CC3+ changing my colors again...
LadieStorm
🖼️ 50 images Surveyor
I started a new color wash map the other day, my country for the guild world project at the CG. (I promise I will start one for the pf atlas too) I just wanted to get it started, and to post something so that the guild could see that I had actually started it, even though most of the work won't be done until after the holidays.
I got as far as my land mass, color tinting the oceans, mountains , seas, lakes, and rivers, before I rendered it out. And then I noticed a problem. The color wash that I chose for my seas/lakes/rivers was different from the one I chose. It's like the program changed the color before rendering.
I've had this happen once before since I started using the software, back when I was making my Meridyan challenge map. The text color I had chosen at the time kept changing when I rendered out the map. Now it's doing it again.
I don't think we ever figured out why it happened, in my Meridyan map... so I'm hoping we can figure it out this time, and figure out how to fix it, so I have the colors I choose.
I got as far as my land mass, color tinting the oceans, mountains , seas, lakes, and rivers, before I rendered it out. And then I noticed a problem. The color wash that I chose for my seas/lakes/rivers was different from the one I chose. It's like the program changed the color before rendering.
I've had this happen once before since I started using the software, back when I was making my Meridyan challenge map. The text color I had chosen at the time kept changing when I rendered out the map. Now it's doing it again.
I don't think we ever figured out why it happened, in my Meridyan map... so I'm hoping we can figure it out this time, and figure out how to fix it, so I have the colors I choose.
Comments
Could you attach a map file that this happens with, as well as a screenshot of how the map is supposed to look and a render with the problematic result? Being able to try the render myself, and knowing exactly what you see helps tremendously.
Thinking about it, if you are changing colours in the palette to get the exact shade of blue that you want, then you need to save the palette by clicking the colour swatch in the top bar (sorry about the lack of proper terminology, I'm really tired as well), click the save palette button, and then also alter the settings of the file to attach the palette to the file, so that it doesn't revert all the time.
I'm only guessing that's the problem.
I expect Remy will have it all sorted out quite quickly
I haven't checked, but there is also a chance that the custom palette from a symbol catalog may override custom palette in the current drawing when you load a new catalog.
This happened last time with my greens, and now it's happening with my blues.
I do have a screen shot, so I will post the screen shot, the rendering, and the fcw... but be warned, I'm using one of Mouse's parchments, so if you don't have it, all you will see is the red x. Oh, and you will have to activate sheet effects. mine keeps turning off for some reason.
Is your screen set up with the default colour profile that it had when you took it out of the box, or have you adjusted it at some point to make it less 'yellow'?
When I'm using Windows my screen is set up for 'night light' which is much more yellow than normal. It helps prevent eye strain. I have to remember that its on, though, because as soon as I export a jpg from CC3+ the colours are far more blue than I can see them on the screen in CC3+. That's the other way around to your situation. That's why I think you have a 'cold' or 'blue' setting on your screen.
Its a bit difficult to explain, but your screen is not an accurate representation of how it will look when you export it and open the jpg.
I had a similar problem with Gymnopus P. The red of the exported map was completely different to the red on the screen when I was working on the map. That's because I had accidentally turned the colour profile to 'cold'
If you have ever changed those from the factory default for your screen (which I am assuming you may have done to help with your astigmatism), then it most likely won't be showing you the truth when you are looking at the map in CC3+
Joe's method of exporting it as several different bitmap types and comparing the result will probably be most helpful...
Its actually 2 different problems. Screen set up, and differences in colour profile when exporting from CC3+ in different file formats. jpg is notoriously bad for colour accuracy. Try png or bmp
CC3/CC3Plus hadn't been updated, but I had gotten some of the Win 10 forced updates. Then the problem stopped. This would have been back in October or November, 2017.
I now have a dual boot system: Win 10 / Linuxmint 18.3.
Currently I'm on Linux, but I was over on Windows this morning when I made that last comment. I can't see any obvious differences in colour between the two systems.
I am extremely colour sensitive - its part of my autism
I mentioned color spaces earlier. That's only part of the problem (color is actually a hard problem in computers because of how things were handled historically and how devices are constructed). There is this abstract ideal "device" that shows abstract ideal "images" that is perceived by an ideal "human" observer. Ideally, every device can show every color that humans can perceive. Every real display device, though, has a range of colors that it can actually display called its color gamut; this color gamut usually shows many fewer colors than humans can actually perceive. Every real image also has a color gamut associated with it (explicitly or implicitly). When your computer shows a real image on a real device like a monitor or printer, it has to map the image's color gamut to the device's color gamut using what's called a transfer function. That's where uglies start to creep in. If the computer doesn't know what the color capabilities of your display device are (for example, it's a generic monitor or the calibration is off), then when it tries to map from one color gamut to another, it will make mistakes and some colors will shift a bit.
