Color Calibraion Question - Is TVPaint 11 "Color Managed" for Spyder5Express or SpyderX Elite?

[TheQuestionMark]

So I'm thinking about getting monitor calibrator. A Datacolor Spyder5 Express. They told to me ask TVPaint if it's "color managed". Is TVPaint color managed? Please say yes! I feel so insecure on how my images look.

Here's the quote:

thank you very much for your message and your faith in Datacolor products.

Please be aware of this:
The ICC (International Color Consortium - www.color.org) defined that a full color management system needs an OS and applications that can handle the ICC profile information (these applications will be called color managed) and ICC profiles that describe the devices.
So each monitor ICC profile has got two parts. One part will be used by the color management of the OS and it's applications that are color managed, the other second part will be loaded into the Lookup-Table (LUT) of your video card.
On your system:
Your OS (Windows as well as Mac OS) support the ICC standard
Photoshop, Lightroom and other image editing applications are color managed.
Firefox, Safari bowser are color managed.
Internet Explorer, Edge are not color managed.
MS Office applications are not color managed.
Windows Desktop and the Windows Explorer as well as the Windows image viewers are not color managed.

So please make sure you are using applications that are color managed when you are checking the calibration results.

Please check with the TVPaint Professional 11 support if TVPaint Professional 11 is color managed or not.

On a HDR monitor:
The SpyderX software can calibrate a HDR monitor as the calibration settings, Gamma, White Point and Brightness are the same in the calibration.
The question is how the monitor enable the HDR functionality. If this is done by a dynamic function of the monitor this will NOT work in any calibration at all, as dynamic functions will interfere with any kind of calibration process.
If the monitor does not need a dynamic function for HDR this monitor can be calibrated with no problem.

Feel free and don't hesitate to contact us again if you have further questions.

Best regards,



Boris Bergmann
Technical Support Specialist
Datacolor AG
Loorenstr. 9
8305 Dietlikon / Zurich
Switzerland

So is TVPaint "Color Managed"? I look in forums in the past and all know that TVPaint is SRGB but they don't say it's "Colored Managed".

When I export to PNG. The color seems different all over the place! I get blue on one Umidigi One Max Phone, less sataurated color on my tablet, and very saturated color on Samsung Note 2. How do you make the colors all the same?!

Is everything going okay in TVPaint? I haven't gotten a response in one of my technical support post of crash and not from people who have orange names on forums.

[slowtiger]

When I export to PNG. The color seems different all over the place! I get blue on one Umidigi One Max Phone, less sataurated color on my tablet, and very saturated color on Samsung Note 2. How do you make the colors all the same?!

You have to calibrate each and every device ... Seriously, that's the way it works. The PNG file doesn't know which device it will be displayed on. Its RGB values will always be the same, no matter where it is opened. I've checked several times, and the RGB values in TVP give the same result as they give in other software: they look exactly the same.

Calibration only changes the way the operating system interacts with the display. This doesn't change anything within the software. Since TVP only works within 8-bit colour, it doesn't convert to different colour spaces, like Photoshop does.

PS has to convert from RGB to CMYK, and that's a point conversion rules kick in. TVP renders to video, and each codec has another set of rules for conversion. None of these will be touched by a colour calibration tool.

[TheQuestionMark]

When I export to PNG. The color seems different all over the place! I get blue on one Umidigi One Max Phone, less sataurated color on my tablet, and very saturated color on Samsung Note 2. How do you make the colors all the same?!

You have to calibrate each and every device ... Seriously, that's the way it works. The PNG file doesn't know which device it will be displayed on. Its RGB values will always be the same, no matter where it is opened. I've checked several times, and the RGB values in TVP give the same result as they give in other software: they look exactly the same.

Calibration only changes the way the operating system interacts with the display. This doesn't change anything within the software. Since TVP only works within 8-bit colour, it doesn't convert to different colour spaces, like Photoshop does.

PS has to convert from RGB to CMYK, and that's a point conversion rules kick in. TVP renders to video, and each codec has another set of rules for conversion. None of these will be touched by a colour calibration tool.

But is TVPaint "colored managed" though?

I looked at Chrome Browser, it has scRGB and sRGB function to do HDR for "Color" on chrome://flags, I know chrome has ICC profile. Why is it on this on Spyder5Pro link said PNG can have ICC profile, http://www.color.org/profile_embedding.xalter ? It doesn't make sense what's the point of calibrating software if you have to do it on every device, it's not video or TV standard!? Is it false advertisement then, when they said "to match your image on all devices or all-in-one calibration control panel and unlimited calibration setting choices including TV and video standards" ? They could get sue for that.

I looked at Krita when I export it to PNG and has an option to "embed sRGB profile". I looked at Adobe Bridge, right click on "File Info", typed "ICC" search it said it has "sRGB built-in" from Krita export, go ahead and try other color profile to test. When export png from TVPaint, there's no ICC profile when I look it up on Adobe Bridge, that feels like a huge problem.

