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Color Profiles

CommonOne
CommonOne
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CommonOne polycounter lvl 6
Hi, so I just went through an issue where my renders looked great in VFB but not so mcuhl when opened in photoshop. The renders, in PS, were much lighter and there was some slight color banding - shadows also showed grainy in areas. This was not the case in Max. The renders were saved in the .tiff format - I did also try .png and .tga but exact same result. I searched around and got the solution I needed - it was a color profile issue. I changed it to Adobe98 in photoshop and bam! they looked correct in photoshop. All good there but I got to thinking - what will the finished piece look like on other folks systems? If someone is using a different color profile for their monitors my render would look pretty bad. :(  So did I actually help myself by changing the color profile in PS or should I be doing something differently in Vray? In the Vray VFB I am not using any corrections that I know of.

I know that this is the first render I've had this issue with for some reason.

I know that as I browse through here or Artstation everything looks great. Do browsers automagically know what profile to use?

Thanks
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  • Finnn
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    Finnn greentooth
    Browsers support different Color Profiles and when browsing Artstation you most likely use SRGB
    Today's browsers are color managed, so most people will not have an issue with your image
    You should use SRGB when uploading your images to the web.

    Adobe 98 is an ICC
    Here is a list of which browsers now wouldn't support to show your image correctly
    https://kornel.ski/en/color

    I guess you have an issue with either your max export settings, monitor color settings or Photoshop

    Maybe this will help you fix your issue
    http://artstorm.net/journal/2009/07/color-management-3d-renders-photoshop/
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  • gnoop
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    gnoop polycounter
    Instead of digging into all that color mess  described in that article  all coming from  those non-standard wide gamut monitors  an easy solution would be just  to save money and buy  a cheap sRGB one  +  colormunki display colorimeter.    There is absolutely  noting to tweak  after that and even to learn something.   
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  • Eric Chadwick
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    Eric Chadwick admin
    Max does respect sRGB color profile. Enable Gamma 2.2 in your Max preferences. This will save your renders in the equivalent of sRGB.

    Once you turn this on, you need to explicitly manage any textures that need to be in Linear color space (Gamma 1.0), for example when loading a normal map you'll need to set the gamma override to 1.

    The other downside of gamma correction in Max is the older Viewport Canvas tool, which doesn't work properly in gamma space.... it will double-gamma when it saves. So, I simply disable gamma before using the tool, and re-enable after.

    If you want to avoid gamma, simply save in HDR or EXR format.
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  • Eric Chadwick
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    Eric Chadwick admin
    Some more info on using color spaces in Photoshop.

    Close/save images before editing Photoshop color profiles, or convert the images to 16 Bits/Channel first. Otherwise banding may appear.

    How to create a Linear color profile in Photoshop:

    • Edit > Color Settings > Working Spaces RGB = Custom RGB.

      • Gamma = 1.0, Name = Linear, OK.

    • Profile Mismatches = Ask When Opening.

    • Save… > Linear.csf > Save.


    Change back to sRGB when done working on Linear maps:

    • Edit > Color Settings > Working Spaces RGB = sRGB IEC6966-2.1 (or similar)

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  • CommonOne
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    CommonOne polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks, Eric!
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  • gnoop
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    gnoop polycounter
    I believe OP issue is not Max caused.  Nowdays Max does everything  just right automatically  with "enable gamma" on setting.  It knows  on its own  the normal and displacement textures should be loaded with gamma1 etc. 
    You doesn't have to do anything.   Max is just  not "color aware" application like Photoshop  and doesn't have any special color engine to adjust displayed image colors in according with your monitor profile like Photoshop and many web browsers always do.  

    So if your monitor colors/settings or monitor profile itself are terribly off   and you just doesn't aware of the fact  you may see the very different colors in between Max and Photoshop. And those banding is a result of Photoshop color engine trying to fix the displayed colors to what it considers they should be.     So IMO the first step is to build an accurate color profile for your monitor .

    I had an issue last year when my old colorimeter  started to fail due to its sensors age.  Got exactly the same banding problem till bought a new colormunki one.

    Another possible issue is a monitor wider than sRGB gamut. Max would never adjust what you see to your non standard gamut monitor, only Photoshop do.   A simple solution is to use sRGB monitor or sRGB emulation mode





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