Color management Issue

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yossizahn
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Color management Issue

Post by yossizahn »

Hi,
I am having an issue with color being displayed wrongly.
I have attached a minimal sample PDF, my monitor color profile. My color Management Settings, and a side by side comparison of PDF Xchange & Adobe.
Untitled.png
Annotation 2019-01-07 124521.jpg
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TPLCD60.zip
(748 Bytes) Downloaded 93 times
sample.pdf
(385.08 KiB) Downloaded 118 times
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Paul - Tracker Supp
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi yossizahn,

thanks for the post and the supporting files. We will need one of the development team to look at this, hopefully today.

regards
Best regards

Paul O'Rorke
Tracker Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
yossizahn
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by yossizahn »

Hi,
Has anyone had a chance to look at it yet?
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Ivan - Tracker Software
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

We will try to fix this issue in the next build.
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Timur Born
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Does that mean that color management will get an overhaul in the next build?
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello Timur,

While we cannot make any guarantees, we will be trying to work this into the next build. That might mean a small patch, or it could possibly be the overhaul you have been asking for, there is also a slim chance that we will not be able to get it into this build. At the moment I am unsure of Ivan's thoughts on the specifics, and cannot speak for which it will be.

kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Thanks for the information. I liked the changes of the last build and will keep an eye on the next one.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:D
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Here we are a few builds later. What's the current status with color management?
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Ivan - Tracker Software
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

You are right in time :) We are in the middle of reworking our color management and already have some promising results.
You can see here how your sample is rendered with your profile and your settings now.

These changes will not be included in build 333 but must be in 334 if everything will be ok.
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Great news! :D
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:D
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

To be precise, in this particular case the difference between Acrobat and PDF-XChange is because the Editor renders in CMYK, while Acrobat renders in RGB color space.
To get the same result, please set the option "Preferences -> Page Display -> Rendering -> Default transparency blending color space" to "Working RGB".
Acrobat has a similar option and it is set to "Working RGB" by default, and, what is strange, even when you change it to "Working CMYK" in most cases Acrobat ignores this option.
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Switching to RGB may improve things in this specific example, but generally it is no solution to the overall problem. I posted the following comparison in another thread already, which demonstrates that switching to RGB can even be detrimental to the result. It all depends on the combination of document and display ICC profile being installed.

Image

I also wrote:
Switching from Auto (CMYK) to RGB does not exactly solve the problem. While the "haze" vanishes the image becomes too saturated, the same as Viewer using sRGB working space. (Viewer saturates even more when the DELL U3014 working space is used.)

This image also demonstrates that Microsoft ICM is only a partial solution, because its colors are less (micro)contrasty and slightly off compared to Adobe's output. Still better than the hazy LCMS version, though.
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

In that topic, you posted only the images, but not your PDF. Can you please post it here or send me by email?
And your profiles for the monitor.
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Matze
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Matze »

Colortest.zip
(2.15 MiB) Downloaded 81 times
Hi,

I think, I got a similar issue. Grey colors are displayed and printed not correctly with PDF-XChange Editor (build 331.0 and earlier versions). Default transparency blending color space" was set to "Working RGB" but that didn't change anything.

The problem can be reproduced by these steps:

- Create a new document ("Colortest.docx") with Microsoft Office 2016 (same issue in Office 2010)
- Insert a new retangle shape
- Set fill color for example to RGB 243, 243, 243 (a bright grey, it also happens with some other colors)
- Save as pdf ("Colortest.pdf")
- Open with PDF-XChange Editor

The grey shape is displayed in yellow-brown color instead of grey.
After opening the print dialogue, it is displayed with correct grey color, but not if you choose the option „print as image“.

If you edit the shape properties in PDF-XChange Editor, choose "fill color", the "more colors" and click "ok" without any changes, the shape is displayed in the right color.

If you restart the print dialogue now, the behavior is inverted. You get the right printing color only if you choose „print as image“, otherwise the bright grey changes to a more blueish grey.

I have attached the above mentioned documents "Colortest.docx", "Colortest.pdf" and additionaly "Steps.docx with screenshots in "Colortest.zip".

With Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, the shape has the correct color (Screen and Print).

Best regards

Matthias Fischer
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

Thanks for the files! Can you please also let me know what color profile is associated with your monitor?
For example, screenshot of Preferences -> Color Management dialog will show the current monitor profile when "Default" preset is selected.
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Matze »

I attached my current color profile. I looks similar the the profile of yossizahn.

