Colors off in Photoshop CS3…

"Jay" wrote in message

Just installed CS3.

Can someone tell me why images look different in Photoshop than they do outside of Photoshop? I have a JPG open in Photoshop and the same saved JPG open in explorer, and the colors are very different.
I figure it’s a profile thing, but how do I standardize this so that I can get roughly the same profile everyone else sees? I have to design websites soon and I don’t want them too skewed. I want to see the exact same thing inside Photoshop and out, and I’d like for that to be as close to what everyone else sees as possible (whatever the defaults are).
Thanks.

You should use sRGB as your output profile. That is the "best fit" for all of those
unmanaged applications. (To say nothing of unmanaged displays). Jim

"Jim" wrote in message

You should use sRGB as your output profile. That is the "best fit" for all of those
unmanaged applications. (To say nothing of unmanaged displays). Jim

Yes, Photoshop uses sRGB IEC61966-2.1 as a default RGB profile, but why do things I create with it come out far too saturated once they are viewed outside of Photoshop? Like in MSN Messenger profile pictures, for instance. I can’t imagine Messenger has its own color profile. It’s using Windows’, right?

So the culprit would then be under diplay settings / color management, in WinXP itself. Which one do I use THERE?

Ideally, I’d use the same for both, but PS uses CSF files, while Windows uses ICC/ICM.

Jim wrote:

You should use sRGB as your output profile. That is
the "best fit" for all of those unmanaged applications. (To say nothing of unmanaged displays).

I have to disagree. Even if you calibrate your display to sadRGB, even then the sadRGB is a very bad color-space, with the look-up table based transfer function and the slope-limiting at the dark end.

The nativePC.icc from http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/download/aim_profiles.zip is the closest to what the OP asked: "I want to see the exact same thing inside Photoshop and out, and I’d like for that to be as close to what everyone else sees as possible (whatever the defaults are)."

"Exact the same thing inside Photoshop and out" is possible, but only by disabling the color-management of Photoshop. I can not recommend that because color-management is one of the great powers of Photoshop.

What everyone else sees depends on how they calibrate their monitors. Perhaps 99.9999% of all the monitors on the Web are uncalibrated (in other words no AdobeGamma or other such utilities have been used), only the Contrast and Brightness controls have been adjusted. For such monitors (in PC systems that runs a Windows operating system) the nativePC.icc is the best possible approximation.

Those people who calibrate their monitors to sadRGB and then publish to to Web do not see problems (related to color accuracy). Their system is in the sadRGB so they do get the exact match, on their own system, between the Web browser and Photoshop. But those 99.9999% of the viewers on the Web will see the dark end of the dynamic range way too dark and usually a slight reddish tint.

Timo Autiokari
www.aim-dtp.net

Whoa.. I tried nativePC.icc and rebooted, and now Photoshop matches what I see in other programs. But Photoshop is still using sRGB. What just happened here?

Logic would dictate that nativePC.icc is closest match to sRGB, but I could have sworn that the Photoshop colors are the ones that changed. Is that just my mind playing tricks on me? The colors outside Photoshop seem just as saturated, but now so do the ones IN Photoshop (making it possible for me to adjust them).

That’s just an optical illusion, right? Nothing changed inside Photoshop, correct? It’s what’s outside Photoshop that was affected… right?

"Timo Autiokari" wrote in message

Jim wrote:

You should use sRGB as your output profile. That is
the "best fit" for all of those unmanaged applications. (To say nothing of unmanaged displays).

I have to disagree. Even if you calibrate your display to sadRGB, even then the sadRGB is a very bad color-space, with the look-up table based transfer function and the slope-limiting at the dark end.
The nativePC.icc from http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/download/aim_profiles.zip is the closest to what the OP asked: "I want to see the exact same thing inside Photoshop and out, and I’d like for that to be as close to what everyone else sees as possible (whatever the defaults are)."
"Exact the same thing inside Photoshop and out" is possible, but only by disabling the color-management of Photoshop. I can not recommend that because color-management is one of the great powers of Photoshop.
What everyone else sees depends on how they calibrate their monitors. Perhaps 99.9999% of all the monitors on the Web are uncalibrated (in other words no AdobeGamma or other such utilities have been used), only the Contrast and Brightness controls have been adjusted. For such monitors (in PC systems that runs a Windows operating system) the nativePC.icc is the best possible approximation.

