How to get truer image color on imported and pasted images

[cindyloo]

Hello,
Running Open Office Writer V4.1.7. I have noticed that the color on my imported images or images pasted from screen shot on Mac are much less saturated. Is there a configuration setting to fix this?
If I paste the screen shot into my Mac's Preview app, it shows up true to color. Also works fine in Mac Pages. I am an artist and need to record true color in my notes... please help!! See attached screen shot-- Open Office image on left, Preview image on right. Sorry for how tiny this is-- apparently there is a 128K size limit. Thanks!

[RoryOF]

You may have to set a colour profile for use with OpenOffice, and another for use with other applications. But an onscreen colour will never exactly match a printed or pigment image.

[John_Ha]

1. Download this file from http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/file ... otography/. Double-click the Zip file and drag the JPG file out. Insert it into AOO with Insert > Picture > From file. What happens?

See test image.odt and test image.pdf which I created with AOO.

2. Insert it into an email or other application which accepts images. What happens - it it the same as AOO or better/worse?

3. While not immediately relevant to your reported problem I assume that you are familiar with the difference between the RGB additive colour coding used on screens and the CMYK subtractive colour coding used for printing and their different gamuts. See What does the CMYK option do? How is it used? for a discussion.

[cindyloo]

@John and @Rory- thanks for your quick replies.
I imported the northlight file and it shows the same difference in saturation. I also narrowed down the difference to the Gamma setting in AOO-- if I set it to .8 it looks to be corrected.
So is there a way to adjust the default Gamma for all imported images instead of having to set each one manually?
FYI I am aware of differences in screen color vs printing-- this is purely looking at screen images.
@Rory- how would I set a color profile specific to AOO? Would this allow me to set Gamma?
To me this looks like a defect- if other apps treat color accurately, why wouldn't AOO? I recently moved to a home Mac from my work one. Pages is flat out awkward to use with placing images and text, and I refuse to pay for MS 365.. I would really like to use AOO but this is a challenge for me. Thanks.

[Hagar Delest]

You should make a screenshot and save it in jpg. The 128kB should allow a rather good comparison.
I uploaded a screenshot of your image to increase the width and it's only 24kB...

[John_Ha]

Before we get into calibrating screens and setting gamma see screen copy.jpg which is the original image in IrfanView, on the left; and in AOO Writer on the right. They look identical to me - what do you think?

Using a colour picker I get tiny one bit variations which may be because I am not in exactly the same place. eg the bright yellow square in the bottom right image is [217, 180, 73] in AOO and [218, 181, 74] in Irfanview. I would have that difference to be trivial.

Edit: I think it is location_within_the_square dependent. When I attempt to replace the yellow with green, with zero tolerance, only a small patch gets changed showing there are multiple yellow colour values within the square. I would therefore say the AOO and IV images are identical.

I also narrowed down the difference to the Gamma setting in AOO-- if I set it to .8 it looks to be corrected.

Where did you change that? It is not an AOO setting I can find in Tools (Preferences on Mac) > Settings.

[cindyloo]

@John, yes, those two look identical and when I import that file it also looks correct. So it seems it is something with a captured screen shot from my Mac- either saved as a jpg or png in Preview and then imported, or just pasted as a screen shot from the Clipboard. Are you also using a Mac? Any ideas?

[John_Ha]

cindyloo

Sorry - I have no Mac experience ... and I am called to cook dinner so will have to leave you in others' capable hands.

I will check back later.

I have asked for the post to be moved to the Mac forum as it sounds like a Mac problem.

Edit: NB I think it is something external to AOO. Does the Mac allow you to set up different gamma values for different programs? I would not be surprised bearing in mind the Mac heritage as a tool for artists and designers. It also explains how you can vary the "AOO gamma".

[RoryOF]

A method of colour calibrating a Mac screen is given at
https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blo ... s-display/

[John_Ha]

So is there a way to adjust the default Gamma for all imported images instead of having to set each one manually?

