Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

  New fredmiranda.com Mobile Site
  New Feature: SMS Notification alert
  New Feature: Buy & Sell Watchlist
  

FM Forums | Post-processing & Printing | Join Upload & Sell

  

Archive 2016 · Color managed wallpaper program

  
 
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Color managed wallpaper program



I am looking for a color managed program that works with Win 10 and provides color management for my desktop background (wallpaper) images.

Win 10 desktop background is not color managed which is a problem for me because it is always way oversaturated. I like to view an image I plan to post for several days as wallpaper before I post it. I am particularly interested in color values. Is it too saturated? Does it have a color cast? This is for web posting, my wide gamut print workflow is fine.

This is particularly a problem for a wide gamut monitor. I had no issues with Win7, but as soon as I upgraded to Win 10 it became an issue. I also have a cheap Dell sRGB second monitor which has the same issues but because it does not display as many colors, is less of a problem.

I have even considered going back to Win7, but I like Win 10 for most aspects. Microsoft admits that they did not color manage this because it helps performance in some applications.

So is there such a program? Or is such a program even possible?



Jul 15, 2016 at 11:21 AM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Color managed wallpaper program


I think there is a trick to fixing this Ben. As you have the screen profiled, you can export your background images using that colour profile rather than "srgb". They should then display correctly i think.

It is interesting that you had no problems with Win7 as it doesn't have a colour managed desktop either



Jul 15, 2016 at 12:28 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Color managed wallpaper program


15Bit wrote:
I think there is a trick to fixing this Ben. As you have the screen profiled, you can export your background images using that colour profile rather than "srgb". They should then display correctly i think.

It is interesting that you had no problems with Win7 as it doesn't have a colour managed desktop either


I used to save my wallpaper using the NEC profile in Win 7 and it worked fine, but now it does not matter what color profile I use. Everything works good with the Windows viewer or Photoshop or any color managed ap, but it does not display in background. This problem showed up on my old NEC 2690 and was the same with my new NEC 244 and of course with my Dell.

If I go into display setting and drill down to color management, it shows the NEC profile as it should. If I save the image with the same profile it does not change the image at all if I flip between the sRGB and NEC profile versions



Jul 15, 2016 at 12:45 PM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Color managed wallpaper program


Hmm, how annoying. They must have broken things in a pretty special fashion then - the save-as-monitor-profile trick was to get around the lack of colour management in Win 7, so i don't see why it doesn't work for Win 10.


Jul 15, 2016 at 02:47 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Color managed wallpaper program


15Bit wrote:
Hmm, how annoying. They must have broken things in a pretty special fashion then - the save-as-monitor-profile trick was to get around the lack of colour management in Win 7, so i don't see why it doesn't work for Win 10.


I am sure willing to try a trick, but I am doing everything I know. I wonder if Win 10 pro is color managed?



Jul 15, 2016 at 03:32 PM
15Bit
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Color managed wallpaper program


Try exporting as sRGB and see how it looks....


Jul 15, 2016 at 04:16 PM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Color managed wallpaper program


15Bit wrote:
Try exporting as sRGB and see how it looks....


Actually that is what I am doing now. Once I found that it did not care what color profile was used, it was easier to just use my regular web image which was already in sRGB.

One thing I like about Win 10 is that I can use the images I put on my Smugmug gallery which are reduced by 50%. Win 10 resizes them to fit. The down side is that I used to size my wallpaper/screensavers at 1600 wide for a 1920 monitor and Win 7 kept that size leaving a border for icons. But I can't make Win 10 display at a specific size. It has fit, center, tile and fill as options.

However, fit will put the same image on my 4K NEC and my 1080 wide Dell and fit them both. now if only they were color managed.



Jul 15, 2016 at 06:42 PM
UCSB
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Color managed wallpaper program


I went with B&W images on my systems. Looks nice, maybe better than color in that context.


Jul 16, 2016 at 12:28 AM
Peter Figen
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Color managed wallpaper program


I'm not sure why you'd even want a color image as your desktop. Everyone I know who does any amount of imaging work uses some sort of middle gray, which will never pollute your eyes when looking at your images. It also makes it really really easy to see immediately if something is wonky with your calibration. I think color guru Don Hutcheson even has some gray desktop patterns that have some grayscale texture or tonal modulation to them for those that find plain gray a little too boring.


Jul 16, 2016 at 12:44 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Color managed wallpaper program


Peter Figen wrote:
I'm not sure why you'd even want a color image as your desktop. Everyone I know who does any amount of imaging work uses some sort of middle gray, which will never pollute your eyes when looking at your images. It also makes it really really easy to see immediately if something is wonky with your calibration. I think color guru Don Hutcheson even has some gray desktop patterns that have some grayscale texture or tonal modulation to them for those that find plain gray a little too boring.


That's a concept I have never heard of. Probably would not reveal a bad calibration however since it's not color managed. This would work better in the viewer. But still I want to see what my image looks like in Web format for a period of a few days.

I could see putting my wide gamut in grey and leaving my Dell with the image under study. But I don't think I can have separate backgrounds per monitor and the Dell has the same problem.

I will experiment, I don't have ant B&W or grey stuff to use, but I will do some searching or else create something.



Jul 16, 2016 at 09:16 AM
EB-1
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Color managed wallpaper program


Peter Figen wrote:
I'm not sure why you'd even want a color image as your desktop. Everyone I know who does any amount of imaging work uses some sort of middle gray, which will never pollute your eyes when looking at your images. It also makes it really really easy to see immediately if something is wonky with your calibration. I think color guru Don Hutcheson even has some gray desktop patterns that have some grayscale texture or tonal modulation to them for those that find plain gray a little too boring.


A darkish gray is good. One can also have a different desktop for each computer. I have each computer ID in large white letters on its desktop, which is especially useful when several are connected to a KVM.

EBH



Jul 16, 2016 at 10:11 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Color managed wallpaper program


I have a dark blue-grey background now which I just selected from the personalize dialog. I could make a better one but I just wanted to try it out. Does not solve my problem which is to find a way to see an image for a while.

I am using a dual screen set up and don't know how to get different background to the two screens. But a work around is to use Windows viewer for one and just leave an image on the secondary sRGB monitor for this purpose.

If I do this, I need to upgrade this to at least a newer IPS monitor so the viewing angle does not become so critical.



Jul 16, 2016 at 11:33 AM
dgdg
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Color managed wallpaper program


I used to put color images on my win7 desktop. They initially looked awful. I recall if I exported aRGB instead of sRGB it looked much better. Haven't done this in a while though.


Jul 18, 2016 at 06:44 AM
ben egbert
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Color managed wallpaper program


I am trying to get a feel for how an sRGB image will present on the web so using aRGB would not accomplish that.

I experimented with a B&W image, did not like it. At the moment I have a grey background and the image I want to look at displayed using Windows viewer which is color managed, and sized smaller than full screen so that the icons are visible around the edges.

This allows me to get used to the image over a period of days and make changed as I start to see color problems or other issues.

It is not ideal as I need to set this up each morning.




Jul 18, 2016 at 08:18 AM





FM Forums | Post-processing & Printing | Join Upload & Sell

    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.