New monitor and screen colour settings now shot to hell

"Peter" wrote in message

Having installed a new monitor (LCD) yes I know, not ideal! I have a problem with colour representation on screen.
In PS I can manipulate an image to a perfect consistency, but when viewed in explorer prior to copying to disk it looks overly light and washed out. I can’t currently print anything to check final colour as my printer is buggering about.
Don’t seem to have any success with colour management settings. Any advice other than taking up golf!
Thanks.

I would not advise taking up golf, it is much more frustrating than photography, (but everyone to their own perversions – frustrations – whatever).

Your problem sounds very much like your images are tagged with the Adobe RGB Profile, which will display correctly in PS, because it can use Profiles.

Most other Programs can’t use them, and only display correctly if the images are tagged with the sRGB Profile, and show A. RGB images as washed out and dull.

Try changing your PS > Edit > Colour Settings > Working Space to sRGB. Then open one of your images, if you get the Mismatched Profile Dialogue accept the conversion. Then Save As a Copy, and see how that copy looks in Explorer.

If you don’t get the Mismatch Dialogue go Edit > Convert to Profile and select sRGB. Then Save As a Copy and test that.

Roy G

Peter wrote:

Having installed a new monitor (LCD) yes I know, not ideal! I have a problem with colour representation on screen.
In PS I can manipulate an image to a perfect consistency, but when viewed in explorer prior to copying to disk it looks overly light and washed out. I can’t currently print anything to check final colour as my printer is buggering about.
Don’t seem to have any success with colour management settings. Any advice other than taking up golf!
Thanks.

1 Make sure you load up the screen drivers.

2 In photoshop CS3 menu bar RHS there is a work space. Check which work space you are using.

that should fix it,

"Roy G" wrote:

"Peter" wrote in message

Having installed a new monitor (LCD) yes I know, not ideal! I have a problem with colour representation on screen.
In PS I can manipulate an image to a perfect consistency, but when viewed in explorer prior to copying to disk it looks overly light and washed out. I can’t currently print anything to check final colour as my printer is buggering about.
Don’t seem to have any success with colour management settings. Any advice other than taking up golf!
Thanks.

I would not advise taking up golf, it is much more frustrating than photography, (but everyone to their own perversions – frustrations – whatever).

Your problem sounds very much like your images are tagged with the Adobe RGB Profile, which will display correctly in PS, because it can use Profiles.
Most other Programs can’t use them, and only display correctly if the images are tagged with the sRGB Profile, and show A. RGB images as washed out and dull.

I am not an experted on ColorSpace so don’t quote me on this, but I believe (or what I understand) that Web Browser is the only one doesn’t do well with aRGB, or Web Browser is designed to know only sRGB.

Try changing your PS > Edit > Colour Settings > Working Space to sRGB. Then open one of your images, if you get the Mismatched Profile Dialogue accept the conversion. Then Save As a Copy, and see how that copy looks in Explorer.

If you don’t get the Mismatch Dialogue go Edit > Convert to Profile and select sRGB. Then Save As a Copy and test that.

Here, I use aRGB (I don’t care much about web displaying) for both web and PC I have no displaying issue on any PC. Yes, little difference between web and PC but not much (unless I have the monitor way off)

Roy G

Thanks for all the good advice.
Having had a good look in colour settings, I have found that if I turn colour management off I then get the same result in Explorer and PS. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t leave management off? My work is mainly with technical shots for Boating magazines and non have complained about colour quality, but in recent issues I have noticed that the colour was less bright. Perhaps colour management has been acting against me since installing the new monitor, is that feasible? Peter

"Peter" wrote in message

Thanks for all the good advice.
Having had a good look in colour settings, I have found that if I turn colour management off I then get the same result in Explorer and PS. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t leave management off? My work is mainly with technical shots for Boating magazines and non have complained about colour quality, but in recent issues I have noticed that the colour was less bright. Perhaps colour management has been acting against me since installing the new monitor, is that feasible? Peter

Hi.

If you turn C.M. off in P.S. then you will get the same colours in P.S. and all other programs.

Yes, it is very likely that incorrect settings in C.M. will produce incorrect colours. Turning it off, may well only be hiding errors from yourself.

If you want the publishers to receive images with correct colours, then you really have to spend some time learning about C.M, and get your new Monitor Calibrated and Profiled, so that what you see on screen is also what your Publisher will see on their screen.

