Colorspace, LR3 and Win 7

Bennp2000

Bennp2000

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340
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
No
Recently I through a shot I was quite happy with in with a load of snapshot prints I sent to a large online printing company. They came back and they were fairly poor, the red saturation was down and the general midtones were darker. In fact the whole image was pretty dark. I wasn't impressed and they dutifully refunded my money. However the email reply put the blame at my end saying that the images provided were not in the sRGB colorspace.

My workflow involves importing Raw files (Canon 5d mk II) into LR3 and then using photoshop (and other plugins) as external editors from this which puts the final edited image back into my LR catalog. From there I export it using a number of different presets depending on its destination. ALL of my presets have sRGB as the colorspace.

I therefore enquired how they determined my image wasn't in the correct space. The answer was (in Win) right click, properties, 3rd tab, Colour representation. This is blank in all of my files exported from LR (not uncalibrated, just blank).

To test if LR wasn't actually converting to the sRGB colorspace I output the same file using a number of profiles available to me, all had that field blank but it was obvious which had different profiles assigned to them. To further test it I exported my LR file into PS, converted to sRGB and output the file directly from PS. In this instance the field was "sRGB" yet the image appeared exactly the same as my originally submitted image (confirming that the colorspace was correct?). I then did this with the other profiles and checked those too as well as outputting a file without conversion (i.e. producing an uncalibrated image). It therefore seems (to me) that the profiles in LR are working perfectly they just dont add the metadata to the file, the colorspace profile is embedded.

I've asked numerous times if the printing company use this metadata field to determine whether or not they carry out any optimisation themselves, they haven't answered and keep telling me my original image is not in sRGB and to "contact Adobe help" (quite frustrating). I'm pretty sure now that it is in sRGB (its certainly not akin to the uncalibrated image that comes out flat) and if I open the JPG file in wordpad or a similar exif viewer the sRGB colorspace tag is embedded.

Could anyone else on Win 7 using LR3 try and export a Canon RAW file using sRGB and check the field I describe above, does it contain the colorspace?

I found a similar thread in the Adobe help forums but it got lost with people assuming the OP had just mismanaged his colorspace options.

I'm not removing the possibility of error on my mind I'm just finding it quite stressful to have the customer service people ignore very direct questions and things that I think point to an error at their end.

Thanks in advance for any input
 
can't help with looking at the tab for you but if you set the colour space you want to use in PS (srgb in your case) somewhere in the options PS will warn you when you open a file if it's not in the same colour space as you've set it to use and will ask if it should convert it etc. I wouldn't go on any metadata info anyway.
 
Thanks, If I open the image that I sent for print in PS, and go to convert to profile it says that its already in sRGB.

It does seem strange that PS will put this data in and LR will not. However I'm finding discussion with the customer service personal quite frustrating. They won't accept the image is in sRGB.
 
Using ORF and PEF raw files to convert (I don't use Canon) there is also no colour space showing in W7 properties and I know it is srgb.

If it is of any use to you raw outputed from Capture One also do not show the profile in W7, but from Silkypix Pro they do.

You do not say which printing company you used but I can tell you I use W7 and LR3 to output files for printing in the srgb space with no problems.

In fact I recently had about 200 prints of various sizes back from Photobox and they all exactly matched the images on screen in LR3.

If it is not the printers fault it is more likely to be a monitor profile that needs better calibrating on your part .

This is the reason you see so many posts of photobox/add your own is rubbish the photos look nothing like what is on my monitor, I can say that in five years of dealing with them I have never had a duff one of them.

