PS CS Color Management and Windows

Couldn’t view your images (error message about needing to view them via brinkster) but it sounds like you have a bad monitor profile. The steps you describe sound right except for maybe this one …

I’ve put the monitor profile in windows Color
Management.

…. I also use ColorVision’s PhotoCal and I don’t need to do this step, instead the generated profile is automagically placed into the right folder, to wit, Windows/system32/spool/drivers/color/ …

Laptop screens are notoriously difficult to profile correctly with some models of colorimeter, including the early Spyders from ColorVision. Do you have one with the baffle that keeps the suction cups from grabbing the screen? Are you sure it was flush with the screen when you generated the profile? Do you have the latest software download from them? My Spyder works well on our CRTs but with our two laptops I get so-so calibration and wouldn’t use them for critical work (though the images look better with the profile than without, unlike what you’re seeing).

Bottom line is it sounds like you’re doing things right but the symptoms you describe are typically what happens when the profile is off by a wide margin, for whatever reason. Sorry I can’t offer more help …

Bill

Sorry about that, didn’t know the server wouldn’t allow direct access to jpgs. Here is a little page with the jpegs

http://www20.brinkster.com/patrickp/EpsonDoc/monitorimg.htm

"Bill Hilton" …

Couldn’t view your images (error message about needing to view them via brinkster) but it sounds like you have a bad monitor profile. The steps you describe sound right except for maybe this one …

I’ve put the monitor profile in windows Color
Management.

… I also use ColorVision’s PhotoCal and I don’t need to do this step, instead the generated profile is automagically placed into the right folder, to wit, Windows/system32/spool/drivers/color/ …

This is the issue. If I remove the profile from windows color management things go back to normal in Photoshop. But the question is this: is Photoshop taking advantage of the monitor profile?

Laptop screens are notoriously difficult to profile correctly with some models of colorimeter, including the early Spyders from ColorVision. Do you have one with the baffle that keeps the suction cups from grabbing the screen? Are you sure it was flush with the screen when you generated the profile? Do you have the latest software download from them? My Spyder works well on our CRTs but with our two laptops I get so-so calibration and wouldn’t use them for critical work (though the images look better with the profile than without, unlike what you’re seeing).

I’ve got the one the hangs over the top of the screen. Yes, it is flush with the screen. I do have updated software.

Bottom line is it sounds like you’re doing things right but the symptoms you describe are typically what happens when the profile is off by a wide margin, for whatever reason. Sorry I can’t offer more help …

Bill

Bill, try putting your profile into windows color management and see what happens in photoshop.

Here is a little page with the jpegs

Wow, that’s terrible … I see the problem!

But the question is this: is Photoshop taking advantage of the monitor profile?

You can see if Photoshop is picking up the profile with Edit > Color settings > in the ‘working spaces’ box click RGB and see what is assigned to the ‘monitor RGB’

With my computers if I turn the profile on and off I see a slight expansion of the gamut in certain colors when looking at test patterns, but nothing at all like what you showed in the two jpegs. I still think your profile is bad since this is the kind of thing people see with bad profiles, but beyond that I have no other help to offer … I’d try re-generating the profile and if it’s still this far off I’d contact ColorVision, they sometimes have problems with certain video cards or screen types (I got a replacement Sypder once from them after questions about a new monitor, for example).

Bill, try putting your profile into windows color management and see what happens in photoshop.

What do you mean by this, exactly? The profile gets picked up by Windows when it’s generated, the ColorVision software dumps it in there and makes the assignment. Unless we’re talking about something else …. in other words if I right-click on the open desktop and do properties > settings > advanced > color management then I see the monitor profile in the box … is this what you meant?

Bill

But the question is this: is Photoshop taking advantage of the monitor profile?

You can see if Photoshop is picking up the profile with Edit > Color settings > in the ‘working spaces’ box click RGB and see what is assigned to the ‘monitor RGB’

It picks up the monitor profile fine when I place it in Windows Color Management. Now if I set the monitor profile as my PS working space the colors seem ok. It is only when I use AdobeRGB, sRGB and so on that it goes off the deep end. Do you use AdobeRGB or your monitor profile as your working space?