Some image formats have the option to embed a color space into the image format. BMP files don't have this capability, so the display color mapping engine in your system will use the default mapping, which should be whatever happens onscreen. JPEG can embed a color profile, and if the image embeds a color profile that doesn't match the one currently in effect on the system, it may cause color shifts when viewed with a viewer that understands such things. It's also possible that a viewer can make assumptions about what the system "should have done" and try to correct things on its own. I suspect that what's happening here is that the color space used for screen, which is why I suggested making a quick export for BMP and for JPEG and comparing them. If you would like to eliminate the image viewer as a suspect, try inserting the exported image back into CC3 and see if it has the same displayed colors as the rest of the drawing.
Nice test, though, Joe
The fun part is that human color vision is based on color perception in three distinct spectral bands based on three types of receptor cells in the eye (thus, three primary colors). The center of sensitivity for each primary provably varies from person to person, which can account for variations in opinion about "how red" something is. Also, because of how the genes for those receptors are carried, there are certain women who actually have four different type of receptors and so can perceive a slightly different range of colors than others.
There are also linguistic issues. If you don't have words for particular colors, then you probably won't be able to distinguish those colors individually. A fun discussion can be had when talking about the ancient Greeks and their relationship to the color "blue". Start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue (search for "Greek" on that page) and then proceed onward.
I know you want to get this right for the sake of your map and personal satisfaction, but if its any comfort the ocean is erased when the land is added to the world map. There's just one slate grey ocean around everything.
But I do still wonder every once in a long while about this very thing.
And Sue, even with my stigmatism, the only thing I've changed on my defaults, is the contrasting brightness.
1. Change the screen settings back to default just for a few minutes and look again at your FCW in CC3. See what colour it is. Greens and blues are highly susceptible to adjustments in contrast and brightness, and a blue can become a green (or indeed vice-versa) depending on what those settings are.
Separately to the above test.......
2. Export the map as a .png, and then as a .bmp
I downloaded the fcw file and looked at it. I don't have the textures, so it looked very different from what you're showing here, but the colors looked consistent for land and sea. I tried LIST on the various entities and they all showed color 70, which matched having the same colors.
I then exported a BMP file and a JPG file from CC3+ at 3000x3000 with antialias 5%. I looked at both files in the Window image viewer and they were visually indistinguishable from each other and from the visible data in CC3+. This behavior suggests that the CC3+ export process isn't adding unexpected color transformations, or at least not any that show on my machine. I then loaded the BMP and JPG into Photoshop and made a difference image between them and saw only the expected JPEG artifacts as differences, so I believe that the base RGB pixels values are the same for the different kinds of file exports.
It's possible that using the background texture could be causing color shifts, but I don't know how that would be happening differently for screen as compared to export because they use the same path. The only thing that's different between the onscreen display and an exported file is the processing that ImageMagick performs for JPEG and PNG files. They ended up looking the same on my machine, but that may be due to monitors and calibration (I have some ancient low-end TN monitor with pretty bad color reproduction, but I have the current drivers for them and have calibrated them a few times in the past).
In short, I'm not sure what's causing the color shifts you showed above. Does it do this for all of the low-saturation blue colors on your CC3+ exports (that is, with different drawings)?
This may be the case if you updated the palette, and didn't re-attach the updated version. When you attach a palette to a drawing in CC3+, it is the palette at that time that is attached, not future updates, so if you later change any colors, you must attach it again to store the updated colors, otherwise it will simply use the old palette attached to the map next time you open it.
Also, if you do NOT attach the palette to the map, then it will use the palette on disk, so if you changed colors in another map (and save the palette [as opposed to attaching it, which is a separate thing]) then your map will use the current palette on disk the next time you open it, which will not be the same palette as last time if you modified it (and saved it) in another map in between.
jslayton - no, the colors do not switch from red to green. the shifts stay within the palette wheel. And when this color shift occurs, it usually only occurs on one specific color. For this map, it's the steel blue of the sea/lakes/rivers. It' supposed to be a grayish blue with just the barest hint of green. Not aqua, not teal. I was afraid any blue with strong green undertones would clash with the deep blue of the ocean.
On my Meridyan map where this happened before... it was my text. It was supposed to be a soft, mint green, and for the longest time it kept shifting to a bright, neon yellow/green.
One thing I have noticed... is that when this color shift occurs... it switches from a light, muted pastel to something darker, and bolder. Does that mean anything to anyone?
I've also noticed that the color numbers don't change, even though the shade or saturation may change slightly. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
Not a long term solution, but maybe a remedy for the time being?