Those people who calibrate their monitors to sadRGB and then publish to to Web do not see problems (related to color accuracy). Their system is in the sadRGB so they do get the exact match, on their own system, between the Web browser and Photoshop. But those 99.9999% of the viewers on the Web will see the dark end of the dynamic range way too dark and usually a slight reddish tint.

Timo Autiokari
www.aim-dtp.net

Jay wrote:

"Jim" wrote in message

You should use sRGB as your output profile. That is the "best fit" for all of those unmanaged applications. (To say nothing of unmanaged displays).

Yes, Photoshop uses sRGB IEC61966-2.1 as a default RGB profile, but why do things I create with it come out far too saturated once they are viewed outside of Photoshop?

Things might be different in CS3 (I’m using CS), but try this:

Photoshop -> Color Settings -> check ‘Advanced Mode.’

Uncheck ‘Desaturate Monitor Colors’ and uncheck ‘Blend Colors Using Gamma’.

Check all the various ‘Ask When…’ stuff, so you can figure out what PS is doing to your colors. 🙂 When you’ve figured it out, you can change these settings.

Also, always convert to sRGB before saving, and always embed the color profile in the file itself.

Like in MSN Messenger profile pictures, for instance. I can’t imagine Messenger has its own color profile. It’s using Windows’, right?
So the culprit would then be under diplay settings / color management, in WinXP itself. Which one do I use THERE?

You have two options: The correct, and the real. 🙂

The correct way is to profile your monitor and then make sure only to use color-managed software.

The real way is to make sure your monitor profile is set to sRGB and then always make sure you output sRGB-profiled images. Windows defaults to sRGB anyway. sRGB (Standard RGB) is a profile designed to be ‘good enough’ for pretty much any computer display.

Ideally, I’d use the same for both, but PS uses CSF files, while Windows uses ICC/ICM.

..CSF files are where Photoshop stores its *settings,* not the profiles. The profiles are .ICC files.

—
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html

Timo Autiokari wrote:

Jim wrote:

You should use sRGB as your output profile. That is the "best fit" for all of those unmanaged applications. (To say nothing of unmanaged displays).

I have to disagree. Even if you calibrate your display to sadRGB, even then the sadRGB is a very bad color-space, with the look-up table based transfer function and the slope-limiting at the dark end.
The nativePC.icc from http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/download/aim_profiles.zip is the closest to what the OP asked: "I want to see the exact same thing inside Photoshop and out, and I’d like for that to be as close to what everyone else sees as possible (whatever the defaults are)." [..]

No color profile provides color management. The solution to the problem is proper color management. Just switching to another profile will only offset the problem.

—
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html

"Paul Mitchum" wrote in message

You have two options: The correct, and the real. 🙂

The correct way is to profile your monitor and then make sure only to use color-managed software.

The real way is to make sure your monitor profile is set to sRGB and then always make sure you output sRGB-profiled images. Windows defaults to sRGB anyway. sRGB (Standard RGB) is a profile designed to be ‘good enough’ for pretty much any computer display.

But those are the people I’m designing websites for, no?

Shouldn’t I be sticking to sRGB then, instead of this nativePC.icc..?

Jay wrote:

"Paul Mitchum" wrote in message

You have two options: The correct, and the real. 🙂

The correct way is to profile your monitor and then make sure only to use color-managed software.

The real way is to make sure your monitor profile is set to sRGB and then always make sure you output sRGB-profiled images. Windows defaults to sRGB anyway. sRGB (Standard RGB) is a profile designed to be ‘good enough’ for pretty much any computer display.

