Adobe RGB

[2dbert]

Is there a way to keep the colour mode of imported tiffs to be Adobe RGB when they are exported as a Quicktime movie?
It´s a while ago since I could work with TVP, it was Version 7.something I think, and I couldn´t figure out a way to do it then. They were changed to RGB and looked muddy then. When being exported as tiffs or psds it was possible to restore their original mode in Photoshop, but for the Quicktimes I didn´t manage it ( I tried this with After Effects, that seemed like it might work since it's an Adobe product).
Is this maybe possible now in 9.5? Or was it maybe even possible all along?

[slowtiger]

Wether the initial 24bit RGB values are truthfully kept within the exported video is just a matter of choosing the correct codec.

[2dbert]

I think it works a bit differently. I guess the codec is what is chosen via the compression choice menu for quicktime (along with options for bit depth and other things depending on the codec) right? But the colour mode is to be picked separately in the TVP export window, offering RGB, RGBA(with Alpha channel) and Alpha, bot no Adobe RGB. And quicktime movies with whichever or without any compression will have this selected mode. At least that´s how I remember to be in this slightly older version of TVP, and now I wonder if there is this option for Adobe RGB in the newest version. I will try and find out myself with the trial version, but even if I figure out the way I won´t be able to check whether it really works, because there is no possibillity to save the scenes.
So, did anybody else come across this problem? Or am I getting something wrong?
I want to sequence pictures from a stills camera and work on them, and TVP would be the perfect for this if it weren´t for this AdobeRGB problem.

[slowtiger]

"Adobe RGB" is just a different implementation of sRGB, useful only in the field of printing.

The options "RGB, RBGA, Alpha" are no colour modes, they only indicate how many and which channels are exported. RGB means 3 8bit channels, one for each colour. RBGA means 3 8bit colour channels plus one 8bit alpha (transparency) channel. Alpha means just one 8bit alpha channel (transparency only).

Whatever 24bit or 32bit image you import into TVP, it should be exported with the same colour values, as long as it's a single image file format. If you export a video file via Quicktime, you only have the choice from all installed codecs. A codec like PNG (with setting Milllions of colours) should give you correct colour settings. Don't expect this from any compressing codec.

Since TVP only works within the original sRGB space, maybe you should do any colour conversion to this in Photoshop first.

In any case, the differences between sRGB and Adobe RGB are barely visible, and only within a certain range of colours. If you get a result with clearly "muddy" colours, you very likely chose a wrong setting for export.

[2dbert]

Well, I´ve been trying all sorts of export settings, and all results looked muddy. Plus, this moody look was already appearant on the preview window of TvPaint a soon as I imported the original tiffs, so it might not have been an export issue altogether. And I only came to the conclusion that it was a matter of colour mode by comparing the original tiffs to the same tiffs exported fromTVP, and I´ll say: there was quite a big difference between sRGB and AdobeRGB!
Well, I´m loveeying with buying TvPaint Pro because I´m first of all a draughtsman, but I do stop motion animation as well, so I´d like to be sure that I could do this the way I like with this program as well before I go for it.
So, I´d really appreciate advice from people who have really tried excactly this before: to export originally AdobeRGB-mode footage as a Quicktime movie without losing colour mode or briliance. Or to whatever came closest to it.
Or, in case there is no one of the kind: TvPaint people, couldn´t you help out to clarify this?

[Elodie]

Currently, TVP Animation doesn't manage the color spaces and only cares about RGB 24bit. So we can only load RGB and export RGB.

At the moment, you should do any colour conversion in Photoshop first or work with the TVP FX stack to tweak the colors.

[slowtiger]

Could you maybe post some example? Original Adobe RGB tiff, and TVP tiff, not very big, just good enough to compare the colours. I've never experienced "muddy" colours, so I'm very curious.

As a general reminder, have a look at this diagram:

The triangle marks the colour range which can possibly be shown by a computer monitor. Anything outside will not be shown correctly, instead, it has to be mapped to possible colours somehow. If you, just as an example, paint your models with neon colours, they will not look like neon on the screen because they're far outside the triangle range.

[2dbert]

Oh, that´s too bad. Guess I´ll have to keep love eying for a while.

Thanks for the effort everybody. If I´ll find a good way to work around this, I´ll announce it here in case someone else has the same problem.

@slowtiger: Sorry, I can´t post examples, my trial version won´t let me save any. But there´s an easy way to view the difference yourself if you can access Photoshop: open an RGB file and go to the "mode" options in the image menu. At the bottom of the list, pick "assign to profile" (not "convert to profile") and a new window should open up, showing the excact profile. If it is sRGB, change it to Adobe RGB and vice versa. The difference should be quite noticable.
The Photoshop version I tried this with was CS ,and on a PC, so it might differ a bit from a different setup, plus I´m only remembering all this and maybe not completely right.

[slowtiger]

The profiles are not under "Mode" but unter Edit -> Assign Profile. If you change something there, you only change the appearance of colours on your monitor - not the RGB values itself.

You can easily test this if you open the diagram from my last post in PS, and place the cursor at some position which looks different with different profiles. Have your information panel open so you can see the X/Y position as well as the RGB values at that point. Write them down, then assign a different profile. No matter how wildy different the image looks, the RGB values remain the same.

There's a whole list of profiles available. They only serve one purpose: they simulate as good as possible on your monitor how a certain RGB value will look on a certain output device. In order to achieve a certain result, you have to work backwards from the output device. If I expose my TVP animation on 35mm film, I'd need a profile of an ArriLaser or a Solaire. Fortunately I don't need this since this transfer from RGB to film doesn't need much colour correction: it looks nearly perfectly the same on film as it looks on my monitor. Minor adjustments may be done later in the lab - as it's standard procedure anyway.

There's no sense in trying to preserve any input device's profile during production. The RGB on screen in TVP is what you get with exposing on film. (The same would be true for a TV/video format, or for CMYK printing if you use TVP for creating print artwork - in that latter case you need to transfer the TVP image file from RGB to CMYK in Photoshop.) There are no colours available outside of the RGB triangle.

Trust me on this - I've got years of experience in doing print jobs as well as transferring images to film (at Hahn we had our very own Solitaire output station).

[2dbert]

That´s great news! So next time it shall be TVPaint then. Thanks a lot for your help!