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Colour profiles ?? I'm confused and not sure which to use . . . #1
TattooedMac's picture
by TattooedMac
April 9, 2014 - 12:59pm

First off, I’m wondering as to what Colour Profile I should be using in Aperture ?? And should it be the same as what I shoot in ?? I admit, the whole Colour Profiling confuses me no end, with so many out there, but also knowing the Defaults like sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998) and so on. Is there a need to have a Profile on in Aperture and if so why and what are the benefits.

The reason I ask this, is because the other night Idid a Star Trail Shoot and imported my 200 images. When the first image came up, the Milky Way looked oh so gorgeous in all her glory, and I thought to myself, what a great job Idid on my first ever Star/Night shoot like this. Then all of a sudden, it went all dark and all the colour disappeared :( I was disappointed. I then went to the next and the same thing happened and I realised it was loading and once the loading was finished the colour dropped out of it.

This I didn’t just realise, but had it happen every time I go to a image. If its a daytime Landscape, once it finishes loading, the Brightness drops, the images get darker EVERY single bloody time  … Can someone please explain this too me ?? What I thought a good image, loping on the LCD or on my iPad Mini(jpeg) they are nice shots, but once they finish loading into Aperture they loose their … … lust I suppose I could call it. 

So whats happening ? Is it me, or is this what happens? Is it the Colour Profile in Aperture or is it the Colour Profile I shoot in ? Can someone please give me some insight. This has bugged me for the whole time I have had Aperture, but lived with it and did Post Processing :( Not what I want anymore. 

Cheers

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
Arguing with a zealot is only slightly easier than tunnelling through a mountain with your forehead.
"Can't innovate any more, my ass" Phil Schiller

bjurasz's picture
by bjurasz
April 9, 2014 - 3:39pm

First, the easy answer, if you don’t understand color profiles, then use sRGB.  Why?  For the simple reason that most web browsers only support sRGB, and most printers only support sRGB.  It makes life simpler.  If you navigate to other color spaces then you really need to understand color spaces, what they mean, when you need to change to a different color space (for example, sending a JPG to a lab to make a print, does that lab support the color space you are using?).

The best explanation I’ve found yet on color spaces was on Smugmug’s help pages, and you can probably still find it with a quick search.  But in a very, very brief nutshell, here goes:

We all know that each pixel in our digital image is a 3-digit number telling us a red, green and blue value, and those numbers range from 0 to 255.  But, with some notable exceptions, those numbers themselves do not translate into a specific color.  Black is one obvious example, pure white another, neutral grays too.  But a value of ( 64, 27, 198) does not itself specify a “color” that we see.  You need to know which color space that number is in before it can translate into an actual color that we see.

If you go into Photoshop and take an image and start changing its color space what you will notice is the RGB values of pixels will go through small changes, even though the colors that you see in the image do not change.  This is because those physical colors have different numeric assignments in different color spaces.

If this were not true there would be zero need for color spaces in the first place.

So a pixel of ( 64, 27, 198) will print as a different physical color in different color spaces.

Bill Jurasz
Austin Texas

bjurasz's picture
by bjurasz
April 9, 2014 - 3:42pm

Bill Jurasz
Austin Texas

TattooedMac's picture
by TattooedMac
April 10, 2014 - 4:53am

OK thanks Bill for that info. Much appreciated. 

So does anyone know why then, when Aperture ”Loads” a image, it changes once the ’load’ process is finished ??

Looking at the 2 images supplied the first is when its in the loading process and you get the progress top centre of image and the colours are great, then  … .

Before loading progress has finished

I get this image where it has finished the ’loading’ process and it has no colour, life or anything. This happens with all my images, but after this shoot I have had enough and want to know what it is in Aperture that does this, or if its a Aperture thing. I can be in Thumbnail view and go to image 150 of 200 and it loads and it drops the colour, brightness or whatever it is, then I change to quick preview and I can see that one image is darker than all the others, and can even see the Milky Way in the Thumbnails of the other images ? WT … .  is going on please someone !!!

After loading

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Arguing with a zealot is only slightly easier than tunnelling through a mountain with your forehead.
"Can't innovate any more, my ass" Phil Schiller

TattooedMac's picture
by TattooedMac
April 10, 2014 - 4:54am

Just too add, if I Auto Enhance the bottom image, it takes it back to the way it looks in the top image, in the Loading process ??

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Arguing with a zealot is only slightly easier than tunnelling through a mountain with your forehead.
"Can't innovate any more, my ass" Phil Schiller

DEFii's picture
by DEFii
April 10, 2014 - 7:23pm

Actually, what you’re experiencing may not have much to do with the color space at all. What is unclear is if you’re shooting in raw or jpeg. If you are shooting in raw, what you see on the camera’s LCD is a small jpeg created in camera that more than likely will reflect the settings you have - e.g. white balance. iPads also do not display the actual raw images. You will see jpegs as well, even if you actually add the raw files to the iPad. 

So, assuming you’re shooting in raw, at the initial import into Aperture, one of two things will happen, depending on your Aperture preferences. Either Aperture will import the camera previews or it will generate its own. Keep in mind, at the point of initial import, you may very well see what the jpeg version of your image looks like. But thereafter, Aperture will function as a raw converter and essentially display its interpretation of the raw file. Thereafter, it’s up to you to use the file with all its dynamic range and possibilities to create what the camera would have done for you if you shot in jpeg. 

Jpegs are 8-bit, and invariably you lose some of the dynamic range of which your camera may be capable. But the settings are baked into the files, and all things being equal (this is where RGB profile comes into play), you should see virtually the same thing you shot in camera. Aperture may still make some small adjustment that would make the exposure appear a little different. Remember, factors such as LCD brightness, or the brightness on your iPad may impact how the jpeg appears on those devices. 

I hope this helps a bit. 

Dr.Bob's picture
by Dr.Bob
April 14, 2014 - 1:45pm

“Jpegs are 8-bit, and invariably you lose some of the dynamic range of which your camera may be capable. But the settings are baked into the files, and all things being equal (this is where RGBprofile comes into play), you should see virtually the same thing you shot in camera.”

The settings are indeed in the file, but in most cases Aperture won’t be able to read them. Only the camera’s manufacturer will be able to read all of them.  Thus Aperture has to resort to its own development settings. These settings will differ from the camera settings and are also different in all RAW processors. Load the same image into Lightroom, SilkyPix and Capture One and they will all look different. The beauty of RAW is that you can adjust these settings to your personal taste, without losing quality.

In some cases, the default rendering of a RAW processor is not as nice as you would like it to be. In my case for instance, I feel that the default black point is set too high for my Nikon RAW files. (And looking at the pictures this may be the case here as well). I have set that to a lower value and saved it as a preset I now apply on importing files. Unless you want to resort the the camera’s manufacturer RAW converter (which you usually don’t want to) you will face similar issues with all RAW converters to some extend.

TattooedMac's picture
by TattooedMac
April 11, 2014 - 8:50am

Ahh yes, I am shooting in RAW, and ill have a look at my Preferences. Ireally Appreciate the explanation and it makes more sense to me now. Thanks a lot.

 

Cheers

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Arguing with a zealot is only slightly easier than tunnelling through a mountain with your forehead.
"Can't innovate any more, my ass" Phil Schiller

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