But those are the people I’m designing websites for, no?
Shouldn’t I be sticking to sRGB then, instead of this nativePC.icc..?

I can’t tell you the value of nativePC. sRGB was designed for the purpose of having a reasonably OK profile for any given (or unknown) computer monitor. So the best practice is: Output sRGB images, ideally with the profile embedded.

—
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html

Jay wrote:

I tried nativePC.icc and rebooted, and now Photoshop matches what I see in other programs. But Photoshop is still using sRGB. What just happened here?

I get the understanding that you loaded the nativePC as that Windows system profile under DisplayProperties. This is not correct way to use color-management.

1. Calibrate your monitor using AdobeGamma to gamma == 2.5 (or use any other such tool that allows to calibrate _and_ profile.

The gamma-space 2.5 target from:
http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/evaluation/gamma_space/index.htm greatly helps in calibration, make it as the background image of your desktop.

2. Convert all images that are destined to Web to the nativePC profile, using Intent==Relative and BlackPointCompensation==OFF.

What the RGB working-space of Photoshop happens to be has no direct effect to the above, unless you set it to nativePC also, in that case you need not to perform the step 2. In case you decide to to use a non-linear RGB working-space then it is much better to use the nativePC as the working RGB instead of the sadRGB. But editing in all non-linear RGB color-spaces introduces gamma induced errors, this is why I use linear color space as my working RGB space.

Timo Autiokari

Ok, I have no idea what any of that meant. You guys aren’t keeping this simple for me.

The problem at hand is that when I tried working on a simple JPG photo, the photo looked fine in CS3 but was over-saturated outside of Photoshop.

I would gladly keep everything "standard" with Photoshop using sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (which is what it uses upon installation) and Windows using whatever it is Windows uses as a default color profile (someone remind me what that is again so I can try going back to it), but like I said… last I tried that, there was a HUGE discrepancy between the image I worked on and the one that could be seen outside CS3.

That said, changing the Windows color profile to nativePC made the two images (inside Photoshop — which is still using sRGB IEC61966-2.1 — and out) much more similar.

Now you’re saying that was a mistake.

I don’t want a solution that requires me to do anything special each time I save a file. That’s unthinkable. I just want to know what color profiles I should be using for 1) CS3 and 2) WinXP.

Let’s start there. Maybe after all this tweaking, the problem will be gone (I didn’t have this problem before upgrading a number of items on my computer… so I know it’s at least POSSIBLE for Photoshop and Windows to display the same JPG similarly).

I’m going to try going through the AdobeGamma wizard now, which is the only part of your post I understood. =)

"Timo Autiokari" wrote in message

Jay wrote:

I tried nativePC.icc and rebooted, and now Photoshop matches what I see in other programs. But Photoshop is still using sRGB. What just happened here?

I get the understanding that you loaded the nativePC as that Windows system profile under DisplayProperties. This is not correct way to use color-management.

1. Calibrate your monitor using AdobeGamma to gamma == 2.5 (or use any other such tool that allows to calibrate _and_ profile.

The gamma-space 2.5 target from:
http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/evaluation/gamma_space/index.htm greatly helps in calibration, make it as the background image of your desktop.

2. Convert all images that are destined to Web to the nativePC profile, using Intent==Relative and BlackPointCompensation==OFF.

What the RGB working-space of Photoshop happens to be has no direct effect to the above, unless you set it to nativePC also, in that case you need not to perform the step 2. In case you decide to to use a non-linear RGB working-space then it is much better to use the nativePC as the working RGB instead of the sadRGB. But editing in all non-linear RGB color-spaces introduces gamma induced errors, this is why I use linear color space as my working RGB space.

Timo Autiokari

Jay wrote:

"Paul Mitchum" wrote:

sRGB (Standard RGB) is a profile designed to be
‘good enough’ for pretty much any computer display.