I’d try re-generating the profile and if it’s still this far off I’d contact ColorVision, they sometimes have problems with certain video cards or screen types (I got a replacement Sypder once from them after questions about a new monitor, for example).

I’ve been in contact with little success. Seems no matter how clear and detailed I am about the problem they seem totally confused. I’m not letting them off the hook so easy. They will continue to receive mail from me until it is sorted.

Bill, try putting your profile into windows color management and see what happens in photoshop.

What do you mean by this, exactly? The profile gets picked up by Windows when it’s generated, the ColorVision software dumps it in there and makes the assignment. Unless we’re talking about something else … in other words if I right-click on the open desktop and do properties > settings > advanced > color management then I see the monitor profile in the box … is this what you meant?

That was exactly what I meant by windows color management. But when I create a profile it isn’t placed automatically in windows color management, like it is on yours. I’m using version 2.7 what version are you using? Do you think it could have something to do with my video card? I looked at it and it has the ability to adjust color, gamma and so on. I can’t figure out how to turn it off or if it is even on.

Can someone please confirm I’m doing my CM right-
Running on startup: PhotoCAL startup
Windows Color Management: the monitor profile
Photoshop working space: AdobeRGB

Thanks, Patrick

Do you use AdobeRGB or your monitor profile as your working space?

The monitor profile is a device-specific profile, and as such is rarely gray-balanced or linear. Adobe used to use the monitor profile as the working space back with V 5 (maybe 5.5, not certain) but switched to the abstract working space model with V6 and later. So you should use one of the abstract spaces like AdobeRGB or sRGB or whatever (I use Ektaspace a lot too).

I’m using version 2.7 (PhotoCal) what version are you using?

I’m also using 2.7 … as I mentioned it does well with my CRT’s but not all that great with my (cheap) laptop.

Can someone please confirm I’m doing my CM right-
Running on startup: PhotoCAL startup
Windows Color Management: the monitor profile
Photoshop working space: AdobeRGB

This looks fine … the screen shots you posted seem to indicate a severe white point problem with the monitor profile though, it looks more like 3200 Kelvin instead of 6500 (or 5000 or whatever you set during calibration). I have a Chromix program that plots and evaluates ICC profiles and if you’ll email me your monitor profile (I assume it’s under 1K bytes) I’ll run it thru and see what the primaries and white point etc are. I also have access to a couple of other monitor profiles and can plot yours against those to see if anything obvious shows up, but it looks more like a white balance problem than a gamut problem. If Chromix flags any issues you can use this info to convince ColorVision that there’s a problem with the profile generation or maybe the video card interface (they used to have a list of video cards that the Spyder didn’t work with). Email me the profile if you want me to check this, it only takes a couple of minutes to check it.

Bill

For anyone following this thread, Patrick emailed me a couple of his monitor profiles and they crashed my profile analyzer program (Chromix Color Think) when I try to read them. I’ve probably looked at 200 profiles with this program and this is the only time that’s happened so I did a screen dump of the error messages and sent them to him. Hopefully this will convince ColorVision that there’s a problem somewhere during the profile generation process.

If anyone has different profile analyzer software and would like to see if they can load this profile and do some analysis let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Patrick via email (or post your email here).

Bill Hilton wrote:

For anyone following this thread, Patrick emailed me a couple of his monitor profiles and they crashed my profile analyzer program (Chromix Color Think) when I try to read them. I’ve probably looked at 200 profiles with this program and this is the only time that’s happened so I did a screen dump of the error messages and sent them to him. Hopefully this will convince ColorVision that there’s a problem somewhere during the profile generation process.

If anyone has different profile analyzer software and would like to see if they can load this profile and do some analysis let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Patrick via email (or post your email here).

Bill, I’m interested: email mike AT curvemeister.com
—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

Just a follow-up on this thread … Patrick sent me a monitor profile which loaded into Chromix (the earlier ones were apparently damaged when zipped) and the Lab gamut plot showed that the yellows were not being seen at all, meaning the Spyder sensor has a problem reading a large part of the color spectrum. Basically every color except blue was off.

He was able to show a screen dump of this gamut plot to ColorVision, they agreed it was a real problem, and they are sending him a new replacement Spyder. (Thanks also to Mike Russell who looked at the profile with his tools and confirmed the same problem).

Bill