Edit With feature causes color shift

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2019-12-01 11:24:41

Dear developers, using Display P3 color profile as a default profile for RAW images is not good idea. Let me explain why it is not good idea. Try to import any raw images into the Photos app on your Mac, then edit the raw in Pixelmator Pro via the Command + Return command. Once, you are done, save image and go back to Photos app. Every RAW image edited via this process looks ugly, like there is some color shift. I guess, it is because edited RAW image has assigned the Display P3 profile, while Photos app uses sRGB profile. To prevent this strange behavior, I have to assign Universal or sRGB profile via Image > Color profile command in Pixelmator for every image before saving. My opinion is that the default profile assigned to any RAW image should be sRGB. It is default and "safest" profile for almost any device - from monitors, over mobile devices (tablets, smartphones, LCD televisions, etc).
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2019-12-02 15:58:08

Would you be able to share some screenshots of the color shifts? This isn't an issue we've come across before and Photos should definitely respect the color profile settings and fully supports Display P3, as that's the default profile used for photos taken with iPhone — it's the new standard in the Apple ecosystem and using sRGB would be a technological step back for many reasons.
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2019-12-03 20:57:31

I could reproduce the issue. Follow my steps... Import any raw to Photos app (mine were from Canon 5D mark II), then press Return over the image you want to edit and click the "Auto" settings button below histogram. Once it is done, click Done button and get back. Next - Command + Return over the same (in Photos edited) image to open it Pixelmator, once the image is loaded, just save the image, close Pixelmator and display the image in Photos app again, boom - it has a little bit different tonality (I guess there is some problem with color profile?).

If I edit raw images imported into the Photos app right away in Pixelmator, there is no color shift. Try to reproduce the issue and let me know what is your result. Thanks.

Edited in Pixelmator
Image

Edited in Photos
Image
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2019-12-04 14:43:06

Reproduced! That's definitely an issue and it doesn't look to necessarily be related to color profile as I was able to repro it with sRGB images and with images where the profile didn't change after saving (though with certain images, it changed from Display P3 to the Apple Wide Color Sharing profile, so that might have something to do with it).

It looks like this doesn't happen when using the Pixelmator Pro editing extension in the Photos app, so you could use that for now as a workaround.

P.S. I've split this topic off onto its own one (as it was previously in the Pixelmator Photo forum).
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2019-12-04 16:16:05

Great. Thanks for the quick response. I hope that this bug will be fixed soon.
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2019-12-05 13:50:48

We'll do our best!