I have to disagree with that. There obviously was some other design criteria also. For example what was the reason for the very strong slope-limiting in the dark end of the tonal range? There are not any monitors that natively behave like that. The slope limiting has such an effect that:

1) The person who publish to Web and who has calibrated and profiled his/her system to sadRGB will see the images correctly in Photoshop and in his/her Web browser.

2) The people who surf on the Web generally have not calibrated their systems to sadRGB (so their systems are close to nativePC profile). Becuase of the sadRGB slople-limiting they see the dark end of the tonal range way much more darker than how the publisher sees the same images. And the people who surf on the Web will see a slight reddish cast on the images because none of the monitors have the sadRGB gamut.

But those are the people I’m designing websites for, no?

My guess is that one out of one million monitors/systems that are used for Web surfing are calibrated to sadRGB.

Timo Autiokari

Jay wrote:

I don’t want a solution that requires me to do anything special each time I save a file. That’s unthinkable. I just want to know what color profiles I should be using for 1) CS3 and 2) WinXP.

In order to utilize color-management, you do need to calibrate _and_ profile your system monitor. And you need to use that profile that the calibration+profiling utility creates, for the WinXP system. Calibrate your display to gamma space 2.5.

Then, in case you decide to work in non-linear RGB working-space, set the nativePC as the RGB working-space in Photoshop.

That is all, you will have a very good, nearly identical, match between your Photoshop and your Web browser and also all the people who view your Web images using their uncalibrated systems will see pretty much the same.

In order to have exactly the same appearance between Photoshop and all the non-color-managed software, you need to disable the color-management of Photoshop. But even then you do need to calibrate your monitor in order to have any certainty that people who view your images on the Web will see them similarly as you do.

Timo Autiokari

Timo Autiokari wrote:

"Paul Mitchum" wrote:

sRGB (Standard RGB) is a profile designed to be ‘good enough’ for pretty much any computer display.

I have to disagree with that. [..]

Well, that statement is simply true. You can argue whether it meets that goal or not, but that’s what it was designed for, as I stated.

—
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html

"Jay" wrote in message

Ok, I have no idea what any of that meant. You guys aren’t keeping this simple for me. <

Please pardon the confusion – you stepped on one of many cans of worms that are stored in odd corners of this group. This particular can of wigglers being labelled "sRGB".

The problem at hand is that when I tried working on a simple JPG photo, the photo looked fine in CS3 but was over-saturated outside of Photoshop. <

Perhaps you could upload one of your images to flickr.com, or another image hosting site, and post a link?

More than likely this is a monitor profile issue. Photoshop bends over backwards to display colors accurately, sometimes to a fault. A monitor profile that does not match your display will poison Photoshop’s ability to display accurate colors, while other applications blissfully display accurate colors. One good place to start is to download a monitor profile from the manufacturer, or (for a CRT) one that is created by running Adobe Gamma. I do not recommend using Adobe Gamma for an LCD.

Many people swear by monitor calibration devices. Although these devices do really work. I generally recommend that people save their money. These devices are not really necessary for accurate display, any more than an accurate sound meter is needed for good stereo sound. This can be as simple as downloading a test image, and adjusting your monitor settings until the image looks good. Your eyes are pretty good at color. Trust them.

All that said, many people still opt for a monitor calibration device – if you do, go for one of the better ones in the 200+ dollar range, if only for the superior software. EyeOne display, and Spyder Pro are probably the most popular. Avoid the Huey, at least for now.

Back to your problem. Here’s a long shot. Do you print the images, and if so do they also print undersaturated? What happens when you download an image from a web site – does it look undersaturated in Photoshop? If so, there is a setting in the Color Management dialog that reduces the saturation of displayed colors. Type ctrl-shift;K and see if that particular option is checked. If it is, that may be the problem.

SRGB is a perfectly good working space. Adobe RGB is very close to the same, with the added danger that you may provide an image to someone else, and the colors will appear washed out on their display. Others get excellent results in more exotic color spaces like ProPhoto RGB. IMHO that is high wire work and not for the timid.
—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

Mike Russell wrote:

Many people swear by monitor calibration devices. Although these devices do really work. I generally recommend that people save their money. These devices are not really necessary for accurate display, any more than an accurate sound meter is needed for good stereo sound. This can be as simple as downloading a test image, and adjusting your monitor settings until the image looks good. Your eyes are pretty good at color. Trust them.