I also tried different settings but that didn't solve the problem.
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Color Management Options.zip
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Thanks Matze,

I will ask Ivan to take a look!

Regards,
Stefan
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Ivan - Tracker Software »

Strictly speaking, the Editor renders everything correct, except print preview.
The problem is in your monitor profile.
Here is a short explanation of how we get this yellowish color: original fill color of the rectangle is 95.3% of gray. As the working space is RGB, we convert this color to RGB using color profiles specified by options "Grayscale" and "RGB" on "Color Management Options", then, we convert this RGB color to an output device profile, which is in your case the same as "RGB" color profile in the preferences.
And the conversion of 243 (of 255) in "Gray Gamma 2.2" to "B24W-7 LED" profile gives us this yellowish color with RGB values of (255, 240, 208).
As I said above, the only problem is with print preview (and printing) because due to our error, monitor color profile takes a part in color conversion for printing.
Adobe Acrobat, on the other hand, ignores this profile as it treats it as defective. We don't know the criteria of this decision so we cannot mimic it.
In Adobe Photoshop you can force using of even defective profile, and in that case, we got the same result as in the Editor.

In your case solution is to set a different color profile for your monitor in Windows settings, it is not used by the Windows in any case (color picker is the proof).
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Timur Born
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Ivan - Tracker Software wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 4:01 pm In that topic, you posted only the images, but not your PDF. Can you please post it here or send me by email?
And your profiles for the monitor.
This is the PDF I used. Seems like the site-owner forgot to renew the site certificate.

https://ulisses-spiele.de/assets/docume ... pdf?x22808

Display profile attached.
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U3014.zip
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Matze
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Matze »

Thank you very much!

The change of the windows color profile solved the problem with the yellowish instead of grey color.
My old profile "B24W-7 LED" was automatically used according to my monitor. I didn't take account of that setting because I haven't applied any changes there.

Great Service!

Best Regards

Matthias Fischer
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Matze,

Glad to hear this solved it!

Cheers,
Stefan
asdf3sthdhawer53
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by asdf3sthdhawer53 »

Hello, I've read through this thread and another one regarding color management, but I still have a question about what the proper settings and workflow are for color calibrated multi-display setups that use color profiles, for photography work.
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=30633&p=122649

I do photography work on 3 displays connected to a laptop computer. Each display has been color calibrated and have their own color profile, loaded into Windows 10 OS by DisplayCAL.
  • Does PDF-Xchange Editor color manage multiple displays at the same time, for example if I have multiple PDFs open on all 3 displays at the same time?
  • In Preferences > Color Management > Working Spaces > RGB, by default, the color profile for the primary display has been selected.
    What does this actually do?
  • Will it apply the display profile to the output document when printing (either to the PDF X-change Standard printer, or HP laser printer), which would be the wrong way?
  • Will it apply this profile to all 3 monitors at the same time?
  • Should I instead set this to sRGB instead? But then PDF-Xchange Editor will not be applying the calibration/color profile to the display?

In Adobe software, usually the Working Spaces RGB is set to sRGB (if that's what you want to work in). The display color profile doesn't usually show up in the settings, unless for example, you take a screenshot of a display of a software that is applying that display's color profile, paste it into photoshop, and then use "assign profile" of the display's profile, then covert it back to sRGB to get the original colors.

Adobe software usually handles multi-display color profiles in the backend.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, asdf3sthdhawer53

1. To my knowledge no, the Editor does not manage displays separately, you can only specify one color profile for use at a time in the Editor under its preferences (Ctrl+K).

2. That settings causes the editor, and all color rendering within (including documents, and in some cases print jobs) to adhere to the defined color profile's standards

3. As in question 2, In some cases yes, the color profile can affect the print preview and the consequent print job.

4. As in question 1, yes only a single profile can be defined, and as such it would indeed apply to all three monitors.

5. The decision of which profile to use is entirely up to you, and is why we offer it as an option in the first place. If you were intended to always use sRGB, we would simply make that the only possibility.

We are not a dedicated image editor, nor do we offer an application like Photoshop. As such there are indeed cases like this where we cannot compete, as we simply do not have a similar product to offer the same functions.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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asdf3sthdhawer53
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by asdf3sthdhawer53 »

Thanks for the reply.