You cannot change it in AOO, so no. You would have to change each individual image before inserting it. However, this is fixing the symptom and not fixing the root cause. Any image in a Writer file will look wrong out of it, or on a Windows PC.

I imported the northlight file and it shows the same difference in saturation.

So, it is either Preview shows too bright or AOO shows too dull. It isn't the screen capture application because the same northlight file looks different in Preview and in AOO.

Also, I am intrigued. Exactly how did you create the PDF so that the images look different?

Rory

I don't think it is the display per se because the same image shown on the same display from different applications appears different so something in one of the applications is doing it.

See my edit - I think It is the program displaying the image which needs to be calibrated - ie the settings Mac gives to AOO - as you said in your original post. However I don't know if Mac allows you to set different gammas for each application. We need a Mac guru.

Monitor calibration and gamma is interesting.

A display gamma of 2.2 is the de facto standard for the Windows operating system and the Internet-standard sRGB color space.

The standard for Mcintosh and prepress file interchange is 1.8. [The page later says that Mac changed to 2.2 - presumably to be the same as Windows and the web ???]

Video cameras have gammas of approximately 0.45-- the inverse of 2.2.

The viewing or system gamma is the product of the gammas of all the devices in the system-- the image acquisition device (film+scanner or digital camera), color lookup table (LUT), and monitor. System gamma is typically between 1.1 and 1.5. Viewing flare and other factor make images look flat at system gamma = 1.0. To learn more, go to links.

When Mac used gamma = 1.8 Mac displayed images appeared brighter than on Windows with its gamma = 2.2.

[lgusaas]

@John, yes, those two look identical and when I import that file it also looks correct. So it seems it is something with a captured screen shot from my Mac- either saved as a jpg or png in Preview and then imported, or just pasted as a screen shot from the Clipboard. Are you also using a Mac? Any ideas?

Inserting pictures into AOO appear correctly for me. Inserting screenshots don't. They are lighter with less saturation. Don't have a solution.

[John_Ha]

Inserting pictures into AOO appear correctly for me. Inserting screenshots don't. They are lighter with less saturation. Don't have a solution.

Larry

That is very interesting. I think it means that a "Mac screenshot of an image" is different from the "actual image file". That could be proved by colour picking the colour value of the same spot in the image in both. Normally they should be the same (they are on my W10 PC).

Could it be the screen gamma needs adjusting? I cannot see how because the screen gamma will affect both images so if screen gamma is, say, increased, both images will be identically affected. It would still be interesting to do a test: temporarily increase the screen gamma and take a screen shot of the image. Does that change things?

Does the Mac Image Preview program have any set up adjustments for gamma?

Could you take a screenshot of the attached test.png and save it as a PNG file and upload it. It will be interesting to compare the files. I have placed a white cross in the yellow square so we can get the identical pixels. I ask for it to be saved as a png because png uses lossless compression so the respective bits should be identical.

[lgusaas]

Inserting pictures into AOO appear correctly for me. Inserting screenshots don't. They are lighter with less saturation. Don't have a solution.

Larry

That is very interesting. I think it means that a "Mac screenshot of an image" is different from the "actual image file". That could be proved by colour picking the colour value of the same spot in the image in both. Normally they should be the same (they are on my W10 PC).

I misspoke. Retested and the differences I see are small when I compare the images at the same size. A lot less of a difference than what the original poster shared in his screenshots.

Could you take a screenshot of the attached test.png and save it as a PNG file and upload it. It will be interesting to compare the files. I have placed a white cross in the yellow square so we can get the identical pixels. I ask for it to be saved as a png because png uses lossless compression so the respective bits should be identical.

I took a screenshot of your test.png. I didn't upload it as it appear exactly the same as the original. Notice that yours is 300dpi with no ColorSync profile and my screenshot is 144dpi with ColorSync profile: Color LCD.

Did more testing on a high quality photograph (JPEG). Original 300dpi ColorSync profile: Screenshot (PNG) 144dpi ColorSync profile: Color LCD. Both look identical.
When inserting into AOO it looks identical to the original.
When inserting the snapshot into AOO there is a slight colour-shift and a very slight loss of saturation.