Mike, do you have any recommendations? Thanks.
—

Larry
rapp at lmr dot com

"Larry" wrote in message

Mike Russell wrote:

Many people swear by monitor calibration devices. Although these devices do really work. I generally recommend that people save their money. These devices are not really necessary for accurate display, any more than an accurate sound meter is needed for good stereo sound. This can be as simple as downloading a test image, and adjusting your monitor settings until the image looks good. Your eyes are pretty good at color. Trust them.

Mike, do you have any recommendations? Thanks.

Here’s a good article that discusses this:
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html
—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

Paul Mitchum wrote:

Well, that statement is simply true.

It is not true nor the truth.

In the introduction of http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB they say:

"Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft propose the addition of support for a standard color space, sRGB, within the Microsoft operating systems, HP products, the Internet, and all other interested vendors."

Now:

"within the Microsoft operating systems" is a joke. MS has not done anything particular that would support sadRGB in their operating systems. During these 11 years that we have had the sadRGB proposal, Windows operating systems are still using the monitor uncalibrated.

"HP products" is also a joke. I have not seen any HP product that had have the sadRGB color-space. Many HP products do have such an menu-option but enabling that option does not make the product to behave according to the sadRGB specification.

"the Internet" …if this refers to the people on the internet then yes, some indeed have adopted the sadRGB in their workflow (such as he woring RGB space in Photoshop). While not understanding that there are very very small amount of people who actually have systems that really are calibrated to sadRGB.

"all other interested vendors" is a hilarious joke. Take two digital cameras that are said to be in sadRGB, from two different manufacturers, and shoot the same scene with them. Do the pictures look anywhere near the same. No they do not. Or take two printers that are said to be in sadRGB, from two different manufacturers, and print the same image with them. Do the pictures look anywhere near the same. No they do not. In case the devices would have the sadRGB color-space both the above comparisons would result very very close match.

Timo Autiokari

I think I know exactly what you’re talking about because I had the same problem. To simply put it, if you do a "Print Screen" and paste something into Photoshop, the colors will look different from the screen you copied correct? If so, when you paste that same exact thing into another application like MS Paint, it appears exactly like it should right? If so, I’m having the same problem. I somewhat corrected the issue by going to Display Properties>Advanced>Color, making sure "All Colors" is unchecked and clicked the "Defaults" button. After clicking "OK" everything in Photoshop looked like the web page I took a screen shot of.

My only problem is that I have dual monitors set up so on my secondary monitor, the colors in Photoshop still display differently. I have not had this problem until I updated to CS3. Actually I didn’t have this problem until I reinstalled CS3 to fix another problem Photoshop had (not able to read CS2 PSD files).

Hope this helps!

On Aug 8, 10:50 am, "Jay" wrote:

Just installed CS3.

Can someone tell me why images look different in Photoshop than they do outside of Photoshop? I have a JPG open in Photoshop and the same saved JPG open in explorer, and the colors are very different.

I figure it’s a profile thing, but how do I standardize this so that I can get roughly the same profile everyone else sees? I have to design websites soon and I don’t want them too skewed. I want to see the exact same thing inside Photoshop and out, and I’d like for that to be as close to what everyone else sees as possible (whatever the defaults are).
Thanks.

I think I know exactly what you’re talking about because I had the same problem. To simply put it, if you do a "Print Screen" and paste something into Photoshop, the colors will look different from the screen you copied correct? If so, when you paste that same exact thing into another application like MS Paint, it appears exactly like it should right? If so, I’m having the same problem. I somewhat corrected the issue by going to Display Properties>Advanced>Color, making sure "All Colors" is unchecked and clicked the "Defaults" button. After clicking "OK" everything in Photoshop looked like the web page I took a screen shot of.

