The colours I'm seeing in the viewer while editing are different from what's exported, why?

Software RawTherapee
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rawtherapee export
rawtherapee export6016Ɨ4014 4.42 MB

rawtherapee screenshot
rawtherapee screenshot1204Ɨ803 104 KB

examples above, the first file is the photo exported after editing, and the second photo is a screenshot from inside the software.
anyone knows why they look different?
Affinity photo will also show the real colours (the ones shown at export)

Just interested to know :slight_smile:

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To be clear, I donā€™t see a huge amount of difference, but if you canā€™t spot it, try to look at the red small ā€˜leafā€™ (sorry for the experts) thatā€™s most prominent, fairly at the centre, at the yellow background, and at the bottom of the flower, on the complete bottom right edge.

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Welcome to the forum. To pick apart the problem, you need to know the provenance of the display and export pipelines.

The nominal display pipeline starts with the image in the working profileā€™s colors, then translates them for display using a profile calibrated to the display.

For export, same starting point of working profile internal image, for saving the file a transform to, say, sRGB is accomplished and that profile is embedded in the file, then in the viewer software the file is transformed from sRGB to the display profile if the viewer is color-managed; if not, the sRGB data is probably displayed as-is.

In all that, Iā€™d say that the likely culprit is your display profile, or lack of one. Itā€™s the only thing that doesnā€™t necessarily have the right colorimetric reference, due to some deficiency in its creation process. If you donā€™t have a display profile, you then have to consider how your various softwares handle displaying their respective inputsā€¦

3 Likes
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This can happen for various reasons.

  1. Are you viewing your exported jpeg in a properly color managed application?
  2. Have you setup a display calibration and made sure RT uses it too?
  3. Do you have the viewing settings and export profile properly setup in RT? - a screenshot could help.

Perhaps there are other thingsā€¦

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Thanks! I did try changing the display colour profile in RT to different settings, and none of them seemed to show the same result as the export/affinity photo.

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Thanks!
Iā€™m viewing the images with an image viewing app, Imageglass.
I do have an ICC profile set for my monitor in Windows, I didnā€™t calibrate it, but downloaded it from a site that seemed to have calibrate the same monitor I have and share that file (idk if thatā€™s the most accurate, but good enough for me).
I tried setting that profile as the display profile in RT, but it didnā€™t change the result from regular sRGB, or even from none (other things did have a big effect though, like putting Prophoto as colour profile).
And Iā€™m not sure how to check what screen colour profile is Affinity photo using, Iā€™ll get back to you on that.
I think it just uses the display settings?

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The differences youā€™re seeing look to me like differences in profiles or how theyā€™re handled. I see this a lot as I make different types of camera profiles, but the same thing can occur on the display end. You say youā€™re using a profile from a source that purports it to be for the same make/model display as yours, well and good, make sure your monitor is in the mode that corresponds to the profile gamut and tone.

I think there are two ways to reliably get a consistent display: 1) make a profile calibrated to the display (preferred), or 2) if your monitor supports a standard mode like sRGB, set it to that and use a sRGB profile as your display profile. If your monitor has an AdobeRGB mode, then use that in the same way. #2 is not the best way, but it accommodates in lieu of buying/borrowing a colorimeter to measure the display.

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Thanks a lot!
Would you recommend then to have sRGB in windows instead of a calibration of another person of the same model display?
And then choose the same profile in RTā€¦
My display only seems to support sRGB and YPbPr (first time hearing of this thing).

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I use a sRGB profile as the display profile on my Windows tablet, mainly because Iā€™m too lazy to make a calibrated one; I have a colorimeter.

This is the profile I use:

https://github.com/ellelstone/elles_icc_profiles/blob/master/profiles/sRGB-elle-V2-srgbtrc.icc

A lot of other good profiles at this site.

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Thanks a lot!
Only if you donā€™t mind explaining, what are all of the other profiles for on the github page you sent me?

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They are a collection of some of the more well-known profiles in various gammas, all made by the code written by Elle Stone, also posted in the repo.

She took pains to emulate the most popular ones but not encroach on any copyright encumberments. For instance, AdobeRGB is reprsented by the ā€œClayā€ profiles, because IIRC some person named Clay was originally responsible for coming up with itā€¦ ?? LargeRGB corresponds to ProPhoto.

A lot of these are large-gamut colorspaces used primarily as working profiles.

Hereā€™s the article Elle wrote to accompany this work:

https://ninedegreesbelow.com/photography/lcms-make-icc-profiles.html

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It is not a wordplay on the word for the adobe material? It would be a really funny coincidence if it isnā€™t.

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There are more reports that image glass gets color management wrong on occasion. Youā€™re not the only one to ask between a difference in preview and export , the preview being in programs like Lightroom.

Just for fun , can you try loading the export back into rawtherapee to compare there ? Or did you try something like this ?

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Thanks! That is interesting, didnā€™t think about that!
I did try it tho, and I can still notice that same shift in colours between the exported .jpg and the cr2 - the raw fileā€¦

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Thanks! :slight_smile:

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