PDF-Xchange editor and standard seem to give me very unpredictable color output.

When working on documents that for example graphics artists or photographers who print from Photoshop or Illustrator into PDF, then soft proofing the PDF on the display and then possibly printing onto paper, the PDF editor/viewer/printer needs to work with proper color management.
  • working color space - at least in adobe software, should match the document color profile of the PDF (for example sRGB, AdobeRGB)
  • display color management - use calibration profiles for displays, should not affect document or print
  • printer color management - converts or preserves the document profile. I see no options in PDF-Xchange standard. For some reason PDF-Xchange standard seems to be printing with the display color profile of my secondary display and the color no longer appears the same as the original.
Here are a couple of problems I've encountered:

Printing from Photoshop to PDF using PDF-Xchange Standard
Photoshop print settings has 2 options, either 1) printer manages color or 2) Photoshop manages color. When I select printer manages color, the printer profile selects by default "Display2.icm" profile of my secondary display. The option is grayed out so I cannot select anything else. If I select Photoshop manages color, the drop down list is available, and I see other options including "Display1.icm", "Display3.icm" and some other miscellaneous profiles, but I don't see sRGB in the list and I don't know how to get it in there.

Whichever option I choose, the output from PDF-Xchange Standard does not look like the original in Photoshop in an sRGB working color space. PDF-Xchange Standard is somehow always converting the color profile to something else.

Printing a PDF from PDF-Xchange Editor to PDF again using PDF-Xchange Standard
If I print an sRGB PDF from PDF-Xchange Editor (color space set to sRGB) into a PDF again using PDF-Xchange Standard, the colors change. Possibly it is converting the original PDF to some other color profile (maybe the secondary display profile). I see no color management options in PDF-Xchange Standard, so I don't really know what is happening. In Adobe software like Acrobat, there are options for "convert color profile" or "preserve document profile".

PDF-Xchange Editor working color space shouldn't normally be mixed with display color management
In PDf-Xchange Editor, on installation, the preference setting for working color space was set by default to my primary display profile "Display1.icm". I thought this meant that this setting was for display color management. However, when the I open a PDF that was saved directly from Photoshop with the sRGB profile preserved and embedded into the PDF, the colors look different in PDF-Xchange Editor when the working color space is set to "Display1.icm". It only looks similar to the image in Photoshop if I set working color space to "sRGB".

PDF-Xchange Editor soft proofing on the display
Is PDF-Xchange Editor applying the primary display calibration profile when the working space is set to sRGB?
You've said that it doesn't support multi-display profile. But what's the correct process to work with the primary display profile? Setting it in the working space is not really the right way to do it because I assume this will also affect the document amd prints, not only the display.

PDF-Xchange Editor working color space setting seems to do strange things
I really don't know what the working color space setting is doing. But it seems to do unpredictable things, and also affects the PDF prints through PDF-Xchange Standard. I see a color management tab in the Editor and PDF Tools, but I don't see this in the Standard printer. I'm not sure how to preserve and embed sRGB when printing with Standard.
Last edited by asdf3sthdhawer53 on Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
Timur Born
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by Timur Born »

Yes, this is a problem for several years already. Best is to switch off your display profile in Windows before printing via X-Change standard. Best to use Acrobat to print to printers when colors are important. The latter may result in smaller print data anyway (especially when Type 1 fonts are involved), so can also be faster.

I print directly from Editor when it doesn't matter so much (most of my stuff) and from Acrobat Reader when I want to be on the secure side.
asdf3sthdhawer53
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by asdf3sthdhawer53 »

The Adobe Cloud suite is too expensive for me to keep on subscribing to every year, so this year I only have the Photography package with Photoshop and Lightroom, but sometimes I want to print to PDF and soft proof on the display and do minor edits in a PDF editor/viewer.

So without the Acrobat Printer, I thought PDF-Xchange Standard would do proper printing color management, because I saw the color management screenshot in Editor and PDF Tool. But it seems that Standard doesn't have a color management option, and printing with Standard applies some other color profile that changes the colors, probably my display profile.

I also don't know how to get Editor to apply the display profile to only the display, not the working space. If I set working space to sRGB, does this mean that the display profile is not being applied to the display for soft proofing?


For the moment, I've just installed an inactivated Acrobat Pro for soft proofing PDFs on the display since it properly color manages the displays. For printing, I will try to save files directly to PDF in the original software instead of printing with PDF-Xchange Standard since it's giving me unpredictable colors. But in some software, I will need to print with Standard.

