ImageMagick, darktable, ffmpeg, image sequences and color management

Processing
, ,
1

Hi,

I’m using darktable to develop RAW file for Timelapse sequences. From there I export to 16 bit TIFFs and generate a lossless (HuffYUV) video using ffmpeg for further editing.

However, the colors in the video are different from the colors in darktable, which is a color-managed view. I solved this problem by using ImageMagick’s convert tool:

convert -profile my-monitor-profile.icc in.tif out.tif
(ImageMagick - Command-line Options)

After this step the color in the video look similar the colors in the picture. More comparing (viewing the pictures without color management) suggest that ffmpeg doesn’t take color management or profiles into account.

Since the convert step takes another 15s per picture on my machine (rather considerable when you have 100’s of pictures), I’d like to solve this differently. Ideally either directly when exporting with darktable or with ffmpeg. Any ideas?

Thank you very much,

Jochen

2

Strictly, in IM you should read the image, then convert the profile, then write the output:

convert in.tif -profile my-monitor-profile.icc out.tif

Doing this in the wrong order won’t work in IM v7.

Anyhow, this suggests that in.tif has an embedded profile. The solution would be to tell darktable to write the output with my-monitor-profile.icc instead of whatever it currently uses.

3 Likes
3

Hi Alan,

thanks for the hint about IM!

That was also my idea, but I didn’t know how to do it. Yet.
Your comment made me investigate the issue again yesterday and it was as easy as

ln -s ~/.local/share/icc/my-monitor-profile.icc ~/.config/darktable/color/out

Then select the ICC profile in darktables color profile module or “export selected” dialog.

This saves me literally hours, thanks!