Lightroom working gamut

[ilarionmoga]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom 8.4

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hello everyone,
It's first time I write here and as an avid user of Lightroom, I am very aware of it's strengths and weaknesses. I won't name the plethora of strengths, of which I am so grateful, I will only ask for some options I want in Lightroom, that I found mandatory for a good and professional editing. Apart from not being the very fast RAW processing software, there are some flows I can't go over, no matter what. Today I will start with the ones that annoys me the most. It might be surprising to most of you, but the ProPhoto profile, that Lightroom is working RAW files in, it's not the best profile to accurately preserve saturated colors. While most of the colors falls inside the sRGB or AdobeRGB profiles, and are displayed properly, the most saturated colors are blown outside these profiles and this results in oversaturated colors to display in sRGB. Ok, most of professional photographers would tel me, Why would I want to work in a profile as small as sRGB ar even AdobeRGB, when the ProPhoto is bigger than both and is better to work with because it preserves more colors for best CMYK gamuts?! Well, first of all, only a small fraction of my clients are using devices capable of showing lets say, AdobeRGB or P3 profiles. The ting is, the prints I am doing are well within the sRGB and I am very happy with this. Besides, I don't really like to have very saturated colors in my images. So, one option would be to desaturate colors in Lightroom, but this would result in undersaturated colors overall. Of course, I could use the 'vibrance' tool to regain saturation for pastel colors but this is not an option for me because it alters the colors too much in a way I find unpleasant. I ended up modifying the DNG profile to desaturate the most satuarted colors in the spectrum. This is not the best option, but it lets me keep the skin tones in the correct gamut coordinates, without twisting them.
These being said, I found that this happens because of the fact that Lightroom works inside a much larger ProPhoto gamut that my display can show, and rising the contrast in images results in oversaturated primaries. The best solution to this problem would be to be able to choose the gamut in which Lightroom performs the editing. Best options would be to include sRGB, AdobeRGB and the new P3 that is around us from some time now. There is no logical reason to work in ProPhoto, at least not for me.

I will mention of another problem I find annoying in Lightroom/ACR. It performs all the algoritms, contrast, curves, saturation, etc. in perceptual not relative colorimetric. I understand the differences of them in theory and I find the use of a perceptual algorithm to be tied to the ProPhoto gamut Lightroom uses. In prophoto, almost every image results in oversatuated colors so using a perceptual algorithm, prevents colors to oversaturate to an extreme extent. This solution, again, does not favors color accuracy, but keeping the colors good when we eyeball them. Yes, it's a solution, but it is far from perfect. The new Adobe DNG profiles have some sort of relative colorimetric embeded in them, so colors are in fact very good. The problem is whn I want to use custom DNG profile that does not have embeded color rendition of any sort. They don't have any twisting algorithms embeded in them.

I put here examples for the problems I mentioned.

 

[Bernard]

I export from Lightroom directly in sRGB and the reds are already clipped out in Lightroom interface. I want to mention that I am aware of color management and everything is fine. Just the Lightroom use of prophoto to edit images is not.

Instead of exporting from LR (in sRGB), you could use the print module, print to file, and then you can choose sRGB and the rendering intent, perceptual for example.

 

[ilarionmoga]

There is nothing wrong with using the widest possible color space while editing. You can ask Adobe to give you the choice to choose a different color space, but I am 99.99% sure they will not honor that request, so you either have to accept the realities in Lightroom or use other software. Conversion with the right rendering intent should solve out of gamut problems. If there is clipping on another device after conversion to sRGB, then the problem might be that this device does not support the full sRGB color space, especially in those red areas.

Only if I'd have the option to choose the rendering intent in Lightroom...

 

[ilarionmoga]

Instead of exporting from LR (in sRGB), you could use the print module, print to file, and then you can choose sRGB and the rendering intent, perceptual for example.

This does nothing to the image, is only intended to alter the way the printer sees the colors.
I am only speaking for internet use images, not for printing.

 

[ilarionmoga]

The behavior of colors in color spaces is not easy to understand. It took me years to do so, so I don't expect that all of you will. My English does not have a very "wide gamut" and i may not make myself well understood. Though, Clee understood perfectly:

The larger ProPhotoRGB colorspace is the working color space. When LR makes adjustments to pixels it needs a computational working color space because some computed values will fall outside of the visible envelope. When you export or display, LR uses the suitable color space that you choose for your media, Lightroom will take all pixel values that fall outside of the selected colorspace envelop and remap them to fall inside the selected colorspace envelope

 

[Bernard]

This does nothing to the image, is only intended to alter the way the printer sees the colors.
I am only speaking for internet use images, not for printing.

You should read more carefully what I wrote : print to file gives you a jpg image, with the rendering intent you want

 

[ilarionmoga]

You should read more carefully what I wrote : print to file gives you a jpg image, with the rendering intent you want

I tried now, but colors are the same bc it is the way Lightroom maps the colors before exporting or print to file action

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Only if I'd have the option to choose the rendering intent in Lightroom...

If there is a problem with that, then use a two-step approach. Export your image as 16 bits ProPhotoRGB. Then you can use other software to convert it further.

