I apologize if this question is already answered (I’ve googled and read quite extensively about color management in RawPedia/Pixls.us) but I’m really struggling to get the image viewer/preview in Rawtherapee (v5.3) to match what it looks like when i view it with an external viewer like IrfanView OR windows photo app (windows 10 + Surface Pro 4)
I have attached a screenshot of the same JPG file opened by IrfanView and Rawtherapee. I have played with my color management settings but IrfanView appears to be much sharper and over-all better picture while RawTherapee seems to be previewing without as much sharpness and over-all a grainier picture…which i can’t understand why. If I can’t see the effects of my editing in Rawtherapee it kind of defeats the purpose…
Hi Afre, Thanks for your quick reply. Here are some of my comments not sure if its helpful! One thing to note is the JPG that I’m viewing is an output from RAW processing from RT itself so it should consist of RT “output profile” which is why I don’t understand why it seems different when looking at it from Windows Photo APP or IrfanView (with CM enabled)
I haven’t editted the image in IrfanView at all. Infact it looks the same in the native Windows 10 Photo App. I have enabled color management in IrfanView to use “current monitor profile” which is the same as I’ve done for RT. I’m not re-sampling for fitting/zooming in IrfanView. The screenshots I took is the entire image fit to screen… should I do 100% zoom and attach?
I’ve enabled color management in RT like in my first post… not sure if there is a “power” button for it, I couldn’t find it if there is… CM in IrfanView is also enabled
Not really sure how to change the theme in IrfanView to match RT. It is using the default windows theme in IV I believe, I played around with RT but didn’t find a default windows 10 theme for RT.
I’ve attached a picture of both viewers at 100% zoom if that helps. See the difference in sharpness in the water…
Definitely some sharpening but I wouldn’t say that it looks better. Observe the haloing at the edge of the rock face and the noisiness of the water. IV’s render is above the dotted line and RT’s below.
As well, something is amiss with the colors. The fact that IV and the default viewer don’t have as many color management options tells me that they likely aren’t as robust in color as RT. (I mentioned app themes because the colors of the surrounding area also affect how we perceive the image.)
Anyway, color management and perception is a very complicated matter. Just observe how much head scratching is being done in Monitor profiles and deep shadow tonality. Try comparing the thread’s train track and squares images in IV and RT.
I changed the scaling of my screen in windows 10 back to 100% and the pictures in the image preview look identical, however, everything shrinks down to the extent that I can barely read my screen! Do you know of a solution, when I went to the issue 3547 it doesn’t seem like it was going to be solved to support the scaling… what is the alternative otherwise its almost impossible to edit using the image viewer as it always looks blurrier than the true output once scaled properly using a another application like IV or Photos…
I’m assuming this will affect people who have surface laptops like me…
thanks. i dont know why i didnt thnk about the resolution… i cant offer to do dev work but i can test if need be… not a software developer by trade… ill try playing with resolution and scaling and post back so that other people have something to refer to when they run into the same issue for a temporary solution…
