Image copy/paste problem, from MS Word to PS

JW
Posted By
John_Woram
Dec 26, 2003
Views
1173
Replies
9
Status
Closed
A colleague sent me an MS Word file with several JPEG images in it, each of which looks fine. If I select and copy any image and paste it into an empty Photoshop 7 window, the color balance is off–almost looks like saturation is set too high. In fact, reducing saturation helps slightly, but doesn’t restore the orginal color balance. If it’s a b&w image, it takes on an odd color cast. But if I copy/paste the same image into an empty folder, or to the Desktop, and then open it in Photoshop, it looks fine.

Any ideas why a simple copy/paste of an image from Word into PS is a problem?
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copy image ms paste problem word

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DM
dave_milbut
Dec 26, 2003
rerun adobe gamma from the control panel.
RL
Robert_Levine
Dec 26, 2003
All you’ll get going from Word to PS is a low res preview image, not the original picture. I think if you paste into MS Picture Editor you can save it as a TIFF file and then bring it into Photoshop.

Bob
Y
YrbkMgr
Dec 26, 2003
John,

The issue is your color space and/or your adobe gamma (as Dave suggested). MS Word is not color managed and neither are JPG’s thus there is no profile in the image when you paste it into photoshop. Photoshop is taking that unmanaged color space information and automatically "assiging" it to your default working space; I presume you have dialogs turned off for what to do with color profile mismatches or absent profiles.

Most people work in sRGB or Adobe RGB 1998 color space. If you are using one of those, then your monitor profile may be off since these color spaces shouldn’t show that dramatic of a shift in color, although it is usually more notable with Adobe RGB 1998.

The reason that they look fine in other windows applications is because those applications are not color managed either.

This points to either your color space or your monitor profile. If you are printing images that are dead nutz matches with what you see on screen, then you have to decide whether you want to create a new profile or not. If you don’t do much with printing, and don’t know how close of a match you have, or you have found that your prints don’t match that well anyway, then creating a new monitor profile would be the best route to pursue, IMO.

If you haven’t read it already, you would do well to spend about 15 minutes here <http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_1.htm> for a primer on color management, explained so that just about anyone can be "up" in a short period of time.

Peace,
Tony
JW
John_Woram
Dec 27, 2003
Tony, thanks for the link to that color (oops, colour) management page, but I think there’s something going on here beyond gamma and profile adjustments. The same problem does not occur if I copy/paste an image from an Excel spreadsheet into PS, nor does it happen from an OpenOffice document, or if I copy/paste from an HTML page into PS. If I had a gross gamma and/or profile problem, I think I’d see evidence of it in other applications, or in printing, or whatever. I’ll keep digging though, to see if I can figure out what’s up.
DM
dave_milbut
Dec 27, 2003
john, then it’s likely what bob said. can you export the graphic from the graphic editing section of word or from pic editor to ps? can you export it to excel then to ps just to be sure it’s not the graphic.
Y
YrbkMgr
Dec 27, 2003
John,

but I think there’s something going on here beyond gamma and profile adjustments.

You may be right but for giggles and grins, in regards to:

The same problem does not occur if I copy/paste an image from an Excel spreadsheet into PS, nor does it happen from an OpenOffice document, or if I copy/paste from an HTML page into PS.

But does happen if you copy/paste from an excel spreadsheeto or OO document that you did not create on your system? That is, is it only images from your friend or only images from your friend when he sends them in Word?

You’re right though, if you aren’t having printing issues, it’s not likely your profile, I wouldn’t think.

Are you getting a "profile absent" dialog?

I paste to and fro from Word and excel all the time and don’t have an issue such as you describe, that’s why I’m not sure it’s a "preview" image issue.

What is the image mode?

Peace,
Tony
JW
John_Woram
Dec 27, 2003
Tony, here’s some more info that might help.

Until recently I’d never done a copy/paste from Word to PS. Then my friend described the problem–he’d inserted many JPEG images into a Word doc, then much later tried copy/pasting them into PS. He noted the odd color shifts, etc., so I tried the same thing, using a variety of images–some created here, others grabbed at random from other sites. The problem seems consistent, without regard to the source of the original image. It occurs only from MS Word to PS — not from Excel, not from an HTML page, not from OO, etc. FWIW, desktop screen captures are also fine when viewed in PS.

Here’s what I’m doing:
1. Insert a JPEG image into a Word doc.
2. Copy it directly from the doc page and paste it into a new PS window. The PS image has a bluish color cast.
3. From within Word, open the picture editor and do the copy/paste operation again. This image looks fine.

I repeated all of the above, using a variety of images–same effects noted on all of them.

It’s odd that I’m having the same problem my friend described, but you’re not. I guess the workaround is to do the copy/paste via Word’s picture editor, *not* directly from the doc page.
Y
YrbkMgr
Dec 27, 2003
Nope. You’re absolutely correct. Most of the images I’ve used from word were b/w logos or 256 color images. I just tried it with a JPG and see exactly what you are seeing.

Here’s what’s funky. If you copy/paste from word to PS, you get the anomaly. If you copy from Photoshop back to Word, the anomaly is preserved. Further, if you copy from Word and paste into Paint Shop Pro, the same thing happens.

So my conclusion is that Bob Levine is right – it’s how Word represents images as a preview.

Peace,
Tony
JW
John_Woram
Dec 28, 2003
Here’s one more funky factor–I took one of those doc files created in MS Word, with an inserted JPEG image in it, and opened it in Open Office. Then I selected the same "problem" image, copied it and pasted it into PS. No problem–it looks fine. Likewise, if I copy/paste from Word into a folder, and then open that file in PS, it’s OK. Since all of these operations are going through the Windows Clipboard, I wonder if Word is screwing up some data when it writes to the Clipboard, and that data is critical to PS and other Image editors, but not to a simple paste operation to a folder. Who knows?

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