Image Discrepancy

This fellow, and Adobe expert works in advertising, submitted a finished Photoshop image product to his supervisor.

I was invited to inspect the completed image.

Everyone uses Photoshop 7.

On the supervisors computer, and on several other graphic computers he shared, over the network, the product image. On every computer that we opened this image into Photoshop the background had cloudy, shadow shapes behind the product. Everyone was very upset over this unexpected event. On this fellow’s computer the image was pristine, sharp, uncluttered, clean with no apparent background noise.
I took a look at this fellow’s image. Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch. The product had a completely white background. On every other computer this image, Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch was ruined, a noisy background with cloudy gray shapes.

What I did on this fellow’s computer – I used the zoom tool – and when I expanded the image 4 fold and higher we could see the noisy background. It took extreme magnification to discover this effect. We would never have noticed except by extreme magnification.
This fellow was very upset. He explained that this would never have happened if he had a better graphic card, a newer version of Photoshop, and so forth. That may be but I don’t know. It seems that art departments using versions of Photoshop 7 and earlier are able to complete their Photoshop projects without troubles.

Why I write this long message is that the supervisor wants to fire this fellow.
I want to save his job. The image work on his computer looks perfect. On the other computers the image looks god awful. I can’t explain how the appearance of the product image would be effected simply by moving the image off his computer.

Are we in agreement that there is no fault in Photoshop 7? I am reluctant to blame this fellow. But there must be a reasonable explanation. I don’t think upgrading to Photoshop CS4 will fix this issue.

Any comments will be helpful
Thanks

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:10:30 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar wrote:

This fellow, and Adobe expert works in advertising, submitted a finished Photoshop image product to his supervisor.

I was invited to inspect the completed image.

Everyone uses Photoshop 7.

On the supervisors computer, and on several other graphic computers he shared, over the network, the product image. On every computer that we opened this image into Photoshop the background had cloudy, shadow shapes behind the product.  Everyone was very upset over this unexpected event.  On this fellow’s computer the image was pristine, sharp, uncluttered, clean with no apparent background noise.

I took a look at this fellow’s image. Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch. The product had a completely white background.  On every other computer this image, Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch was ruined, a noisy background with cloudy gray shapes.

What I did on this fellow’s computer – I used the zoom tool – and when I expanded the image 4 fold and higher we could see the noisy background.  It took extreme magnification to discover this effect. We would never have noticed except by extreme magnification.

This fellow was very upset. He explained that this would never have happened if he had a better graphic card, a newer version of Photoshop, and so forth. That may be but I don’t know. It seems that art departments using versions of  Photoshop 7 and earlier are able to complete their Photoshop projects without troubles.

Why I write this long message is that the supervisor wants to fire this fellow.
I want to save his job. The image work on his computer looks perfect. On the other computers the image looks god awful. I can’t explain how the appearance of the product image would be effected simply by moving the image off his computer.

Are we in agreement that there is no fault in Photoshop 7? I am reluctant to blame this fellow. But there must be a reasonable explanation. I don’t think upgrading to Photoshop CS4 will fix this issue.

Any comments will be helpful
Thanks

Being a consultant, I am good at providing some sort of an answer, even with no data, so here goes, LOL.

My first guess is that Photoshop’s printer profiles are set up differently on the various systems.  This is a combination of settings in Photoshop itself, and the printer driver.   Both of these can affect the appearance of the print preview.

My second guess is that this is a monitor calibration issue.  It’s very easy, particularly with LCD displays, to have something look white on one screen, and anything but white on another screen.

A third possibility is that there are certain shades of bright, unsaturated yellow that simply do not show up on a narrow gamut display.  If, as is the case at many companies, the management personnel get the new sexy equipment (such as an Adobe RGB gamut LED display), and the guys doing the actual work use their own notebook LCD screens, this kind of problem can easily happen.

It’s possible to guard against the last two cases using Photoshop’s info palette to look at the RGB numbers – make sure that what looks white actually *is* white.

None of these are a reason to fire someone – rather it is a warning flag that you need to standardize some of your procedures, for starters, universal use of the info palette to verify that whites are white.  You could also investigate calibrating everyone’s monitor with something like the i1 or Spyder.  Stay away from the huey.  

Access to the image file, or a small section of it, would allow one of us to actually explain what happened.  
—
Mike Russell -http://www.curvemeister.com- Hide quoted text –
– Show quoted text –

On Sep 27, 9:15 pm, Mike Russell
wrote:

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:10:30 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar wrote:

This fellow, and Adobe expert works in advertising, submitted a finished Photoshop image product to his supervisor.