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Is there such thing as monitor calibration for video? I looked at the higher version, the Spyder5Elite or SpyderX Elite, it said it can do Rec.709 for videography and the SpyderX Elite can do video and TV standard, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076A620Y/ref=emc_b_5_t?th=1. Which feels like video can be calibrated to make it look all the same on all devices. I don't know which software to export as from the monitor calibrator though. Also I look at wiki about VP9 it supports sRGB to match all devices such as .webm , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VP9. TVPaint needs an upgrade to do (AV1) to have the same color viewing in all devices. I think AV1 codec is the best according to this article it supports sRGB https://www.anandtech.com/show/12601/al ... codec-spec. I watch Youtube about Japan Anime Studios having trouble with colors not looking all the same on devices from a TVPaint interview. Maybe AV1 color support can help for the anime studio and me. Those other codecs on TVPaint seems outdated no color support. Can you contact TVPaint directly about color and av1? AV1 for still image(.avif) and video.

[D.T. Nethery]

Can you contact TVPaint directly about color and .webm/av1? AV1 for still image(.avif) and video.

https://tvpaint.odoo.com/en_US/page/contactus

[TheQuestionMark]

Can you contact TVPaint directly about color and .webm/av1? AV1 for still image(.avif) and video.

https://tvpaint.odoo.com/en_US/page/contactus

Thanks! I just cried to support team. I hope they do fix it, to add Color Profile to TVPaint, I told them to add Color Profile for display and export. I hope they add color profile, av1 codec, and as fast as possible. I hope they add export color profile to .PNG in the mean time, since it's going to take time to program av1/.avif and what not.

I'm thinking about getting SpyderX Elite. Bad Idea if I only have TVPaint and Krita?

[slowtiger]

With all respect: do you have a project going on which requires this scrutiny regarding colours? The productions I know have ordinary workstations for all artists, means, no other colour calibration than the one which comes with every computer. Only the compositor's workstation will be colour calibrated, and, in bigger productions, maybe the production designer's.

Also it makes no sense to buy additional colour calibration for any monitor costing less than about 1000.- $. If you have just a notebook: forget it. Professional compositing workstations may use a monitor with built-in hardware calibration which are in the range of about 5000.- $.

[TheQuestionMark]

With all respect: do you have a project going on which requires this scrutiny regarding colours? The productions I know have ordinary workstations for all artists, means, no other colour calibration than the one which comes with every computer. Only the compositor's workstation will be colour calibrated, and, in bigger productions, maybe the production designer's.

Also it makes no sense to buy additional colour calibration for any monitor costing less than about 1000.- $. If you have just a notebook: forget it. Professional compositing workstations may use a monitor with built-in hardware calibration which are in the range of about 5000.- $.

Ya scrunity of color, shouldn't every work be? For trying to be the best you can?

I read the internet that even the same exactly two monitor model that the colors are different.

But technology has improved from programmers, hardware, codecs, and image formats. Everything feels like it can be streamlined. It's like a million dollar ENIAC can beat the power of $150 iphone which obviously can't, technology has change. "Color Managed" on Browser seems rather recent. Do you know the SpyderXElite X, seems like you don't need a $5000 monitor? I bet that $5000 monitor doesn't have HDR too, it feels outdated. But what you're saying doesn't make sense, how come the Anime Studios are struggling on Color with TVPaint when they have the power,income, and resources. I know I'm struggling on color with it.

You said notebook but why does X-Rite have a feature calibrating on mobile devices on tablet or on smartphone? I'm pretty sure there are artist that draw on smartphone or tablet, so I can see the reason. So what's wrong drawing on a notebook? Look at Sony Xperia 1 smarthphone it has 1.07 Billion color, 4K, and HDR, that's better than most Wacom Cintiqs.

[slowtiger]

Simple question: have you ever once calibrated the monitor of the device you're working on?

[TheQuestionMark]

Simple question: have you ever once calibrated the monitor of the device you're working on?

Yes by Windows Color Management or Calibrize. But not yet with an actual colorimeter or any colorimeter, something like SpyderXElite.

[slowtiger]

The thing with a colour calibrated monitor is it will only work in a controlled work environment: no room light or windows interfering, no reflections on the screen, preferrably some shades around it. Don't spend money on anything unless you've cared about these points.

Monitors nowadays have a much better colour management than in the 90's. So its safe to say that 98% of all work done in animation doesn't need special colouor calibration hardware. It's only the 2% in compositing, and in production design (where colour models for characters are provided), where this really matters. Anywhere else it's just plain overkill.

[Thierry]

Hi TheQuestionMark,

I'm going to answer in this thread instead of answering your email, if you don't mind

Short answer to the thread's title: no.

About the color management.
The (C/C++ code) base of how colors and pixels are handled in the software hasn't changed a lot since the 90s, for a lot of reasons (it wasn't needed back then, and when it sort of became a thing we had a lot of other issues going on at the time -2005-2013 were a bit of rough years for us, as our older members know :p).
Unfortunately, this means that TVPaint 11 is still using the old RGB-8 bits colorspace.
That's not really an issue, as slowtiger rightfully said:

So its safe to say that 98% of all work done in animation doesn't need special colouor calibration hardware. It's only the 2% in compositing, and in production design (where colour models for characters are provided), where this really matters. Anywhere else it's just plain overkill.

While it's not really an issue for the majority of people, we acknowledge that in the future it might become one.

I'm not allowed to go in specifics, but what I can say is that work has been done on our side regarding colorspaces. It won't be for v11.5 though, but for later

About AV1/AVIF: we'll take a look, but I can't guarantee we will implement those format.