 

[clee01l]

Lightroom manages raw files inside the ProPhoto, and it's a bad idea to do so. We do not have displays capable to show the entire prophoto rgb.

I think you are a minority opinion of one to claim this is a bad idea. There was a time when. we did not have P3 displays, or any display that was capable of displaying more that a subset of sRGB. What happens when displays are available that do have ProPhotoRGB capability? Just because you can not "see" the color on your display does not mean that the color is invalid. I don't think you really understand the difference between a working colorspace and a media colorspace.

 

[ilarionmoga]

If there is a problem with that, then use a two-step approach. Export your image as 16 bits ProPhotoRGB. Then you can use other software to convert it further.

I will work out around the problems I encounter because I edit thousands of raws and I don't like other software. When I need precision, I will just add contrast to tiffs exported from Lighroom into PS.

 

[ilarionmoga]

I think you are a minority opinion of one to claim this is a bad idea. There was a time when. we did not have P3 displays, or any display that was capable of displaying more that a subset of sRGB. What happens when displays are available that do have ProPhotoRGB capability? Just because you can not "see" the color on your display does not mean that the color is invalid. I don't think you really understand the difference between a working colorspace and a media colorspace.

I do understand the difference. I'd be happier to have the option to choose the working color space in LR as I can choose it in Raw Therapee. I want to work in the color space I am exporting the images. If I export in AdobeRGB, work in AdobeRGB. Is that hard for Adobe to implement this? An open source program like RawTherapee can do it...

 

[Bernard]

I tried now, but colors are the same bc it is the way Lightroom maps the colors before exporting or print to file action

You tried to print to a file with both rendering intents, and they are the same ?? Huuummmm.......
Lightroom ( PS as well) is using the Adobe color engine for color conversion between color spaces, and this engine is well known to give excellent results.
I don't think anybody can do a better job.
If you don't like it, why don't you use raw therapee ???
Bernard

 

[LouieSherwin]

It might be surprising to most of you, but the ProPhoto profile, that Lightroom is working RAW files in, it's not the best profile to accurately preserve saturated colors. While most of the colors falls inside the sRGB or AdobeRGB profiles, and are displayed properly, the most saturated colors are blown outside these profiles and this results in oversaturated colors to display in sRGB.

I originally directed you to Luminous Landscape because you mentioned that you had made changes to the DNG profile to help. That is pretty technical and certainly beyond the scope of these forums.

In reading the follow up discussion I think that you do not really understand how the Color Management Software (CMS) works overall and specifically to how it deals with out of gamut colors. Using the ProPhoto RGB working space for editing is absolutely the best way to preserve all of your color information while editing.

The idea of using sRGB as the working space is a common misperception (myth) and is spread widely about the web by many well intentioned "experts". You can watch a really good tutorial Video tutorial: sRGB urban legends Part 1 by Andrew Rodney that explains exactly why it is always better to work in the largest possible working space for as long as you can. There are a whole bunch of related tutorials on his website digitaldog.net.

Looking at the images that you provided it seems that you do have some problems with your color management. But this is likely caused by something else in your workflow, CMS setup and/or hardware and not by fact that ACR and Lighroom use ProPhoto RGB as their working space. By using a sRGB working space or converting images to sRGB is simply masking the root problem.

-louie

 

[ilarionmoga]

At this point I think It is better to address this problems somewhere else. I do know what I am talking about and I tried many raw converters and the problem resides in using the prophoto RGB as color space environment in Lightroom.
No, large color profiles are not for editing and color grading, if you read carefully on ACES P0 color profile manual, which is the largest useful color space, they specifically say that this profile is just for managing the content, so doesn't loose color information by handling it, but it IS NOT for color grading, and by not doing so, colors will fall outside the final color space and they will look clipped out. No, proPhoto is not the best color space to edit images in. The best color space for this job is the final color space. For example, for printing work I would edit raws in the printer profile and so I will not have burned colors.
It seems that no one understands the way Lightroom handles the Raws. It is not a question of CMS but one of programing. It is hard writen in Lightroom codes to edit in prophoto and map colors in the AdobeRGB color space. Then no matter what color space I export to, will always have burned colors because they fall outside AdobeRGB. It is immature from Adobe after all these years not to give a solution to this problem.

 

[ilarionmoga]

Proof of the problem

 

[Hal P Anderson]

At this point I think It is better to address this problems somewhere else.

Yes. That would be a good idea. Nobody here can help you.

 

[ilarionmoga]

Proof of the problem

These reds do fall outside the sRGB in real life. They are really saturated in real life. So the sRGB color space is unable to show this red on the right coordinates in the visual spectrum. RawTherapee have the option to emulate the raw data color space to sRGB and all the colors that are outside this gamut are mapped inside it. It would be more correct to work in prophoto if we'd have a prophoto capable display, but it's not the case. Instead, we should have the option to edit in the working color space of our choice and have consistent results.
So, the color management theory says that if I have a large color space image and I want to convert it to a smaller one, all the colors that fall outside this small profile, will be mapped into the most saturated color of that color space, loosing detail. It's like burning the highlights.

