I’m just a beginner, so in no position to weight in on these issues. Particularly the colour profile stuff, which is still a bit baffling to me.
My main objective here is to capture the advice in the videos, so I can quickly refresh my understanding on key points. Most recently I had the thought “Andy explained that really well, what did he say again?”, and then needed to sit through a 30 minute video to get my reminder. I’ve also tried to fill in a bit of detail on things that are mentioned briefly. Again, not from my own experience, just from digging into rawpedia.
I’m also starting to find this useful as I work through more videos. Some things are mentioned briefly as a rule of thumb in one video, and discussed in more detail in others. So my first note is “don’t do this”, which may become “don’t do this because…”, and eventually “these are the things to consider when using this”.
In any case, thanks for your suggestions. I’ll do a bit of reading on the issues you raise, and update my notes accordingly.
And to be clear, I find the videos super useful, and I’m a big fan. My little notes are not meant as a criticism in any way. Really just a study aid for myself, which may (or may not) be helpful for others.
Of course they will!
I can open a raw file in Ps from RT that’s outputted in the RTv4_Large colour space, not a problem - unless of course, I implement strict CM policies - where I’ll be greeted by:
If I choose option 2 - convert - I see no change in the image
But say you wanted a jpeg - you would output the image in RTv4_sRGB - great!
Try sending that jpeg for stock - it would get rejected because its tagged with a non-ICC standard colour space.
Some external printer rips might well chuck a wobbly because they don’t recognise the spurious profile header when they try to convert to the in-house profile.
Simple fact of life Roel, if the profile header nomenclature doesn’t meet ICC standards, then getting your image to interface with the outside world might prove problematic.
But RT easily allows you to head-off any problems by allowing you to use the ICC profiles - colour-wise they do the same thing.
Darktable doesn’t use spuriously named profiles, so avoids the potential problems. It uses the same standard profiles as everything else.
Hello @plantarum
I can’t believe you consider yourself a beginner. It seems to me that you understand a lot about what you write. Your notebook is a wonderful overview and because it is in writing, I can take it, translate it if necessary and copy it into my own RT notes. A wonderful help.
I am especially pleased because lately all the big hypes are limited to ART and dt.
But RT is my favorite raw converter and I still get the best results with it.
With your help, newbies will certainly have a much better introduction to what I think is the best raw editor.
Thanks!
Please show me the list of ‘allowed’ or ‘standard’ color spaces by the ICC. As far as I am aware, RawTherapee ICC color profiles are entirely compliant with the ICC standard, which you seem to disagree with. Is it not the whole purpose of the embedded ICC profile to ensure that proper conversions to local working color spaces can be made? If some software or hardware does not do conversions properly or only accepts some hardcoded profiles as being ‘right’, I would argue they are not compliant with the ICC standard, not us.
That being said: I believe the reason why RT does not ship with the exact files that represent some common profiles is because of potential legal infringements. ProPhoto was developed by Kodak, AdobeRGB by Adobe, etc. I’m not sure how valid these risks are.
They only do for sRGB and AdobeRGB. darktable also does not include the ProPhoto ICC profile as is. They have an option ‘Linear ProPhoto RGB’, for which Photoshop gives a conversion prompt as well.
I get a bit brassed off with your comments sometimes, so I’ll make you a deal - I won’t partake in this forum anymore except by PM - that way you won’t make my head ache.
I was hoping that you’d link to the standard that you’re taking those profiles from. Best I could find is ICC Profile Registry which looks like its print profiles only.
Sounds like a bad deal, I’d like it if you’d continue to participate.
Mica was entirely correct here: I meant that I highly doubt that any official ICC document describes any color space as ‘standard’. Since you claim RT does not hold to ‘the ICC standards’, this was my point of contention.
What I will concede is that the profiles you list are in fact described by standards. Just not by the ICC. And the ICC does not prescribe the use of these profiles as far as I am aware.
Your summary notes here are succinct. Bravo to you. A couple of thoughts:
The Output Profile notes are especially welcome. I started to use the ProPhoto profile, but then remembered I don’t use LR/PS. The fall-back recommendation for using RTv4_sRBG is a great suggestion. I’ve wondered which one of these to use in the past, so I’ll settle on this one for now. Somehow, I missed this section when I viewed Andy’s (helpful) video the first time around.
I’ve never gone wrong using the L-a-b color space.
Something you hadn’t mentioned, but is at the top of my list, is to get a hold of a camera profile from Adobe (readily available when you download ACR) and select it in Color Management. Check the boxes for the lookup table and tone curve before you start doing any deep level editing. I’ve been getting much better results from my final image using this method.
Thanks again for making these available. If you don’t mind, I’m going to make them available offline for my own personal use.
I’m sorry but both you and @paperdigits are being extremely obtuse. The context of @Andy_Astbury1 s use of the word standard is perfectly clear.
I know and have patience with people being and thinking differently but this is extremely literal thinking. What some standards document states is completely irrelevant. @Andy_Astbury1 clearly explains that many printers and software fail to handle profiles beyond the “industry standard” profiles he listed.
Now of course that’s a deficiency of those printers, software and perhaps people but that doesn’t matter because they decide if you get to print or sell your work. Naturally there will be geographical and business differences and some may have better support for other profiles. That is however a completely different discussion and is about how much you print and sell and where you do it.
Perhaps, with any luck, we can get back to the OP subject line. @Thanatomanic, can you point to where @Andy_Astbury1 mentions to turn off Dead Pixels? I’ve watched all his RT videos and somehow must of missed that.
The fall-back recommendation for using RTv4_sRBG is a great suggestion. I’ve wondered which one of these to use in the past, so I’ll settle on this one for now. Somehow, I missed this section when I viewed Andy’s (helpful) video the first time around.