I-pad simulator colour change

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

Hi everyone. Very green newbie here.
Apologies in advance if this topic already covered – did a search but couldn’t find it.
Anyway, I just got Kwik and Corona to build my own app yesterday and am working through tutorials.
I’ve been doing some basic test animations and when I view the test in Corona’s iPad simulator, the colours are quite different (i.e. garish and brighter, see pic) from the original imported jpeg artwork I’ve already painted (and which look fine in Photoshop). The people at the Kwik forum had no idea why this was happening and suggested I ask here.

I’m working on one screen, a cintiq.
Anyone know why is this happening and how I can get the colours to match what I see in photoshop?
Thanks in advance

#2

Hi @tigwip,

Generally speaking, it’s not really possible to get ideal color matching across environments, and even less so across devices. When you deploy your app to devices, some will look more saturated, some less, and perhaps some will be slanted a bit more toward a certain hue. This is just the nature of mobile devices and the GPUs that power them. That being said, if you’re getting results that are completely inaccurate (not even close to the original), we may need to see some more screenshots to figure out why.

Best regards,

Brent

#3

Hi Brent

Thanks so much for your reply.

Well, I’ve taken a few more screenshots as you suggested and have attached them. The jump in colour is even more pronounced and garish than what you see on the attached photos, especially with the oranges and reds for some reason.

Haven’t yet decided which app builder to use (Kwik or something else) but, from what you said, it sounds like there might be this colour discrepancy no matter which builder I use. It’s so frustrating to see your carefully chosen colours change, so I really hope there’s a solution. I wonder if other app builders have this problem or if it’s just a screen setting issue on my Mac/Cintiq?

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to look.

#4

Tough one to tackle, because it could be a multitude of issues regarding color profiles.

  1. Are you using Photoshop? If not, which software?

  2. Do you use an RGB color profile? Which one?

  3. How you do export to the device? JPG or PNG? With which color profile and how (meaning: which function, for example “save for web and devices” in Photoshop.

Cheers,

Thomas

#5

Also, try the following as a test:

  1. Take a screenshot of your app on the iPad (home button and “power off” button simultaneously).

  2. Mail this screenshot to yourself from the photo library.

  3. Open this screenshot in your image manipulation software (probably Photoshop).

Let me know if the image in Photoshop and on your iPad are closer in color range. If these appear similar (there will of course always be a difference between screens) then the problem is most likely a colour profile issue.

Good luck!

p.s. the iPad has virtually no color management. The Cintiq, as a professional artists’ tool, probably has a lot of stuff going on regarding color management - well, it should :wink:

#6

Hey, thanks for your thoughts, Thomas6. Much appreciated. I’ll try this over the weekend and report back.

#7

So, I had a go at changing a few things, as per your helpful instructions.

I’m using Photoshop CS6 and had the colour profile settings set to what you see on the ‘Default colour setting’ photo (attached)

(I changed the setting to ‘Adobe RGB 1998’ after reading on Google about that being a better setting, apparently!?)

I followed your advice and sent myself an iPad screenshot of the non-garish artwork, opened it up in cs6 and was sad to see that it had gone back to being garish and very different from the colours of the original artwork.

I then saved the original, colours-I-like-artwork under, ‘For web and devices’ -  something I hadn’t tried before.

Photo 1 shows the big jump between the original artwork colours and what I’m getting on the iPad simulator - as you can see, the setting mode is, ‘Monitor Color’ on the right hand side.

Photo 2 shows the image after I changed ‘Monitor Color’ to ‘Internet Standard RGB’. Suddenly the colours matched and I got really excited! I saved the image with those settings, sent the saved jpeg image to the iPad, opened it up, and…

…and the damn thing had reverted back to its former horrible, garish glory.

I’m obviously overlooking something (pretty simple?) but am completely out of my depth as I’m not very knowledgable about this. 

Any further help would be gratefully received but I’ll understand it if people have had enough. I know I (nearly) have!

Anyway, thanks again for the help so far.

#8

Hi @tigwip,

How does it look when you build/install the actual app on the iPad? I remember when I upgraded from the non-“Retina” iPad2 to the “Retina” iPad4, the display was literally so much more bright/saturated, I thought something was wrong with it. Certain games looked almost terrible, they were so saturated, but other games actually looked nicer in that way (more colorful, more “punchy”, higher contrast, etc.). As I said before, you can (and should) try various adjustments of the source artwork, but ultimately it will appear different on different devices, and you can only do your best to make it look good on the devices you own for testing.

Brent

#9

Mail me a couple of relevant images, if you’d like, to thomas at pinkeye dot be and I’ll do some testing on my side.

