P3Dv5.3 with EA - how to remove colour cast?

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

A few days ago a friend posted photos on his Facebook account of a flight around Snowdonia, North Wales. The colours looked fantastic as well as the view.

My new computer is brilliant and EA certainly enhances the overall view. But one thing I cannot live with is the colour cast. I should add at this point I have a quality BenQ 4K monitor and use a Spyder to calibrate it so brightness, contrast and colour are all very accurate.

But in P3D there is a bluish hue in all views which is apparent at all alltitudes and it's driving me mad. I bought EnvShade which has helped with cockpit brightness but doesn't seem to do anything for adjusting colours in the outside view.

How can I correct the colours? It's spoiling my enjoyment of an otherwise brilliant sim. Attached is a photo taken by him and my screenshot of the same area. There's a clear difference as I'm sure all of you can see.

[Rein2 119]

Hello Ray,

The difference is remarkable. I think I'm right by saying that the second screenshot is taken by your friend and the first one is yours. The second one looks very, very good, almost real world. But I wonder is it really a P3D v5 screenshot, because I don't see "academic license" in the upper right corner. Or does your friend have the professional version? The bluish hue is something I don't have that much as in your screenshot. I think I have the same monitor as you: the Benq 32" 4k monitor. Very good monitor because I can set the vertical frequency to 30Hz or 50Hz and then vsync. The monitor has a little push button in the right lower corner to select or deselect HDR and BI+. Most of the time I have HDR off, although in the sim HDR is checked as on. I also have EA on (always). Beside the bluish hue it also seems to me that the two screenshots are from different simulators. Is the second one from MSFS probably?

You also mentioned Spyder. I never heard of it. I did a lookup and found out that there are different models of it, and thus also different pricing. Which one do you have and is it really as good as they promise in the advertisements?

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

@Rein2, sorry for any confusion. He's a retired pilot and that shot was taken from his PIper Archer. Real world, not a sim.

If you use a calibration utility it's necessary to set the monitor to User. That's in the BenQ settings. For photo work the sRGB setting would be best. But given the Spyder5Pro takes room lighting into account you need to use User with no HDR set.

The Spyder hardware is identical. It's just the level of software control you choose. Elite is the top. I have Pro the next down and it always gives excellent results both on my PD3200U and my other SW2700 27" display used on another PC for photo work.

So the monitor is not introducing any colour problems. It's P3D and its settings but none of the controls available allow for colour adjustment. Can any third party ones allow for colour correction?

[polosim 893]

11 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Can any third party ones allow for colour correction?

Adjust your shaders, colours and tweaks while Prepar3D is running, no need to restart every time you make a change. Create presets and share them with the community! 

https://www.rdpresets.com/rdshade.html

Edited February 29 by polosim

[Beardyman 634]

Ray, i use Reshade, and one of the option i use is 'Tint' - i set it with sun color ( HEX #FCE570 ), so instead blueish i have very slightly yellowish tint as in sunny day. Have different tint setting for different conditions ( dusk, dawn, night ). Maybe that would help?

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

@polosim and @Beardyman, thank you both for recommending the same product.

My eyes are still pretty good at detecting colour issues. I use PhotoShop Elements to adjust my serious photos taken on my Nikon DSLR having been a keen amateur photographer most of my life.

If the colours were slightly out I could probably live with it but they're nowhere near and the bluish tint reminds me of the days we took photos from aircraft without a UV filter. Yuck!

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

@polosim and @Beardyman, two specific questions before I hit the Buy button.

1) I have ORBX FTX Global. Is RDShade compatible with that? Important obviously as it's a world-wide texture replacement. Which adjustment affects the colour of the terrain?

2) Can I adjust the visibility looking downwards from high altitude? The ground is often difficult to make out compared to EA off.

Finally, did you create your own files or download from those uploaded by other users? Is it a long process to get what you seek?

[Daube 389]

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

A few days ago a friend posted photos on his Facebook account of a flight around Snowdonia, North Wales. The colours looked fantastic as well as the view.