I was invited to inspect the completed image.

Everyone uses Photoshop 7.

On the supervisors computer, and on several other graphic computers he shared, over the network, the product image. On every computer that we opened this image into Photoshop the background had cloudy, shadow shapes behind the product.  Everyone was very upset over this unexpected event.  On this fellow’s computer the image was pristine, sharp, uncluttered, clean with no apparent background noise.

I took a look at this fellow’s image. Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch. The product had a completely white background.  On every other computer this image, Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch was ruined, a noisy background with cloudy gray shapes.

What I did on this fellow’s computer – I used the zoom tool – and when I expanded the image 4 fold and higher we could see the noisy background.  It took extreme magnification to discover this effect. We would never have noticed except by extreme magnification.

This fellow was very upset. He explained that this would never have happened if he had a better graphic card, a newer version of Photoshop, and so forth. That may be but I don’t know. It seems that art departments using versions of  Photoshop 7 and earlier are able to complete their Photoshop projects without troubles.

Why I write this long message is that the supervisor wants to fire this fellow.
I want to save his job. The image work on his computer looks perfect. On the other computers the image looks god awful. I can’t explain how the appearance of the product image would be effected simply by moving the image off his computer.

Are we in agreement that there is no fault in Photoshop 7? I am reluctant to blame this fellow. But there must be a reasonable explanation. I don’t think upgrading to Photoshop CS4 will fix this issue.

Any comments will be helpful
Thanks

Being a consultant, I am good at providing some sort of an answer, even with no data, so here goes, LOL.

My first guess is that Photoshop’s printer profiles are set up differently on the various systems.  This is a combination of settings in Photoshop itself, and the printer driver.   Both of these can affect the appearance of the print preview.

My second guess is that this is a monitor calibration issue.  It’s very easy, particularly with LCD displays, to have something look white on one screen, and anything but white on another screen.

A third possibility is that there are certain shades of bright, unsaturated yellow that simply do not show up on a narrow gamut display.  If, as is the case at many companies, the management personnel get the new sexy equipment (such as an Adobe RGB gamut LED display), and the guys doing the actual work use their own notebook LCD screens, this kind of problem can easily happen.

It’s possible to guard against the last two cases using Photoshop’s info palette to look at the RGB numbers – make sure that what looks white actually *is* white.

None of these are a reason to fire someone – rather it is a warning flag that you need to standardize some of your procedures, for starters, universal use of the info palette to verify that whites are white.  You could also investigate calibrating everyone’s monitor with something like the i1 or Spyder.  Stay away from the huey.  

Access to the image file, or a small section of it, would allow one of us to actually explain what happened.  
—
Mike Russell -http://www.curvemeister.com- Hide quoted text –
– Show quoted text –

Thank you.
This explantion really helps.

I look forward to sharing your information. I don’t have the orignal with me.
I did ask the supervisor to send me the ‘damaged’ image. Here is a link that will allow you to view our problem. Thanks !
http://www.box.net/shared/fbs5oyel4b

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:33:23 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar wrote:

On Sep 27, 9:15 pm, Mike Russell
wrote:

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:10:30 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar wrote:

This fellow, and Adobe expert works in advertising, submitted a finished Photoshop image product to his supervisor.

I was invited to inspect the completed image.

Everyone uses Photoshop 7.

On the supervisors computer, and on several other graphic computers he shared, over the network, the product image. On every computer that we opened this image into Photoshop the background had cloudy, shadow shapes behind the product.  Everyone was very upset over this unexpected event.  On this fellow’s computer the image was pristine, sharp, uncluttered, clean with no apparent background noise.

I took a look at this fellow’s image. Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch. The product had a completely white background.  On every other computer this image, Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch was ruined, a noisy background with cloudy gray shapes.

What I did on this fellow’s computer – I used the zoom tool – and when I expanded the image 4 fold and higher we could see the noisy background.  It took extreme magnification to discover this effect. We would never have noticed except by extreme magnification.

This fellow was very upset. He explained that this would never have happened if he had a better graphic card, a newer version of Photoshop, and so forth. That may be but I don’t know. It seems that art departments using versions of  Photoshop 7 and earlier are able to complete their Photoshop projects without troubles.

Why I write this long message is that the supervisor wants to fire this fellow.
I want to save his job. The image work on his computer looks perfect. On the other computers the image looks god awful. I can’t explain how the appearance of the product image would be effected simply by moving the image off his computer.