Did a screenshot showing the original snapshot and AOO. The image quality is poor (reduced from 4MB) but you can still see the slight difference when enlarged.

Screen Shot 2020-06-17 at 11.25.34 AM copy.png (124.49 KiB) Viewed 13690 times

I don't know why the OP is seeing such a large difference. I wouldn't notice the differences in mine unless comparing them side by side.

[cindyloo]

All,
Here are the results of my testing:
1. Supplied test.png looks correct when inserted into AAO (Insert-Picture from File)
2. Screen shot of test.png looks identical in Mac Preview
3. Screen shot of test.png is not as saturated in AAO (granted I am an artist and can see very slight variations in color and value so perhaps this is not as visible to everyone).
4. I saved screen shot of test.png as cindytest.png and imported into AAO, also does not look as saturated.
See attached files:
cindytest.png is the saved screen shot of test.png using Preview

cindytest.png (73.91 KiB) Viewed 13681 times

3 test images.png shows all 3 side by side from AAO document: pasted screen shot of test.png (left), inserted png file from my saved screen shot cindytest.png (center), and the original test.png file on the right.

I had to resize both files to deal with this tiny attachment limit..
By the way this is also happening in Open Office Impress.
I would love to understand why this behavior is occurring and if there is a solution. Thanks.

[John_Ha]

I don't think this is an AOO problem as there is nothing AOO does to an image when it is inserted. The jpg file stored in the .odt file is absolutely identical to the inserted jpg file.

I note you say it is OK in Mac Preview and also in Mac Pages. Do you have another program which is not written by Apple that you could test with? Can you download a third party image editor or viewer and try it?

It might be helpful to mask out everything else but the two blobs of colour you are comparing as perceived colours are strongly influenced by neighbouring and bordering colours.

Only a colour picker (as in IrfanView Paint) will tell you if the colours are truly different. Adelson's Checker-shadow illusion is a favourite illusion of mine - Square A and Square B are exactly the same colour!! A colour picker shows they are both [R, G, B] = [95, 95, 95] or punch two holes in a piece of paper so as to mask out the background.

[MrProgrammer]

Only a colour picker (as in IrfanView Paint) will tell you if the colours are truly different

Application Digital Color Meter is supplied with MacOS.

[cindyloo]

All,
I installed GIMP which is a well known Open Source photo editor very similar to Photoshop- just to show that non-MAC products also work just fine. By the way this is a brand new 16" MacBook Pro with Retina display so colors are clear and sharp.
The attached file shows a portion of the test pattern screen shot - pasted into AOO shown on the top, and on the bottom is the same screen shot pasted into GIMP. I only am focusing on 2 colors here so you can see there is a real difference in saturation and nothing to do with how color placement changes the perception of color. GIMP has a color picker and I can see the gold and lavender colors are definitely different by using the dropper icon to select the color pixel. Beyond this I don't know what else to do. There is clearly something different with the way that AAO is handling the graphics.

[lgusaas]

1. Download this file from http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/file ... otography/. Double-click the Zip file and drag the JPG file out. Insert it into AOO with Insert > Picture > From file. What happens?

I downloaded this file. Inserted it in AOO. No difference from original.
Made screenshot of file. No difference from original.
Inserted screenshot into AOO. Very small loss of saturation. Very small colour shift from the screenshot.

[John_Ha]

See purp.png in test.zip. It is all one colour [R, G, B] = [120, 120, 250].

1. I dragged purp.png into AOO
2. I took a screenshot (with W10) of purp.png open in IrfanView and pasted the screenshot into AOO (previous tests have shown this to be the same as dragging in a PNG file)
3. I then took a screenshot of the entire screen screen with purp.png open in IrfanView, and AOO open.
4. I measured the colour value of all three and all three were [120, 120, 250].

So, in W10, the screenshot appears in AOO the same as the image when opened in IrfanView which is not what Igusass got.

So, if this test is repeated with Mac we can prove that Mac is working differently from W10.