My new computer is brilliant and EA certainly enhances the overall view. But one thing I cannot live with is the colour cast. I should add at this point I have a quality BenQ 4K monitor and use a Spyder to calibrate it so brightness, contrast and colour are all very accurate.

But in P3D there is a bluish hue in all views which is apparent at all alltitudes and it's driving me mad. I bought EnvShade which has helped with cockpit brightness but doesn't seem to do anything for adjusting colours in the outside view.

How can I correct the colours? It's spoiling my enjoyment of an otherwise brilliant sim. Attached is a photo taken by him and my screenshot of the same area. There's a clear difference as I'm sure all of you can see.

The picture taken by your friend looks very nice indeed, the colors are superb.

On your screenshot though, it looks like you're flying during a solar eclipse. Even the parts of your aircraft that get direct sun light look dark. I feel like your sim has incorrect luminosity, contrast, and saturation, all of them see to be too low.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

24 minutes ago, Daube said:

The picture taken by your friend looks very nice indeed, the colors are superb.

On your screenshot though, it looks like you're flying during a solar eclipse. Even the parts of your aircraft that get direct sun light look dark. I feel like your sim has incorrect luminosity, contrast, and saturation, all of them see to be too low.

I agree. I know the monitor is accurate as test images such as shades of white to black show every variation. Skin colours are spot on aided by my Spyder calibration tool.

So quite a bit of work is required to improve the P3D image. 

[Beardyman 634]

43 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

two specific questions before I hit the Buy button

Reshade is not same as RDshade - Reshade is free

[polosim 893]

1) I would not expect to find any conflict between ORBX FTX Global and RDShade.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

you create your own files or download from those uploaded by other users?

In your personal case, I would recommend playing a little with the tweaks and customization, reading the manual, tutorial, etc. and in the end create your own profile that meets your tastes and needs.
 

In my view, it is an application that you would take advantage of, given your demands in colors and lighting.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

22 minutes ago, Beardyman said:

Reshade is not same as RDshade - Reshade is free

Sorry, my mistake. I’ve been reading posts about RDShade here at AvSim and the views are mixed. Most cover cockpit brightness but I have EnvShade which improves that although it’s not a huge difference. There isn’t overwhelming support for it.

Another topic discussed is EnvTex - a partner of EnvShade. The author is active here - @kmax59. Maxime, I’d appreciate your thoughts on whether EnvTex can resolve these issues for me.

I’m not adverse to buying anything that will significantly improve my p3D experience but it has to fix the issues in my post above. The opinions differ significantly.

[Daube 389]

32 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I agree. I know the monitor is accurate as test images such as shades of white to black show every variation. Skin colours are spot on aided by my Spyder calibration tool.

Makes sense. Also, even if the monitor wasn't perfectly calibrated, the P3D image should look at least in the same tones as the real picture, no matter how valid these tones would be 🙂

32 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

So quite a bit of work is required to improve the P3D image. 

I haven't tried P3Dv5 or v6, but in v4 there were some graphical settings to adjust the saturation and luminosity, right ? How is it now ?

[Ray Proudfoot 9,217]

6 minutes ago, Daube said:

I haven't tried P3Dv5 or v6, but in v4 there were some graphical settings to adjust the saturation and luminosity, right ? How is it now ?

EA in v4 was dreadful so I never used it. When I bought v5 I still had my old computer and the 1080Ti couldn’t cope with EA even though the adjustments were far better and the Live Update feature meant you could judge immediately if the changes were better.

With my new system performance is great and I’ve adjusted the brightness and  bloom as well as I can but there’s no adjustment for colour. I also want to make the ground more visible as haze is overdone.

So although RDShade has been recommended there are few reviews on SimMarket so judging its effectiveness is difficult.

I want to give the author of EnvTex a chance to respond too before I make a decision.

[Daube 389]

Do you mean that with EA option set to ON, you cannot alter the general luminosity and saturation as we could in v4 ? If so, then yes indeed the external shader tools might be the only way to go.

I'm surprised you're not using the TrueEarth scenery in your sim though. Is it because it was too much ressource-heavy for your Concorde flying ?