Photoshop only package offering selectable gray working space??

[DHodson]

Anybody know of an alternative to Photoshop that lets you select a Gray working space? Photoshop has the option in the "Working Spaces" and "Color Management" windows along with the common colour work spaces but none of the other packages I've looked at have that option.

Thanks for your help
Dave

[Jac@stafford.net]

Affinity Photo under menu Document - Color Format (choose 8 or 16 bit grayscale).

[DHodson]

Thanks but I was looking for one that let me select the Gray working space, specifically Gray Gamma 2.2. All the other packages I've looked at and contacted, have grayscale conversions built in but none (so far) have a selectable option. I've attached a screen capture of the Photoshop menu.

177280

Regards
Dave

[Ted Baker]

Thanks but I was looking for one that let me select the Gray working space, specifically Gray Gamma 2.2. All the other packages I've looked at and contacted, have grayscale conversions built in but none (so far) have a selectable option. I've attached a screen capture of the Photoshop menu.

177280

Regards
Dave

What are you hoping to achieve? In days gone by that approach may have saved you memory (RAM), modern editors are all moving to 32bit floating point, using a wide gamut colorspace for their working space. AdobeRGB is essentially identical with a straight gamma of 2.2, if you keep all channels equal. But a modern editor will use a gamma of 1 anyway for its working space.

[DHodson]

Hi Ted

Thanks for the input. From the Piezography manual - Grayscale Management Section 5, ""The Piezography curves expect a Gamma 2.20 input file" and later "Piezography can only be used with Gamma 2.2 images"

My understanding (and I'm still trying to learn all this) is that in order to accurately print what is shown, the monitor, editing software, output file and printer profiles all have to be working in the same colour/gray space which in this case is Gray Gamma 2.2. From what I can find out, Photoshop is the only package that offers specific selection of Gray Gamma 2.2 and hence my question.

Regards
Dave

[Ted Baker]

and I'm still trying to learn all this

That's probably a good reason to use a tool like PS or one that has very good instructions for Piezography in the first place :-)

A gamma of 1.0 is what a modern editor should use under the hood for complicated reasons, you may find that even that version of photoshop you provided, actually does all its processing in a linear colorspace. (Notice the blend colors in RGB option has a gamma of 1).

However the input and outputs (both screen and files) need to be converted appropriately. In this case it is my understanding that the files that you save for printing are expected to be stored with a gamma of 2.2 (I flicked through through the manual). There are many editors that will do exactly that.

Hopefully that is not too confusing.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I know when I scan my neg bw and color and save as a raw tif they are linear with a Gamma of 1. I then change them to Gamma 2.2 using the exposure tool in PS first thing before editing in colorneg or another software. If the raw file for a bw neg is just a 16 bit gray file I assign it gray gamma 2.2 when I import to PS then change gamma to 2.2. Then use ColorPerfect for the inversion. If I am going to use ColorPerfect for slide I scan it with a gamma of 1.0 then assign adobe rgb and gamma 2.2 when I bring into PS.

PS makes it easy. As for another program, Rawtherepee should be able to do it.

[DHodson]

Thanks Steven - That's kind of what I've been seeing, PS makes it easy. As for alternatives though, I haven't found one yet. I'll have a look at Rawtherapee

[Alan9940]

If the GG 2.2 working space is on your system, PhotoLine (www.pl32.com) will allow you to set that as a gray working space. It's a powerful PS alternative IMO and actually does a few things that PS can't do. Since it's written by a couple of brothers in Germany, it takes a bit to get used to their terminology for things and where to find things you need, but it's certainly doable.