Roy G

"Peter" wrote in message

Thanks for all the good advice.
Having had a good look in colour settings, I have found that if I turn colour management off I then get the same result in Explorer and PS. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t leave management off?

Good question. The short answer is if it woks for you, go right ahead. The longer answer is that you may be flying blind, and although your luck has been good so far it may be better for you to take a little more control of what is happening, by manually adjusting your monitor to your own satisfaction.

This can be as simple as bringing up some standard images, perhaps on a web page, once a week or so, and making sure that your monitor settings are consistent. The most important thing to look out for is loss of shadow and highlight detail. Second most important is the overall color of your monitor – whether it is too warm or cold. All of these can be adjusted, more or less satisfactorily, by eye. Adjustng your monitor this way can be educational, and is not really a problem for a one person operation.

There are also situations, and yours may be one of them, where investing in a monitor calibration device is worthwhile.

My work is mainly with technical shots for Boating magazines and non have complained about colour quality, but in recent issues I have noticed that the colour was less bright. Perhaps colour management has been acting against me since installing the new monitor, is that feasible?

The overall saturation of colors can vary, depending on what the magazine expects. If you are sending them Adobe RGB files, and they are printing them as if they were sRGB, you’ll see less bright colors when the image goes to press. So send them sRGB files, and use that as your working space as well. If you do covers, I guarantee you’ll see a jump in quality if you bone up on color correction – Dan Margulis is good – and do your own CMYK separations.

Although boating magazines can get by with so-so colors, I think you may see some benefit from calibrating your monitor. Although you can get by with a manual adjustment, figure on spending about 200 US dollars for a Spyder Pro or an Eye One display 2. The software for these devices is quite good, but count on spending a bit of learning effort.
—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

"Peter" wrote:

Thanks for all the good advice.
Having had a good look in colour settings, I have found that if I turn colour management off I then get the same result in Explorer and PS. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t leave management off? My work is mainly with technical shots for Boating magazines and non have complained about colour quality, but in recent issues I have noticed that the colour was less bright. Perhaps colour management has been acting against me since installing the new monitor, is that feasible? Peter

If you google around then you should be able to get millions of hits because sRGB and aRGB has been talking over and over for so many years now. And like I said, for WEB displaying then sRGB is a good choice because web browser only support sRGB.

Joel wrote:

"Peter" wrote:

Thanks for all the good advice.
Having had a good look in colour settings, I have found that if I turn colour management off I then get the same result in Explorer and PS. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t leave management off? My work is mainly with technical shots for Boating magazines and non have complained about colour quality, but in recent issues I have noticed that the colour was less bright. Perhaps colour management has been acting against me since installing the new monitor, is that feasible? Peter

If you google around then you should be able to get millions of hits because sRGB and aRGB has been talking over and over for so many years now. And like I said, for WEB displaying then sRGB is a good choice because web browser only support sRGB.

For WEB display you should not have to rely on a calibration of an imbedded profile and hence you save for web without any profile.

Rob wrote:

Joel wrote:

"Peter" wrote:

Thanks for all the good advice.
Having had a good look in colour settings, I have found that if I turn colour management off I then get the same result in Explorer and PS. Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t leave management off? My work is mainly with technical shots for Boating magazines and non have complained about colour quality, but in recent issues I have noticed that the colour was less bright. Perhaps colour management has been acting against me since installing the new monitor, is that feasible? Peter

If you google around then you should be able to get millions of hits because sRGB and aRGB has been talking over and over for so many years now. And like I said, for WEB displaying then sRGB is a good choice because web browser only support sRGB.

For WEB display you should not have to rely on a calibration of an imbedded profile and hence you save for web without any profile.

I never use "Save To Web" but I guess it may save to sRGB colorspace, and if you want good color calibrated then just calibrate your monitor cuz web or non web both can benefit from good calibrated monitor.

Or "Save To Web" may save to sRGB colorspace *but* it won’t correct wrong color adjustment for you, and good color is what calibrated monitor can provide.

Thanks for all the valuable advice.
As a stopgap measure I reloaded the monitor defaults and that seems to be working pretty well for now.
I think I had a case of ‘a little knowledge being a dangerous thing’ and dabbled with settings I wasn’t too clear about.
From all the advice I have received I think the biggest lesson learned is that I need to get back to basics and start learning some basic colour management theory.
Thanks again everyone,
Peter