I still need the PDF-Xchange Editor for various office documents like editing PDFs, OCR of scanned documents, redaction, signing, etc.
asdf3sthdhawer53
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by asdf3sthdhawer53 »

I did further testing. Files and more details can be found in another thread about compression artifacts.
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=35296&p=148403

There is an additional problem that PDFs printed with PDF X-change Standard do not have color profiles embedded. The image properties has "Colorspace: DeviceRGB"

Print with Acrobat, preserve and embed color profile, "Colorspace: ICCbased"
Print with PDF-Xchange Standard, no options available: "Colorspace: DeviceRGB"
Save directly to PDF in Photoshop, convert and embed: "Colorspace: DeviceRGB" (this is a bug, should have embedded sRGB)

When viewing the PDFs in PDF-Xchange Editor, when working color space is set to "sRGB", all 3 look similar, except for the grays to dark looking different. I assume this is a problem of color conversion and the lack of color management options in PDF-Xchange Standard.

All 3 PDFs also look different in Acrobat Pro compared to PDF-Xchange Editor. I assume this is a problem of PDF-Xchange Editor not color managing the display correctly.

When viewing the PDFs in PDF-Xchange Editor, when working color space is set to "Display1.icm", the PDF with "Colorspace: DeviceRGB" changes a lot, while the PDF with "Colorspace: ICCbased" does not seem to change.


When printing from Photoshop with PDF-Xchange Standard, using "printer manages colors" gives the closest result to Acrobat printer (distiller) preserving and embedding sRGB profile. The grayed out profile option for PDF-Xchange Standard that has my "Display2.icm" selected doesn't seem to actually be affecting the output PDF, although PDF-Xchange Standard is not embedding a color profile, which results in the "Colorspace: DeviceRGB".


Also, when dragging and dropping an image with embedded sRGB profile into PDF-Xchange Editor, the resulting image/page also has "Colorspace: DeviceRGB". This causes the image the lose its profile. Stripping the embedded profile is a problem, for example if printing to paper, the printer driver doesn't know what the document color profile was. For example, if the original working space was AdobeRGB, but the resulting PDF is "Colorspace: DeviceRGB", then the printer driver may assume sRGB and mess up the printed colors.
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Re: Color management Issue

Post by asdf3sthdhawer53 »

A further problem I discovered from the PDF output from PDF-Xchange Standard that was originally in an sRGB working space in Photoshop, because the image has the color profile stripped, so that it now has "colorspace: DeviceRGB", when I right click on the image and copy to clipboard (either in PDF-Xchange Editor or Acrobat) and paste it back into photoshop, the image has been converted to the display profile. In photoshop, I have to assign the display profile, and then convert it back to sRGB. This is the same behavior if I use the PrintScreen button to take a screenshot to the Windows clipboard anywhere in any software and paste it into photoshop.

I don't have Acrobat Pro activated on my computer anymore, so I cannot test this same procedure with Distiller and the clipboard if the sRGB profile had been embedded and the resulting PDF has "colorspace: ICCbased", but maybe the clipboard would have preserved the screenshot in sRGB. (Edit: it actually has the same behavior, this is probably the normal process of Windows clipboard)

Edit:
I tried copying the TE226.jpg (see the other thread for files) to clipboard from the PDF output files from either PDF-Xchange Editor or Acrobat Pro, and either printed by PDF-Xchange Standard (colorspace: DeviceRGB) or Acrobat Distiller (colorspace: ICCbased), and pasting all 4 combinations (printer vs editor) into Photoshop, and it gave me slightly different gray to black between all 4. Furthermore, one of the copy to clipboard from PDF-Xchange Editor kept getting blurry as if a pixel has been smushed with another pixel next to it, possibly compressed or downsized.

(Edit: The clipboard copied from the same PDF opened in Acrobat Pro and then pasted into Photoshop and assigned the display color profile, matched the original image in Photoshop. The clipboard copied from the same PDF opened in PDF-Xchange Editor was slightly transformed in all darker colors. So it's better to copy images to clipboard from Acrobat if you want the original colors)

Edit: Attempting to open a PDF in Photoshop, printed by PDF-Xchange Standard with JPEG2000 compression, causes Photoshop to crash. Tested on Photoshop 2018 32bit, 2019, 2021, on 2 different computers.
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