#10

Brent - thanks for all your comments and thoughts.I haven’t actually finished building an app yet and have just started learning how to build one via the Kwik tutorials but had to stop when this colour-change problem cropped up. I’m happy to accept a little change in artwork-colours across different devices, of course, but what I’m seeing seems like a huge jump. Thanks for all your suggestions.

thomas6 - What a kind offer, thank you. I will send you a few images today but please, don’t waste too much of your time on it! It’d be great if you could discover what the ideal settings are! 

#11

Your welcome Tigwip. Ideally just send me the Photoshop source, so I can export it myself on my end, and the screenshot you took on your iPad.

#12

Hi @tigwip,

Generally speaking, it’s not really possible to get ideal color matching across environments, and even less so across devices. When you deploy your app to devices, some will look more saturated, some less, and perhaps some will be slanted a bit more toward a certain hue. This is just the nature of mobile devices and the GPUs that power them. That being said, if you’re getting results that are completely inaccurate (not even close to the original), we may need to see some more screenshots to figure out why.

Best regards,

Brent

#13

Hi Brent

Thanks so much for your reply.

Well, I’ve taken a few more screenshots as you suggested and have attached them. The jump in colour is even more pronounced and garish than what you see on the attached photos, especially with the oranges and reds for some reason.

Haven’t yet decided which app builder to use (Kwik or something else) but, from what you said, it sounds like there might be this colour discrepancy no matter which builder I use. It’s so frustrating to see your carefully chosen colours change, so I really hope there’s a solution. I wonder if other app builders have this problem or if it’s just a screen setting issue on my Mac/Cintiq?

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to look.

#14

Tough one to tackle, because it could be a multitude of issues regarding color profiles.

  1. Are you using Photoshop? If not, which software?

  2. Do you use an RGB color profile? Which one?

  3. How you do export to the device? JPG or PNG? With which color profile and how (meaning: which function, for example “save for web and devices” in Photoshop.

Cheers,

Thomas

#15

Also, try the following as a test:

  1. Take a screenshot of your app on the iPad (home button and “power off” button simultaneously).

  2. Mail this screenshot to yourself from the photo library.

  3. Open this screenshot in your image manipulation software (probably Photoshop).

Let me know if the image in Photoshop and on your iPad are closer in color range. If these appear similar (there will of course always be a difference between screens) then the problem is most likely a colour profile issue.

Good luck!

p.s. the iPad has virtually no color management. The Cintiq, as a professional artists’ tool, probably has a lot of stuff going on regarding color management - well, it should :wink:

#16

Hey, thanks for your thoughts, Thomas6. Much appreciated. I’ll try this over the weekend and report back.

#17

So, I had a go at changing a few things, as per your helpful instructions.

I’m using Photoshop CS6 and had the colour profile settings set to what you see on the ‘Default colour setting’ photo (attached)

(I changed the setting to ‘Adobe RGB 1998’ after reading on Google about that being a better setting, apparently!?)

I followed your advice and sent myself an iPad screenshot of the non-garish artwork, opened it up in cs6 and was sad to see that it had gone back to being garish and very different from the colours of the original artwork.

I then saved the original, colours-I-like-artwork under, ‘For web and devices’ -  something I hadn’t tried before.

Photo 1 shows the big jump between the original artwork colours and what I’m getting on the iPad simulator - as you can see, the setting mode is, ‘Monitor Color’ on the right hand side.

Photo 2 shows the image after I changed ‘Monitor Color’ to ‘Internet Standard RGB’. Suddenly the colours matched and I got really excited! I saved the image with those settings, sent the saved jpeg image to the iPad, opened it up, and…

…and the damn thing had reverted back to its former horrible, garish glory.

I’m obviously overlooking something (pretty simple?) but am completely out of my depth as I’m not very knowledgable about this. 

Any further help would be gratefully received but I’ll understand it if people have had enough. I know I (nearly) have!

Anyway, thanks again for the help so far.

#18

Hi @tigwip,

How does it look when you build/install the actual app on the iPad? I remember when I upgraded from the non-“Retina” iPad2 to the “Retina” iPad4, the display was literally so much more bright/saturated, I thought something was wrong with it. Certain games looked almost terrible, they were so saturated, but other games actually looked nicer in that way (more colorful, more “punchy”, higher contrast, etc.). As I said before, you can (and should) try various adjustments of the source artwork, but ultimately it will appear different on different devices, and you can only do your best to make it look good on the devices you own for testing.

Brent

#19

Mail me a couple of relevant images, if you’d like, to thomas at pinkeye dot be and I’ll do some testing on my side.

#20

Brent - thanks for all your comments and thoughts.I haven’t actually finished building an app yet and have just started learning how to build one via the Kwik tutorials but had to stop when this colour-change problem cropped up. I’m happy to accept a little change in artwork-colours across different devices, of course, but what I’m seeing seems like a huge jump. Thanks for all your suggestions.

thomas6 - What a kind offer, thank you. I will send you a few images today but please, don’t waste too much of your time on it! It’d be great if you could discover what the ideal settings are!