Different colors in different applications

[Dezo]

Hi all, my question is pretty broad and I'm hoping at least for direction to solve it. Unfortunately general advises found on the web failed.

I have an image. Image was produced from CaptureOne 22 (and it produced it from Fujifilm RAF file). Image is exported with sRGB profile.

Now:

- when I re-import the JPEG into CaptureOne - it looks like the original image ready to export

- when I open the exported JPEG in IrfanView - it looks same way as in C1

- when I open the exported JPEG in Affinity Photo - it is little bit darker - it lost details in black skirt

- when I open the exported JPEG in any web browser (FF, Chrome, Edge) - it is much darker - it lost even more details

- when I open the exported JPEG in Windows Paint - it looks very differently again - some tint, darker etc

- picture send through Whatsapp looks like in Irfanview and C1

- picture showed on mobile phone looks like in Irfanview and C1

 

I've tried different things in Affinity in ICC conversion, and in C1 export (using Adobe ICC, monitor ICC etc) with some changes but zero consistency. In Windows settings there are not any changes in outcome if I use generic sRGB profile or manufacturer monitor profile.

I would be happy if at least local web browser would show picture similarly as intended in C1. I'm asking here, because if I would be able to fix it in Affinity, maybe it would start to work everywhere.

 

Thank you

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, Dezo said:

(using Adobe ICC, monitor ICC etc)

Are you using the ICC profile for your monitor as the ICC profile for your document? This is obviously not good.
What is your monitor ICC profile set to in your OS? Is it correct? Is it okay?
Affinity is one of the few graphics applications that correctly uses the monitor ICC profile for rendering to the canvas, so its display/output may differ from other applications if the profile is corrupted or incorrectly set.

[Dezo]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

Are you using the ICC profile for your monitor as the ICC profile for your document? This is obviously not good.
 

That was just desperate experiment.

However I have some progress. I've changed windows display profile from Benq LCD color profile to sRGB, and now, its darker, but it's consistent in all applications. During switch I see immediately difference in CaptureOne. I don't se any change in Affinity. That would suggest that Affinity is not using system settings at all.

Now when it's the same in all my applications, I can somehow live with it. However at this moment I see it darker than usual mobile phone user. Benq ICC profile obviously correctly compensated for that. So now I can change the question for me, how is that C1 and Irfanview accepts OS color management, while Affinity and Browsers don't (and I did try to play with browsers color management flags)

[Pšenda]

38 minutes ago, Dezo said:

That would suggest that Affinity is not using system settings at all.

This is definitely not true - you can search the forum where you will find plenty of examples.

 

Edited November 13, 2024 by Pšenda

[Dezo]

Ok, Affinity is loading system settings only during startup. C1 is able to change it on fly. Firefox (my default) is doing some crazy rendering when profile is set manually. I'm falling back on the default sRGB profile at it looks like most consistent between all applications.

[Old Bruce]

9 hours ago, Dezo said:

I would be happy if at least local web browser would show picture similarly as intended in C1. I'm asking here, because if I would be able to fix it in Affinity, maybe it would start to work everywhere.

As the export from Capture One is not showing correctly in web browsers I honestly think that your question would best be answered by people who use Capture One 22.

[Dezo]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

As the export from Capture One is not showing correctly in web browsers I honestly think that your question would best be answered by people who use Capture One 22.

Yup, and they will send me to people developing web browsers... As I mentioned Affinity displayed images in a similar way as a browsers.

[Palatino]

„Houston, we have a problem.“

Please open the test file and be amazed. The program versions 1.10.8 actually do not work.

ICC-Test-File.pdf

[Palatino]

Okay, false alarm. It works with the RGB selection.

[Dezo]

15 minutes ago, Palatino said:

„Houston, we have a problem.“

Please open the test file and be amazed. The program versions 1.10.8 actually do not work.

ICC-Test-File.pdf 100.31 kB · 2 downloads

Not sure if I understood you correctly. Light PDF viewers fail (browser viewers). Acrobat shows it properly. Affinity Photo not, but I wouldn't blame it as PDF is one of a hell format.

[Ldina]

I'm not sure how this PDF was created and saved, but it appears Affinity Apps assign a single color profile to the document when opening this PDF (as set in Preferences...in my case, Display P3 for RGB, and US Web Coated SWOP for CMYK). A warning message is displayed upon "opening" that says "Affinity assigned US Web Coated SWOP (or your RGB/CMYK settings profile) to this UNPROFILED document". 

If you create a new document, then Place this PDF into your document, it displays properly and shows Affinity Apps to be v4 ICC compatible. So Affinity seems to read the profile for each image in the placed PDF and displays it correctly. 

[Palatino]

27 minutes ago, Ldina said:

… it displays properly and shows Affinity Apps to be v4 ICC compatible.

Right, that's exactly what my experience with the Affintiy programs has been so far. That's why I was also amazed that the colour profiles were actually not recognized when I opened the test file for the first time.
If I select the RGB colour space, all embedded colour profiles are recognized correctly.

To come back to the original topic - the color management of the Af programs is really good.

[Ldina]

I took a quick look at the ICC PDF file in Acrobat Pro X (part of my CS6 suite and still alive...so far). There is no Output Intent specified in this PDF file. Four different RGB profiles (both v2 and v4) were assigned to each quadrant of the large, upper image. The text was CMYK Device data, so the file was a mixed mode file (designed for Press/RIP purposes, no doubt). Upon opening, if you let Affinity "guess" whether the PDF is RGB or CMYK, it might guess CMYK, but you can instruct Affinity to open it as RGB, which would be the right choice in this case, since we are evaluating ICC v2 and v4 RGB profiles.

"Opening" this PDF as an RGB file probably works fine because Affinity expects RGB profiles to be embedded in the images (which they are), and if not, one will be assigned by Affinity, depending on your Settings/Preferences. So, opening in RGB color mode works and the big image displays exactly as it should. If you open the PDF in CMYK mode, it does not display properly, and I'm assuming Affinity assigns your default CMYK profile to the entire document, converts to CMYK, or something like that. It's been quite a while since I had to do much of this, so I'll let others who are more informed correct me if I am misstating anything.

"Placing" the file into an existing Affinity Publisher document (set up as either RGB or CMYK) does not do any conversions and preserves the embedded profiles if the placed PDF is set to PassThrough, so all the RGB profiles embedded in the images appear to be read, interpreted and displayed properly. If you set the placed PDF file to "Interpret", you will get whacked colors in a CMYK or an RGB Publisher document, or if you convert the Publisher document from RGB to CMYK.

Something else I found interesting. When opening this PDF in Publisher as an RGB document, the Resource Manager lists all the images and their embedded ICC profiles in the PDF as sRGB, but the original PDF clearly has four different RGB profiles assigned to them (as is shown in Acrobat Pro). It looks like Affinity assigns a single profile to the overall document (for placed images without embedded profiles, native text, shapes, etc), but honors placed RGB images with embedded profiles. I don’t know why Resource Manager lists sRGB as the profile for embedded images with different RGB profiles.

Overall, color management seems to work reasonably well in Affinity for routine tasks, but it can be confusing and there are some color management quirks and issues that leave something to be desired, IMO. 

Anyway, that's my take.