[charles platt]

I don't know if this thread is still active but:

AOO definitely processes placed images differently from, say, Word (in Win 10--this is not just a Mac issue). I have samples side by side, and the difference is painfully obvious. The color in AOO is less saturated, probably because AOO in its wisdom wants to show me what the image will look like when it is printed in CMYK, whereas Word just says, "You want RGB, okay, here it is in RGB." I don't know why AOO assumes I will be printing every document on paper, and I don't know why I cannot find any way to change this, unlike (for example) Adobe products. It is very aggravating, because a simple .doc or .docx format is what my publisher wants when creating ebook formats, which will be viewed, of course, on a monitor, not on paper.

I came here hoping for a setting to change in AOO, but I found a lot of confusion, because many posts don't define the color space of the imported image. The color space on the images that I am using is sRGB, and AOO will not allow this to remain. If I was placing a CMYK image, which is already desaturated compared with sRGB, I think there would be no problem.

[cindyloo]

Hi Charles,
Thanks for your post. Previous posters kept setting out to prove me wrong and it’s gratifying (but unfortunate because there’s no fix) to see I’m not the only one. Hopefully this gets fixed in the future— I gave up.

[John_Ha]

AOO definitely processes placed images differently from, say, Word (in Win 10--this is not just a Mac issue). I have samples side by side, and the difference is painfully obvious.

IIRC from the earlier posts this problem is unique to Macs. Please upload

1. an image file. Use a JPG image. If you want to upload here use an image of about 100 kB max.

2. a .odt file with the image inserted, created on a Mac. Use Insert > Picture > From file ...; or drag the JPG into the document.

3. a PDF file created from the .odt file.

Press POSTREPLY and click the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site such as mediafire, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file(s).

I will then compare the original image file with the inserted image to see if there is any difference.

We need to understand whether the image file stored in the .odt file is identical to to the original image. I think the answer to that will be yes.

If it is yes, we then need to identify where the change you see originates. Is it the viewer you view the original image with rendering it wrongly? Or is it AOO rendering the stored image wrongly? Or something else, perhaps like the illusion above, where your eyes are deceiving you?

Edit: I have tested on Windows 10. I inserted image.jpg into a .odt file and extracted the stored image file 1000000000000B20000008584CFC814F.jpg from the .odt. I compared both files with Windows File Compare and there was no difference.

[John_Ha]

Or something else, perhaps like the illusion above, where your eyes are deceiving you?

I copied the image from above and used the colour picker to select the colour in square B. I then drew two lines using that colour. One went from square B to square A. I drew the other to the right.

Both lines are the identical colour and, as you can see, square A and square B are the same colour. If you don't believe it, mask the rest of the image by holding up two pieces of paper leaving just the line ...

[John_Ha]

A quick scan of the web suggests a possible reason.

sRGB stands for standard RGB as defined by HP and Microsoft in the 90s. It is the most widely used gamut for the digital world of cameras, monitors etc and is usually contracted to the plain RGB. It is usually the default choice on devices such as cameras unless changed by the user.

In the late 90s Adobe brought out a competing system called, confusingly, Adobe RGB. It has a larger gamut than sRGB/RGB and was intended to match more closely the fully saturated colours you can get in printing. Adobe then brought out an even wider gamut called Adobe Wide gamut RGB.

ProPhoto RGB is a more modern gamut with more colours than Adobe RGB.

The wider gamuts have a basic problem that many of their colours (and indeed even some of the RGB colours) cannot be produced by monitors.

Macs tend to be used in the creative industries so does a more modern Mac screen use Adobe RGB, or even Adobe Wide gamut RGB or ProPhoto RGB? If so, that could explain things. It would no doubt be marketed as "super brilliant colours" without mentioning that it isn't equivalent to the industry standard and problems of compatibility could arise.

See Adobe RGB vs sRGB: Which Should You Be Using? for a discussion which may or may not be correct.

[Mountaineer]

Hello,

I've left AOO long time ago for LO and anything else than text is now printed via Scribus, so I'm not experiencing this problems.

