Same colors in Photoshop as in VFB

[studiobasler]

Hello Forum,
im struggling with the color workflow for some time now. Since im having a better monitor these days i get noticed the color differences while doing color grading in Photoshop. Im using ACES OT Setting in the vfb Viewer and within C4d everything looks fine. As soon i save the image as openexr and 32 bit and bring it over to Photoshop things are getting worse The image does not look the same. I saw some videos where thy using a plugin called openior to transform between color spaces to get the same look as with the aces workflow, but for some reasons i cant activate the setting within the plugin, maybe corona is not savin in the opencolor format? So how are you handling the image correction worklfow guys, cant be that difficult? Thank You for any advice!

[Nejc Kilar]

I'm not sure I'll be able to answer all of your questions here but one thing to note is that the ACES OT operator is a tone mapping operator. What it essentially does is it takes your linear 32bit image that Corona outputs and applies the tone mapping curve from ACES.

To note here is that this is just the tone mapping curve that you get with ACES. You aren't changing the color space with which Corona works and you also aren't converting the image to any sort of ACES color space. The operator purely just applies that "ACES look".

Now internally, by default, Corona already works in a wide color space (not ACES). That however shouldn't affect your workflow because you always end up with an sRGB image. And that is true regardless of what operators you apply in the VFB.

Hope that helps :)

[Stefan-L]

if you save in 32 bit .exr you need to use open.exr plugin for .psd, this works fine with cororna

[studiobasler]

ok thanks so far, but do you guys make use of the ACES OT or do you leave it without the ACES Tonemapping Curve?

[studiobasler]

Ok, here you can see my struggle. On the left its the picture out of the vfb and on the right you can see whats the pictures look like if i open them in photoshop.

[James Vella]

do you have preserve color enabled in photoshop?

Edit > Color Settings

[Stefan-L]

i use complex tone mappings, including often aces OT.

This isnt the traditional 32bit workflow, i know,  but fine for our work (we do almost no post prod, and normally reduce it to 16 or 8 bit asap. often we save right away in 16bit)

when open it in psd  i assign a colorspace (my calibrated screen profile, you can also use lie adobe RGB etc)

what you have seem  maybe a color management issue with profiles

[James Vella]

What I have suggested preserves the color from the file, as the name suggests.

You can then do what you like with the screen profile.

[studiobasler]

So how can i assign my calibrated screen profile into ps? Because i check color Settings and changed it to RGB preserve, but it did not change anything. Maybe i have to select the calibrated screen profile as well!?

[studiobasler]

Guys, i found the profile. I choosed it and noting happened, its still the same color differences.

[Beanzvision]

Maybe this may help? https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/working-with-color-profiles.html

[jojorender]

Ok, here you can see my struggle. On the left its the picture out of the vfb and on the right you can see whats the pictures look like if i open them in photoshop.

I don’t know Windows but your screenshot shows the image in some finder/ explorer or whatever it’s called. That is most likely not able to show colors “correctly”…

Just as a general question, why do you need a exr / 32bit in PS workflow? Unless you do heavy comp work or you work in a color managed team… this is “overkill”.
PS is still not the “right” place to deal with 32bit files… even AE is a better place…

I do all my tone mapping in the VFB and then save a .cxr as a “master”
For additional retouching in PS, I export a psd or tif with all tone map baked in.
Just make sure you convert early on from linear profile to whatever you need at the end (probably sRGB)

 For color workflow in general:
At the end of the day it’s irrelevant what the image looks like on your monitor - what matters is what it looks like for your clients / end consumer. Yes, impossible to know… but very few 10bit/ Adobe RBG monitors out in the wild..
80-90% of my work is for real estate agents and it’s been a long time that I have seen my work printed. Most of these listings are viewed on a mobile device so I gave up on monitor calibration, color managed workflow and all that. My proofing monitor is now a iPhone and a iPad because they seem fairly consistent in their color calibration otb.
Of course this only applies to a one-man-show, if you work in a team you want to be on the same page…

[piotrus3333]

just stop with the bit depth. not helpful at all.

@Nejc Kilar: does Corona for C4D respect ICC profile within C4D?

if it does, just load your profile. if it does not, use a LUT within Corona instead of ICC.

[Nejc Kilar]

just stop with the bit depth. not helpful at all.

@Nejc Kilar: does Corona for C4D respect ICC profile within C4D?

if it does, just load your profile. if it does not, use a LUT within Corona instead of ICC.

Howdy! At the moment the Corona VFB isn't being affected by any of the ICC settings in C4D. We do have this logged though as something we want to explore in the future :)

[piotrus3333]

Howdy! At the moment the Corona VFB isn't being affected by any of the ICC settings in C4D. We do have this logged though as something we want to explore in the future :)

in that case: lut.
or setup your display to srgb without icc profile.