I have been dealing with what must be a workflow issue on my part but for the life of me cannot find a combo of settings that can resolve it…
The attached image is a screenshot of a image I was playing with in CS6 – the open windows is NIK's Viveza 2 with no changes made…everything is at 0% – look at the color difference – this cannot be normal as when you hit OK – the image in CS6 does not turn into the nice image in the Nik software window it just looks the same – and if i do tweak it – the results never match.
Is this a color space issue in CS6? a problem I need to talk to NIK about?
Time to call upon the power of greyskull (G+) and get this resolved as I am at my end with it…
The main image is a NEF opened from Lightroom then the NIK plugin was opened from CS6. All running on WIN7
If you need more specific please just ask…
Time to name drop: +Trey Ratcliff +Scott Kelby +Matt Kloskowski +Jan Kabili +Rob Sylvan +Andrew Kavanagh +RC Concepcion
And anyone else that might have seen this issue etc… Come on G+ solve my issue before I chuck my entire computer off my deck….
Is Photoshop using the same color profile as the NIK software?
I have seen similar issue on my laptop. I was using a laptop and an external monitor. And when I moved a window between the monitors the colours changed. The problem was in colour profile set. I had to change them both to the same profile (sRGB).
Now my problem is that I cannot use external monitor, and there is something wrong with colours in LR – i see kind of pink instead of white.
Besides color profiles you may want to invest in a color calibrator for the monitor(s). I found it interesting how the colors on my IPS improved after using the i1 Match by X-Rite.
I haven't used this plug-in so these are just some things you could try. If you haven't updated to Lightroom 4.1, go ahead and do it. 4.1 is a free update to 4.0 and fixes several problems, including some complaints about plug-in behavior. Also you should be able to use Viveza directly from Lightroom as an External Editor without having to go through PS first (the FAQ about halfway down this page explains how- http://www.niksoftware.com/support/en/entry.php?view=faqs/viveza2answers.shtml ). If you are going through PS, make sure you've upgraded your Adobe Camera Raw plug-in to the latest, which is 7.1. And it couldn't hurt to synchronize your PS color settings to the LR default of ProPhoto RGB to start with.
I have done that whole color calibration thing… +Kevin Gault and I have to say it did not help – but in this specific case, these are on the same monitor and show this color issue on each of my dual monitors on 2 different computers…. so I feel it has to be a bit deeper in my workflow…
+Emmett Lollis so in LR my edit in photoshop CS6 color space is set to: ProPhoto RGB
In PS – I assume the one I am most worried about is the Monitor color space correct?
I guess it could go either way then with the programs and how they are interpreting colors. I'd contact Mik and Adobe on the issue but don't tell Adobe you are using a third party as they'll blame Nik for the color issue.
+Brent Burzycki re your note to +Emmett Lollis Try changing Edit>Color Settings>Working Spaces>RGB to ProPhoto RGB.
What +Jan Kabili said. 🙂
The selection in Photoshop is called ProPhoto RGB – are you saying to go to something else other than that..
For me personally I use the RGB profile set for my monitor calibration, it has some weird name. Whatever profile the plugin is using appears to be good since the colors are looking natural from this end, otherwise even the good image would be looking off to people with calibrated monitors.
What does it look like in Lightroom before going to Photoshop?
+Rob Sylvan the same as the photoshop shot
Here are some more screen shots…
http://blackdiamondproductions.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-15_203008.jpg
Color Settings:
http://blackdiamondproductions.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-15_203350.jpg
http://blackdiamondproductions.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-07-15_203421.jpg
Interesting it says they are not synced – I wish I knew how to sync.. that must be new in Creative Suite?
Weird. OK, whenever I see these kind of mismatches on a windows machine I start to suspect a monitor profile issue as a possibility. Not all programs use the monitor profile in the same way, so just put that on the table. That said, typically this presents as a difference between Lightroom and Photoshop, but in your case those look similar. I've never dealt with this issue involving a Nik product.
On top of that, all 3 versions of the photo look off to me, but I'm not sure what the original is supposed to look like. Lightroom and Photoshop look too yellow and Nik looks too red (to me).
Looking at your external editor (lightroom) and color settings (photoshop), since you are shooting raw I would suggest leaving Lightroom set to 16 bit ProPhoto RGB, then in Photoshop you can leave the working RGB space at sRGB if you need that for other purposes, but under Color Management Policies set RGB to Preserve Embedded Profiles, this way regardless of your default RGB working space Photoshop will simply respect the profile in the photo.
Now at least you will be making a more even comparison between Lightroom and Photoshop, but more importantly you will be keeping more of the original data you captured through your editing process. I don't expect that will fix the issue, but it is what I'd suggest as a basic set up.
The next thing I would do is calibrate your primary (best) monitor with a hardware calibration device. Then see how everything looks on that one monitor. Just want to rule out the variables of a dual monitor set up.