Question about PS.cs color management settings

BS
Posted By
Beverly_Sampson
Nov 9, 2003
Views
296
Replies
3
Status
Closed
When I received my Dell 8500 Inspiron notebook last week, the monitor colors were too bright and too blue. I ran Adobe Gamma which created a monitor profile and installed as the monitor default. Profile name is AG1 11-5-03.

I am attempting to get the "color settings" right in Photoshop CS which I think I have done. However, in the color settings Working Spaces dropdown menu, the monitor RGB is listed as sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and not the AG profile AG1 11-5-03.

I checked properties/settings/advanced/color management which reads "Current monitor – Default Monitor, Default monitor profile – AG1 11-5-03.

I do not understand why this profile does not appear in Photoshop color settings.

The color profile does load at startup because at first the screen is bright and blue then immediately changes to the AG color profile.

I would really appreciate your help. Also in creating the profile, I could not adjust contrast on this notebook. There does not seem to be a contrast adjustment available. Brightness can be adjusted by fn key + up/down arrows. Right left arrown however do not adjust contrast.

Bev

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DP
Daryl Pritchard
Nov 9, 2003
Hi Bev,

Your last comment about lack of contrast adjustments is one large factor in why laptop displays aren’t suitable for color calibration. Further, Adobe Gamma isn’t designed for color calibration of LCD displays in general, from my understanding. My peronal opinion, if you need to work with a laptop yet also need color accuracy on your display, is to use an external CRT monitor attached to the laptop. I know that defeats some of the portability and usefulness of a laptop with Photoshop, but you can still use it for the color-related edits. Or, I’ve also had success at times with doing whatever edits I like, but keeping in mind just to not do any extensive color changes. That is, I don’t depart too much from the colors I see on the LCD. Whatever edits I perform, I verify the appearance of the file on a calibrated CRT (my desktop system) before printing the image.

Now, the best answer for you first question would be to refer you to Ian Lyons’ information, choosing the appropriate color management article for your version of Photoshop from his Feature Articles drop-down menu at <http://www.computer-darkroom.com/home.htm>.

As you observed, Adobe Gamma establishes a profile for your video chipset to use that is loaded either at start-up by the Adobe Gamma Loader in the startup menu, or by manually executing the same file. Meanwhile, the Color Settings dialog establishes the working profile for your image, which gets tagged to the image when saved in a format (PSD, TIFF, etc.) that supports profile data in the header. Usually, the Color Settings profiles are standard color workspaces although custom workspaces can also be created and, you could actually load your Adobe Gamma profile there if you so chose, but you’d have to manually browse to where it is saved on your system. I’m not totally clear on why not to do that, but it seems the preferred practice is to use a standard profile such as Adobe RGB for your image profile. The AG profile for your video chipset is still used however, as Photoshop uses the color transform data per that profile to uniquely render the colors in your image to how you perceive them on your monitor. An oversimplfication here, but if Adobe RGB says that Red = 3 but your AG profile says Red = 4, then Photoshop transforms the data so that 3 "looks like" a 4, for presentation but without actually altering your image file. This color management is all handled by the software so that your image file doesn’t have to be edited to provide the correct colors on a per-device basis, 10 files for 10 different printers, displays, etc.

I hope that helps…but Ian’s website will cover the topic much better.

Regards,

Daryl
BS
Beverly_Sampson
Nov 9, 2003
Thanks much Daryl. That explains a lot. The laptop was purchased to be used in FL in our motorhome. Because of towing weight restrictions, I have stayed away from a heavy CRT monitor. It just might be a possibility down the road. Guess I will just have to leave the husband at home to compensate for the added monitor weight. Just kidding.

Thanks again for your time and a very good explanation.

Bev
DP
Daryl Pritchard
Nov 9, 2003
Glad I could help.

Daryl

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

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