Thursday, June 30, 2011

What are you actually viewing?

In Photoshop CS4/5, do you know exactly what are actually viewed when soft proofing is checked or unchecked and with soft Proof set to Windows sRGB or Monitor.


                       sRGB          ProPhoto
Data Info          (Lab=38,13,14) (Lab=38,14,14)
 (CS5)                115,82,68      82,68,55

Following RGB values
were read with color picker
Soft Proof OFF *      119,90,75       121,90,75  CM
Soft Proof: sRGB *    119,90,75       89,77,63  MCM
Soft Proof: Monitor **115,82,67       82,68,54  NCM

PatchTool Display profile
set to Monitor profile
a) RelCol (BPC) *     121,90,74      121,90,74  Illu=D65
b) Absolute *         119,88,72      119,88,72  Illu=D65
c) RelCol (BPC) *     121,90,74      121,90,74  Illu=D50
d) Absolute *         126,87,60      126,87,60  Illu=D50


* These RGB values were directly read from screen with an color picker and they are monitor profile dependent.
** NCM not affected by monitor profile.

CM : Embedded icc profile tag is honored, monitor profile is applied.
MCM: Monitor profile is applied, however, embedded icc profile tag is ignored.
NCM: No Color Management. The pixel RGB values were sent to monitor.

ColorPic  is a free color picker and it can be downloaded from here.