My only problem is that I have dual monitors set up so on my secondary monitor, the colors in Photoshop still display differently. I have not had this problem until I updated to CS3. Actually I didn’t have this problem until I reinstalled CS3 to fix another problem Photoshop had (not able to read CS2 PSD files).

Hope this helps!

On Aug 8, 10:50 am, "Jay" wrote:

Just installed CS3.

Can someone tell me why images look different in Photoshop than they do outside of Photoshop? I have a JPG open in Photoshop and the same saved JPG open in explorer, and the colors are very different.

I figure it’s a profile thing, but how do I standardize this so that I can get roughly the same profile everyone else sees? I have to design websites soon and I don’t want them too skewed. I want to see the exact same thing inside Photoshop and out, and I’d like for that to be as close to what everyone else sees as possible (whatever the defaults are).
Thanks.

I solved the problem with the dual monitors. In Display
Settings>Advanced>Color Management I added the AdobeRGB1998 profile to both monitors and set them to default. Now images display exactly like they should.

wrote in message

I solved the problem with the dual monitors. In Display
Settings>Advanced>Color Management I added the AdobeRGB1998 profile to both monitors and set them to default. Now images display exactly like they should.

Although it appears to work, this is a good way to go about this because normal, non Photoshop images will look washed out.

The windows system display profiles should match your display hardware, not your working space in Photoshop, and definitely not Adobe RGB. A better way to accomplish is to put the display profiles back the same as they were, and turn off color management in Photoshop.
—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

oops:

Although it appears to work, this is a good way to go about this because normal, non Photoshop images will look washed out.

should have said:

Although it appears to work, this is *not* a good way to go about this because normal, non Photoshop images will look washed out.

Just to expand on this a bit, Adobe RGB should be used only as your working RGB profile in Photoshop’s Color settings, not as your system monitor profile under Windows Display Properties.
—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

I know it’s not a good way to go about this but I wanted a quick solution because I also design websites so I really need to see exactly what the output is going to be. I’m assuming my Dell 1905FP profile has somehow been corrupted and that’s what caused the change but I could be wrong. I will try what you suggested by restoring the original profiles and turning off the color management but just not at this moment. I can’t afford to lose anymore time on this project. Now, what are the cons to turning off color management in Photoshop? When you say that, do you mean select the "Color Management Off" setting in Color Settings or go to the Color Management Policies and select "Off" for each of the values?

Thanks!

On Aug 14, 12:26 am, "Mike Russell" <
MOVE> wrote:

oops:

Although it appears to work, this is a good way to go about this because normal, non Photoshop images will look washed out.

should have said:

Although it appears to work, this is *not* a good way to go about this because normal, non Photoshop images will look washed out.

Just to expand on this a bit, Adobe RGB should be used only as your working RGB profile in Photoshop’s Color settings, not as your system monitor profile under Windows Display Properties.
—
Mike Russell -www.curvemeister.com

wrote in message

I know it’s not a good way to go about this but I wanted a quick solution because I also design websites so I really need to see exactly what the output is going to be. I’m assuming my Dell 1905FP profile has somehow been corrupted and that’s what caused the change but I could be wrong.

Same monitor I use. Profiles seldom become damaged, but in any case, you can download a fresh copy from Dell.

I will try what you suggested by restoring the
original profiles and turning off the color management but just not at this moment. I can’t afford to lose anymore time on this project.

You should be fine, provided you are not passing on RGB files for others to use. If you do, the colors will be much too saturated when others view them in a color aware app such as Photoshop.

Now, what are the cons to turning off color management in Photoshop?

The main problem is that there is a good chance that your images will only look right on your computer’s screen. In practice, this is not a big deal, provided your screen is about the same as other people’s.

When
you say that, do you mean select the "Color Management Off" setting in Color Settings or go to the Color Management Policies and select "Off" for each of the values?

Exactly. Photoshop will then use your monitor profile as it’s working space.

—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com