Clarity on ICC colour profiles

[seandunderdale]

Ive got two semi decent BenQ monitors and Ive used a Spyder Pro to calibrate. I get very different results taking my renders from Maya into Photoshop. The only thing that looks correct is the BenQ monitor profile it comes with and has as an option in Photoshop, but if I send that PSD to a retoucher they say it very saturated. If I set it to sRGB or Adobe98 then I get washed out reds and my blues shift hue. The problem really came to the fore when I had to do a red studio car, which is why I bought the Spyder calibrator, but it didn't really solve my problem. Admittedly I haven't had much time to delve into it to fix it. I tend to save a file down, open it in a no photoshop app, check for hues and saturation, tweak, then save down again. Its not ideal but Ive not had the time to down tools yet.

[seandunderdale]

Ive recalibrated my screens and set the montiors to srgb....I need to do some rendering into photoshop to test, but already some of my shots that I had desaturated reds on, and probably overcompensated look VERY red now. Hopefully that will be the end of my colour woes in Photoshop.

[Guest]

So you are using a colour profile anymore? My monitor is set to sRGB via the menu settings. And currently not using any profile until I can get it properly calibrated.

[seandunderdale]

Im still having issues it seems.

So I ran my spyder on both monitors, so windows has the calibration saved. I set my monitor display option via the monitor menu to srgb. I set Photoshop to be srgb. In maya if I render three cubes with RGB surface shaders (max saturation), save that image and bring it into photoshop, it looks desaturated. If I change Photoshop to use my monitor profile, it looks correct. But I keep getting shit from retouchers since they say Im saving PSDs etc with my monitor profile attached, but its the only thing that makes Maya and Photoshop look the same. Am I missing something?

I know I should using using srgb or Adobe98 in Photoshop, but neither reflect what I see in the Vray (Or Arnold) framebuffer.

This is what I get if I have Photoshop set to srgb and I open any file type of oy Maya. The greens and reds are visibly desaturated.

Ive found a lot of threads on here that suggest loading in a colour profile....but Im having trouble finding where the Spyder has saved then out. I also havnt had this issue ever before. My framebuffer render has always matched my photoshop comp. Ive never had to accept visual differences between my render and my comp, and Ive never had to jump through hoops to make them look the same. Im really confused with whats changed...

[Dmitriytn]

+1 that to all what been said in this thread. I did raised that question up a while ago, but not much been done to it. Hopefully this time we can push it further and find a right workflow.
Not sure if Autodesk will do something soon, but if you Chaos guys could make the VFB to work with respect to the monitor calibration then it'll be awesome!

Another issue especially with VRay 5 is that ICC now can not be loaded together with ACES config.
That basically forces me to work under no calibration at all, as the images in VFB and in PS look way too different.

Also not just allowing users to load an ICC, but making it to work by default is the way to go. Just remember how many scenes artist have to deal with, and how many scenes are transfered from one workstation to another and each time that happens we have to load correct ICC all the time.
Another point here is multi screen setup. Simply draggin VFB to the second screen makes it all wrong, as you need to load a correct ICC for that screen.

[Dmitriytn]

Any news on this topic?

[kosso_olli]

Ive found a lot of threads on here that suggest loading in a colour profile....but Im having trouble finding where the Spyder has saved then out.

Hey Sean, you are on Windows, right? Usually, the calibrations saved by the devices are saved here: C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color
A lot of the trouble is caused by the fact that 3dsMax is not color managed, while Photoshop is. This means that Photoshop respects the calibration specified in the Windows Color Settings and Max does not, hence the difference. You can work around that by loading the ICC profile saved by the calibrating device into the V-Ray Framebuffer. That way, the colors should look identical. But as Dimitri said, you have to load the correct profile for the correct monitor. If you move the VFB to another screen, it will not look right.

[seandunderdale]

Hey Oli. Cheers dude.

I found them in the end. I was looking in the right place, but windows had named them all a different file extension to what Vray was looking for. I copied one and renamed the file extension and it worked. Maybe I just didn't notice the colour difference until now? Im not sure. So does everyone just live with it, or is everyone loading in ICC profiles. Im not sure I know anyone who does it, or at least they never mentioned it to me.

[CoastalVis]

This is interesting reading, I have just installed the Vray 5 demo and I also have colour variation in the VFB result vs saved images. I normally use Fstorm which saves the exact same image out that you see in the frame buffer without any headaches or tweaking of application settings, you make sure 3dsmax is set up for gamma 2.2 and it just works!. Coming back to vray to test for an upcoming work collaboration has been an interesting experience. The fact other rendering applications do not have the issues saving out what you see in the frame buffer in a like for like way makes me wonder if Vray is broken somehow or there need to be clear instructions put under the user's nose to clarify the logic. Do the Chaos group assume the average 3d user renders out linear images for every project and doesn't care about 1:1 tone mapped images being accurately saved out the frame buffer?

[^Lele^]

As stated in the other thread, it's best if you show us what issue you're exactly having.
Most of our users suffer no such issue, so we either missed something important, or you did.
Either way, we'd be keen to find out *exactly* what produces wrong results for you.

I'd invite you (strike three.) to provide us with reproducible steps towards the error.

[kosso_olli]

Do the Chaos group assume the average 3d user renders out linear images for every project and doesn't care about 1:1 tone mapped images being accurately saved out the frame buffer?

Well, they are saved exactly as you see them in the VFB... I don't know what your issue is.

[CoastalVis]

Well, they are saved exactly as you see them in the VFB... I don't know what your issue is.

Yes that is what I am trying to get to the bottom of, I have litterally fresh installed it and getting a different result, sounds like im just unlucky and it works perfectly for others. Although reading through a few threads it seems others are having issues too?

[^Lele^]

Yes that is what I am trying to get to the bottom of, I have litterally fresh installed it and getting a different result, sounds like im just unlucky and it works perfectly for others. Although reading through a few threads it seems others are having issues too?

How are you saving?
There are a few different ways about it.
We know of *no* standing issue with outputs, at the time of writing.

[seandunderdale]

Not sure if this will help, or make things worse...but these are the settings Ive had to settle on to get my renders to match. Anything else makes my backplates from Photoshop change (this isnt what we want) and with these settings, I render out to png, or copy paste from framebuffer, when I open in Photoshop with Adobe98 colour space, everything matches. I have various VFB layer stuff going like a LUT, or tonemapping, but it all matches and the retouchers I hand over to dont get confused.

[CoastalVis]

I have tried pretty much every file type in 8,16,32bit saving via the save icon and all have the same result. The only way I could get it to save out correctly was to make a copy of the frame buffer from the file menu I believe and then paste that into a new document in photoshop. So basically saving from the VFB via save icon is somehow shifting the colour profile and giving me an incorrect result.