So when I see those posts I smile and think yea right its all photobox's fault isn't it.;)
 
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W7 here. Colour representation is blank here. exiftool says (cut down list):


$ exiftool IMG_9112.jpg
ExifTool Version Number : 8.38
File Name : IMG_9112.jpg
Directory : .
File Size : 187 kB
File Modification Date/Time : 2011:11:25 14:04:47+00:00
File Permissions : rw-rw-rw-
File Type : JPEG
MIME Type : image/jpeg
Profile CMM Type : Lino
Profile Version : 2.1.0
Profile Class : Display Device Profile
Color Space Data : RGB
Profile Connection Space : XYZ
Profile Date Time : 1998:02:09 06:49:00
Profile File Signature : acsp
CMM Flags : Not Embedded, Independent
Device Manufacturer : IEC
Device Model : sRGB
Device Attributes : Reflective, Glossy, Positive, Color
Rendering Intent : Perceptual
Connection Space Illuminant : 0.9642 1 0.82491
Profile Creator : HP
Profile ID : 0
Profile Copyright : Copyright (c) 1998 Hewlett-Packard Company
Profile Description : sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Media White Point : 0.95045 1 1.08905
Media Black Point : 0 0 0
Device Mfg Desc : IEC http://www.iec.ch
Device Model Desc : IEC 61966-2.1 Default RGB colour space - sRGB
Viewing Cond Desc : Reference Viewing Condition in IEC61966-2.1
Viewing Cond Illuminant : 19.6445 20.3718 16.8089
Viewing Cond Surround : 3.92889 4.07439 3.36179
Viewing Cond Illuminant Type : D50
Luminance : 76.03647 80 87.12462
Measurement Observer : CIE 1931
Measurement Backing : 0 0 0
Measurement Geometry : Unknown (0)
Measurement Flare : 0.999%
Measurement Illuminant : D65
Red Tone Reproduction Curve : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Green Tone Reproduction Curve : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Blue Tone Reproduction Curve : (Binary data 2060 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Color Transform : YCbCr
Bits Per Sample : 8
Color Components : 3
 
Thanks for taking the time to test what I asked, its really appreciated and confirms what I thought; my images are (and always were) in sRGB.

My intial email was really asking them how I could improve the colour accuracy etc. and the response "its not in sRGB which is required" really confused me, so did subsequent emails but I think this mornings reply really capped things off "it needs to be a jpg". Well, I don't know where to start with that one :thinking:
 
craftysnapper said:
You do not say which printing company you used but I can tell you I use W7 and LR3 to output files for printing in the srgb space with no problems.

In fact I recently had about 200 prints of various sizes back from Photobox and they all exactly matched the images on screen in LR3.

If it is not the printers fault it is more likely to be a monitor profile that needs better calibrating on your part .
Click to expand...

Quite interesting then that two prints of the same image (from Photobox) are nothing like each other side by side. The difference isn't small either with the most striking being a clear change in the blue hue of the sky.

I wonder if they were tweaking it based on the Colour Representation data as they did finally admit that the sRGB profile was embedded? Certainly I'll go elsewhere given it took over 10 emails and asking for my concerns to be escalated to get them to actually consider the questions I asked instead of firing of generic answers.
 
Bennp2000 said:
Quite interesting then that two prints of the same image (from Photobox) are nothing like each other side by side. The difference isn't small either with the most striking being a clear change in the blue hue of the sky.

I wonder if they were tweaking it based on the Colour Representation data as they did finally admit that the sRGB profile was embedded? Certainly I'll go elsewhere given it took over 10 emails and asking for my concerns to be escalated to get them to actually consider the questions I asked instead of firing of generic answers.
Click to expand...

With Photobox your account is automatically set to allow there printer to automatically "enhance prints", I do not like anything messing with my carefully crafted files and so the first thing I did was to set my account to disable the enhance feature.

This way you will get your images printed as you edited them. Of course if you mess up your own calibration and editing then it will only be your fault.:)

Also ask them (Photobox) for a free calibration print so you can compare it against the downloadable calibration file in Lightroom.

This could be why after a 1000 or more prints (including 20x16's) I've never been dissapointed.;)
 
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Firstly, let me say (admit?) the darkness is down to me being a soft-proofing n00b, I requested a colour calibration print but it hasn't yet come.

I'm wondering if the person who ordered the re-print disabled the colour enhancing option and hence the difference between the two (incidentally, my two snapshots which have a bit of a horrible colour cast got worse but the picture I'd put a lot of time into got a lot better)? I'll ask, and maybe I should have spotted that option somewhere.

I don't mind things being my fault, it means at least I stand a chance of correcting them! Thanks for your input.
 
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