Capture One doesn't have an "internal" color space because it doesn't need to. When working with an image in Capture One, it's only a preview of what the output will be. The profile of the preview is set under View > Proof Profile. It defaults to Selected Recipe (the highlighted recipe, not necessarily the enabled recipe).
It's entirely possible for the preview (and output files) to be clipped in any/all of the channels. That is a linear system to be precise.
On the picture, you will find that the Base Characteristics sets the initial profiling – under Camera Profile. This is the initial translation from 0s and 1s to an image preview.
The Output Profile is next, and the Colorspace Conversion section is what takes Proof Profile value and passes it to the monitor profile, rendering the color on the display.
The readouts/histograms/etc are all based on that middle section.
NOTE: When Proof Profile is "no proof profile", it's removing that middle bit from the chart. You still have Base Characteristics mapping the 0s and 1s to a preview, but there's no additional mapping to the proof profile. What is displayed on the screen is still affected by the monitor's profile
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4 comments
Helpful article, thanks.
I am running C1 on a Windows 10 PC.
When Proof Profile is "no proof profile"
and if I switch my monitor profile (Eizo Color Navigator) back and forth between sRGB, AdobeRGB and native gamut, the previews' visible colors change accordingly, but what does not change is the values of the color readouts, nor does the exposure warning (red area).
To me, it is unclear what the readout values mean in this case, or the exposure warning.
then the selected recipe will be respected: the previews' colors change (provided the monitor profile has a wider gamut than the selected recipe gamut), the color readouts and the exposure warning change too. This button overrides the "No proof profile". As expected.
This article states that "Capture One works in a very large color space."
https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002479197-Colors-in-Capture-One
This appears to contradict what you wrote in the first paragraph ("Capture One doesn't have an internal color space...").
Perhaps you mean Capture One doesn't use a standardized color space?
I'm assuming Capture One uses some kind of custom color space analogous to ProPhoto RGB (which is what Adobe Lightroom uses), but that color space doesn't have a name?
Would be helpful to clarify what exactly happens when 1) "No Profile" is selected in View > Proof Profile and 2) "Recipe Proofing" is disabled. What color space are we in?
The article shows a figure that indicates that when producing a soft proof, C1 first creates an output file using the selected process recipe and then passes that through the monitor profile to display it. We now have two profiles in sequence, whereas when sending the file to the printer to be printed, the file is processed using only one profile. It seems to me that the accuracy of the colour on the monitor when soft-proofing therefore requires that the gamut of the output device (usually a printer) is smaller and fully contained in the gamut of the monitor.
A slight work around is to set the monitor to Relative Colorimetric rendering intent so that at least those colours that are out of the display gamut do not cause other colours within that gamut to be changed.
To be truly useful to me, soft-proofing should at least have a gamut warning for the display to show which colours and which areas of the image are not correct in the soft proof. Without this, soft proofing is unreliable at best.
Are there any plans to include gamut warnings in C1?
Hi Peter,
Thank you for your comment.
I have forwarded your suggestion to have soft-proofing with a gamut warning to our Product Management team as something to consider in a future release.
Hopefully, your feedback contributes towards a future version of Capture One.
Whilst we cannot comment on future releases, we take all suggestions on board.
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