this is a complete deal-breaker for me)?

 

Thank you in advance

[lepr]

4 hours ago, JosepKosarin said:

Is there a way to add the desired profile

Download the profile from the web then install it in your OS for any app to use it.

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @JosepKosarin,

See below for instructions (On Windows).

Help: https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Clr/ClrProfiles.html

[David in Яuislip]

You can certainly use sGray in APhoto and you don't even need an icc profile

Part of an exiftool report on a color file converted to sGray in APhoto
Color Mode                      : Grayscale
ICC Profile Name                : sGray
History Software Agent          : Affinity Photo 1.10.6

So Playmates, how did I do that?

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

You can certainly use sGray in APhoto and you don't even need an icc profile

Part of an exiftool report on a color file converted to sGray in APhoto
Color Mode                      : Grayscale
ICC Profile Name                : sGray

From your screenshots, you have sGray installed on your system. I apparently don't, and I do not see sGray listed as a choice.

Edit: Or, you started with an image that used sGray.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, David in Яuislip said:

Part of an exiftool report on a color file converted to sGray in APhoto

Hmmm. When I use XnViewMP on my Mac (which uses exiftool) it shows the ICC Profile Description as "Grayscale D50." I'm not sure how description differs from what the CLI exiftool lists as name, though.

EDIT: more to the point, like @walt.farrell, I see no listing for sGrey in AP V2.

[Ldina]

59 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I see no listing for sGrey in AP V2.

Once the sGray.icc profile is installed in Mac OS, it shows up in AP as a choice for default profile (in Settings), profile conversion, or export . I installed it it /Library/Colorsync/Profiles, and just to be safe, I also installed it in /Library/Application Support/Affinity Photo 2/Profiles. Since I had AP open when installing the profile, I needed to close and restart AP for it to show up.

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, Ldina said:

Once the sGray.icc profile is installed in Mac OS...

The point here is that @David in Яuislip is saying that you don't even need an icc profile for this, but as @walt.farrell suggested, he probably gets it as a choice because it was installed.

[Ldina]

@R C-R Thanks....missed that! 🫤 

Agreed. It never showed up on my system until I installed it, or as Walt mentioned, you open a pre-existing file that has that profile embedded.

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, Ldina said:

... or as Walt mentioned, you open a pre-existing file that has that profile embedded.

I'm curious about that. Does it mean that once a file with that profile is opened in AP2 it automatically is added to the Grey/8 profile choices, even if that profile has not been installed manually?

Could someone post a preferably small, simple file with that format embedded in it so I can see if it does that without having to install it on my Mac, convert a file to that profile, & then uninstall the profile to see?

[Ldina]

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Could someone post a preferably small, simple file with that format embedded in it so I can see if it does that without having to install it on my Mac, convert a file to that profile, & then uninstall the profile to see?

 I don't think AP or the system automatically installs the profile, but I believe AP does recognize and honor the profile embedded in the file. I've attached a zip file with a document that has sGray.ICC embedded. I didn't want to risk having the profile stripped by the forum software, hence the zip file. 

sGray ICC Embedded.jpg.zip

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, Ldina said:

I don't think AP or the system automatically installs the profile, but I believe AP does recognize and honor the profile embedded in the file.

Thanks for the file. It seems that once I open it, even if I then close it, I do then get the sGray.ICC profile as a choice for new AP documents or converting existing files to a Grey/8 format.

I have not tried quitting & restarting AP 2 so I don't know if it would remain a choice.

[Ldina]

Interesting...please let me know what you find out!!

 

[R C-R]

25 minutes ago, Ldina said:

Interesting...please let me know what you find out!!

OK, I had downloaded the sGray profile to my desktop, but had not installed it. After I moved it & your example files to the trash & emptied it, I quit & restarted AP & the profile was no longer available.

I don't know if it would have been the same if I had not deleted those files before restarting. My guess is that restarting the app cleared it but too late for me to check that now. Sorry.

[Ldina]

25 minutes ago, R C-R said:

OK, I had downloaded the sGray profile to my desktop, but had not installed it.

When you say you downloaded the sGray profile, do you mean from the Internet, or from the file I supplied with an embedded sGray profile? Is there a way to extract and save an embedded ICC profile from a document which is opened in AP? If so, how? 

I used ColorThink to extract the sGray profile from a document created in Photoshop. Once extracted and saved as an independent file (sGray.icc), I was able to install it in my Colorsync Profiles library. 

Thanks.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, Ldina said:

When you say you downloaded the sGray profile, do you mean from the Internet,

From the internet from https://github.com/BiteDasher/chromeos-icc-profiles/blob/master/sgray.icc

10 minutes ago, Ldina said:

Is there a way to extract and save an embedded ICC profile from a document which is opened in AP? If so, how? 

I don't know.

[Ldina]

@R C-R thanks. I haven’t found a way to extract and save an embedded profile from a document that has been opened in AP. I’d like to see the ability to export and save the profile for future use (or for someone to tell me how, if it is possible and I missed it). 😀

[JosepKosarin]

thank you all for the responses. I trully appreciate it

[David in Яuislip]

Apologies, I should have written, "you don't even need an icc profile installed"
After opening an image with an alien profile and immediately closing it, that profile is available until Photo is closed

Doing
exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc sGrayICCEmbedded.jpg
creates
sGrayICCEmbedded.icc

which can be placed in
C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color
or the mac equivalent and sgray will be available in Photo after restarting

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

After opening an image with an alien profile and immediately closing it, that profile is available until Photo is closed

Doing
exiftool -icc_profile -b -w icc sGrayICCEmbedded.jpg
creates
sGrayICCEmbedded.icc

which can be placed in
C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color
or the mac equivalent and sgray will be available in Photo after restarting

Why not just download the profile, like from github, & install it in the usual way?

[David in Яuislip]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Why not just download the profile, like from github, & install it in the usual way?

I was answering Ldina's query a post or two up but anyway it's quicker to use exiftool than search the web

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

I was answering Ldina's query a post or two up but anyway it's quicker to use exiftool than search the web

I provided a link to the github download, so no need to search, or even open something like exiftool, extract the profile, or anything else, other than installing the profile in the correct place in the OS.