Color profiles in PS and srgb

Jazon99

Hi!

I am trying to understand all the exceptions with gamma correction. 

As I understand it, if I import maps in 3ds Max Vray, Blender, or similar,... color maps should be treated as srgb as well as AO map in some cases so they will be gamma corrected? Non-color, normal, roughness and displacement maps should not be corrected, treated as raw or, in some cases, the gamma should be set to 1.0 (when importing). It depends on the software. Blender has non-color option.

My question is about one step before that. I often use Photoshop and some script to combine normal maps.
My color profile in Photoshop is standard srgb, because it is the most compatible in 3D. When saving pngs, I use the embed color profile.

I am confused about how non-color maps are treated in Photoshop. Should I save and export them with an embedded srgb color profile, like color maps, and then the correction is done when importing in 3d software? The other option is not to treat roughness, normal, displacement maps as srgb and save (export) them in different color profile.

That was perhaps asked a lot, but still, gamma correction puzzles me again and again. I get good normal map renders in Marmoset or Unity. In 3ds Max, or Octane, normal maps don't look so 3D, even if I import them as tutorials suggest, treat them as raw.

Thank you

gnoop

Photoshop  doesn't know anything  about  normal maps.  It treats them as regular  images  assuming the values are in srgb space by default.     But it doesn't matter  usually because  color profiles are  are for show  on screen.   The pixel values stay same.    And if you use  some blending modes they just do whatever math  they designed for  . like add, multiply etc.     

The only issue is exr  files  where  Photoshop consider them linear  and add gamma 2.2 to them to look  normal.    If you save  it as tga after that then it would have that milky look.     So  you have to  countermeasure with gamma 0.46464646 .    Same for any  exr import .      

    If you save png or tga  from your 3d soft  it's usually ok as it is.

The only other thing in Photoshop  is  when you copy  something  RGB  grayscale looking from RGB layers, roughness  layer comps for example,   to a single channel   you have to set  sGray  as default  space for grayscale images .  That way the  pixel values stay same and wouldn't  be re-calculated.

Anyway  Photoshop beta allows to use Substance Designer made  sbsars  as procedural filters over smart objects .    So probably  soon it would be possible to do all such things by specially prepared filters.      That said i  recently did simple height to normal map sbsar  and it worked right only on 32bit images in Photoshop.