But last year I experienced some strange looking imports and found out, they included other settings than sRGB.
ExifTool showed "unknown" as colour-profile, but the images were handled right in Lightroom etc.

So it might be a possibility to check for this.

It might also explain why the problems on the Mac seems to vanish, if the used files are jpg or png (usually with an sRGB-setting). Maybe the clipboard is not giving profiles.

J.

PS: I'm pretty sure AOO has no embedded cmyk-simulation. So I discourage investigation in that direction

[ontanian]

Hello,
Running Open Office Writer V4.1.7. I have noticed that the color on my imported images or images pasted from screen shot on Mac are much less saturated. Is there a configuration setting to fix this?
If I paste the screen shot into my Mac's Preview app, it shows up true to color. Also works fine in Mac Pages. I am an artist and need to record true color in my notes... please help!! See attached screen shot-- Open Office image on left, Preview image on right. Sorry for how tiny this is-- apparently there is a 128K size limit. Thanks!

I think the problem behind that is that you have set a colour profile for use with OpenOffice and another for other apps. But an onscreen colour will never exactly match a printed or pigment image.

[John_Ha]

I think the problem behind that is that you have set a colour profile ...

Change Displays preferences on Mac lists the following options. I do not know whether a user can specify a specific profile for a specific application or whether an application itself can call for a specific profile.

Apple Display XDR (P3-1600 nits): Configures the display for general use in office and home environments. This mode is based on the wide colour P3 colour primaries used by Apple displays, automatically adjusts to varying lighting conditions, and includes Extreme Dynamic Range support up to 1,600 nits (peak).

Apple Display (P3-500 nits): Configures the display for general use in office and home environments. This mode is based on the wide colour P3 colour primaries, automatically adjusts to varying lighting conditions, and supports a brightness range of up to 500 nits, typical of Apple built-in displays.

HDR Video (P3-ST 2084): Configures the display for use in 4K or ultra high-definition video production workflows up to 1,000 nits (full-screen sustained) using the wide colour P3 primaries and the high dynamic range SMPTE ST-2084­ EOTF. This mode is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up per ITU-R BT.2100.

HDTV Video (BT.709-BT.1886): Configures the display for use in high-definition video production workflows targeting the ITU­-R BT.709­ and BT.1886 recommendations. This mode is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up per ITU-R BT.2035.

NTSC Video (BT.601 SMPTE-C): Configures the display for use in standard-definition or archival video production workflows targeting the ITU­-R BT.601­ recommendation and SMPTE-C colour primaries. This mode is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up per ITU-R BT.2035.

PAL & SECAM Video (BT.601 EBU): Configures the display for use in standard-definition or archival video production workflows targeting the ITU­-R BT.601­ recommendation and EBU Tech 3213 colour primaries. This mode is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up per ITU-R BT.2035.

Digital Cinema (P3-DCI): Configures the display for use in motion picture and post-production workflows using the P3 theatrical colour space and digital cinema whitepoint. This mode is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up per SMPTE RP 431-2:2011.

Digital Cinema (P3-D65): Configures the display for use in motion picture and post-production workflows using the P3 theatrical colour space with the D65 whitepoint. This mode is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up per SMPTE RP 431-2:2011.

Design & Print (P3-D50): Configures the display for use in graphic design, printing and publishing workflows. This mode uses wide colour P3 primaries with the D50 whitepoint typically used to evaluate the colour of printed output. It is for use in a controlled viewing environment set up in accordance with ISO 3664:2009.

Photography (P3-D65): Configures the display for use in typical digital photography workflows. This mode uses wide colour P3 primaries with the D65 whitepoint typically used for screen-based viewing. It is for use in appropriately set up and controlled viewing environments.

Internet & Web (sRGB): Configures the display for use in content creation workflows targeting the web or other internet-based usages. This mode uses the widely supported sRGB (IEC 61966-2-1:1999) colour space per the W3C CSS Color Module Level 3 recommendation. It is for use in appropriately set up and controlled viewing environments (64 lux is recommended).