 

[ilarionmoga]

It's not easy to understand, tel alone explain. So I might have done some mistakes in these messages, but I think you all got the idea after all. I tried to give you examples to understand and hope you did. It is beyond my purpose to insist explaining and I will try the bug report route. I wanted to see if there is anyone else interested in this and if someone did something for this to be solved.

Thank you everyone for the time consuming replays! It is very exciting to speak with you and I'd be glad to do so in other topics as well.
Good light everyone!

 

[ilarionmoga]

Guys, I solved both problems I came to you. It is unbelievable that there is a solution for this.
The solution is: Lumariver
I will come with further details, but the basic is that is all writen within the DNG profile. With Lumariver I can even compress the DNG Profile working color space to sRGB. This is awesome! Now I can work in Lightroom in all its glory.
I am so satisfied I found a solution!

 

[PhilBurton]

How do you use Lumariver in your workflow?

 

[LouieSherwin]

How do you use Lumariver in your workflow?

Looking at the website it is a camera profile generator that uses the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport Photo target. So take a picture with it in the frame and then use that image in their software to create a new camera profile that can be selected as in the "Profile:" pulldown list in the Basic tab.

Looks kind of interesting but I could not say how it is different that the X-Rite profile generation tool that comes the the Passport target.

-louie

 

[LouieSherwin]

Guys, I solved both problems I came to you. It is unbelievable that there is a solution for this.
The solution is: Lumariver
I will come with further details, but the basic is that is all writen within the DNG profile. With Lumariver I can even compress the DNG Profile working color space to sRGB. This is awesome! Now I can work in Lightroom in all its glory.
I am so satisfied I found a solution!

This is an interesting option thanks for sharing it. This certainly gives you a lot of options for how colors are interpreted in the raw conversion beyond what Lightroom offers.

While I understand that by limiting the color space to sRGB solves some problems for you particularly rendering of out of gamut colors on your monitor you should consider that it has some consequences. The first is that gamut of modern digital sensors is well beyond sRGB and often beyond Adobe RGB. The second is you cannot take advantage of wide gamut of many of the latest generation inkjet printers. Most of these printers are capable of printing many colors outside of the sRGB gamut and many can print colors outside the Adobe RGB gamut.

I am attaching a 3D graph that clearly demonstrates how much potential color is lost by restricting yourself to sRGB. The good news here is that using a Limariver profile does not actually remove these captured colors but simply compresses the gamut as part of the raw conversion. That means that by simply using a unrestricted profile you still have access to all the color that is in original raw capture.

-louie

 

[ilarionmoga]

This is an interesting option thanks for sharing it. This certainly gives you a lot of options for how colors are interpreted in the raw conversion beyond what Lightroom offers.

While I understand that by limiting the color space to sRGB solves some problems for you particularly rendering of out of gamut colors on your monitor you should consider that it has some consequences. The first is that gamut of modern digital sensors is well beyond sRGB and often beyond Adobe RGB. The second is you cannot take advantage of wide gamut of many of the latest generation inkjet printers. Most of these printers are capable of printing many colors outside of the sRGB gamut and many can print colors outside the Adobe RGB gamut.

I am attaching a 3D graph that clearly demonstrates how much potential color is lost by restricting yourself to sRGB. The good news here is that using a Limariver profile does not actually remove these captured colors but simply compresses the gamut as part of the raw conversion. That means that by simply using a unrestricted profile you still have access to all the color that is in original raw capture.
I didn't purchased Lumariver. Maybe in the future, but Adobe standard profile with a Linear curve it's everything I need now.

-louie
View attachment 13009

Hi,
It's been awhile since I wrote to you. I went a long way in editing my raws. I found out something very good in Lightroom. Profiles with LUTs!!!
Yeah, wright, I didn't knew about it. So, I can apply the contrast curve within a Lut and use a Linear Adobe profile. This contrast curve can be in sRGB, Adobe RGB, P3 and Pro Photo. So no more problem here. Everithing is sorted out. In a very good fashion, albeit there is room for improvement.
Thank you all again. You are those that led me to find these options. Here is a link with more info. there are tons of youtube videos about this.
https://lutify.me/docs/how-to-apply-lutify-me-luts-in-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-classic-cc/

 

[ilarionmoga]

This is an interesting option thanks for sharing it. This certainly gives you a lot of options for how colors are interpreted in the raw conversion beyond what Lightroom offers.

While I understand that by limiting the color space to sRGB solves some problems for you particularly rendering of out of gamut colors on your monitor you should consider that it has some consequences. The first is that gamut of modern digital sensors is well beyond sRGB and often beyond Adobe RGB. The second is you cannot take advantage of wide gamut of many of the latest generation inkjet printers. Most of these printers are capable of printing many colors outside of the sRGB gamut and many can print colors outside the Adobe RGB gamut.

I am attaching a 3D graph that clearly demonstrates how much potential color is lost by restricting yourself to sRGB. The good news here is that using a Limariver profile does not actually remove these captured colors but simply compresses the gamut as part of the raw conversion. That means that by simply using a unrestricted profile you still have access to all the color that is in original raw capture.

-louie
View attachment 13009

Watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVAtPSXX_xQ