Are we in agreement that there is no fault in Photoshop 7? I am reluctant to blame this fellow. But there must be a reasonable explanation. I don’t think upgrading to Photoshop CS4 will fix this issue.

Any comments will be helpful
Thanks

Being a consultant, I am good at providing some sort of an answer, even with no data, so here goes, LOL.

My first guess is that Photoshop’s printer profiles are set up differently on the various systems.  This is a combination of settings in Photoshop itself, and the printer driver.   Both of these can affect the appearance of the print preview.

My second guess is that this is a monitor calibration issue.  It’s very easy, particularly with LCD displays, to have something look white on one screen, and anything but white on another screen.

A third possibility is that there are certain shades of bright, unsaturated yellow that simply do not show up on a narrow gamut display.  If, as is the case at many companies, the management personnel get the new sexy equipment (such as an Adobe RGB gamut LED display), and the guys doing the actual work use their own notebook LCD screens, this kind of problem can easily happen.

It’s possible to guard against the last two cases using Photoshop’s info palette to look at the RGB numbers – make sure that what looks white actually *is* white.

None of these are a reason to fire someone – rather it is a warning flag that you need to standardize some of your procedures, for starters, universal use of the info palette to verify that whites are white.  You could also investigate calibrating everyone’s monitor with something like the i1 or Spyder.  Stay away from the huey.  

Access to the image file, or a small section of it, would allow one of us to actually explain what happened.  
—
Mike Russell -http://www.curvemeister.com-Hide quoted text –

– Show quoted text –

Thank you.
This explantion really helps.

I look forward to sharing your information. I don’t have the orignal with me.
I did ask the supervisor to send me the ‘damaged’ image. Here is a link that will allow you to view our problem.  Thanks !

http://www.box.net/shared/fbs5oyel4b

I’ll bet my last gulab juman it’s a monitor issue.  

On my LCD screen, the image is reasonably clean with some very faint smudges in the background.  Dragging the image over to my CRT, the smudges, which are the remnants of an off-white partially erased background, are clearly visible.  

BTW – another procedure to check for this would be to use levels to darken the image temporarily, which will show up any artifacts remaining in the background.  

I would not fault the operator, but would instead change the standard procedure to include a final check as follows. Create an action that bumps the dark levels triangle to about 164, and connect that action to a function key.  Before saving the image, press the function key to invoke the action.  Then (assuming the image looks OK), type ctrl-Z to undo the levels command and save the image.
—
Mike Russell -http://www.curvemeister.com- Hide quoted text –
– Show quoted text –

Thank you…this is awesome information.
It will be a good day tomorrow fixing this ; and applying your techniques.
Sincerely
John Marshall

I look forward to sharing your information. I don’t have the orignal with me.
I did ask the supervisor to send me the ‘damaged’ image. Here is a link that will allow you to view our problem. Thanks !
http://www.box.net/shared/fbs5oyel4b

This fellow, and Adobe expert works in advertising, submitted a finished Photoshop image product to his supervisor.

I was invited to inspect the completed image.

Everyone uses Photoshop 7.

On the supervisors computer, and on several other graphic computers he shared, over the network, the product image. On every computer that we opened this image into Photoshop the background had cloudy, shadow shapes behind the product. Everyone was very upset over this unexpected event. On this fellow’s computer the image was pristine, sharp, uncluttered, clean with no apparent background noise.
I took a look at this fellow’s image. Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch. The product had a completely white background. On every other computer this image, Photoshop ‘Print View’ – 8×10 inch was ruined, a noisy background with cloudy gray shapes.

What I did on this fellow’s computer – I used the zoom tool – and when I expanded the image 4 fold and higher we could see the noisy background. It took extreme magnification to discover this effect. We would never have noticed except by extreme magnification.
This fellow was very upset. He explained that this would never have happened if he had a better graphic card, a newer version of Photoshop, and so forth. That may be but I don’t know. It seems that art departments using versions of Photoshop 7 and earlier are able to complete their Photoshop projects without troubles.

Why I write this long message is that the supervisor wants to fire this fellow.
I want to save his job. The image work on his computer looks perfect. On the other computers the image looks god awful. I can’t explain how the appearance of the product image would be effected simply by moving the image off his computer.

Are we in agreement that there is no fault in Photoshop 7? I am reluctant to blame this fellow. But there must be a reasonable explanation. I don’t think upgrading to Photoshop CS4 will fix this issue.

I’ll bet my last gulab juman it’s a monitor issue.

On my LCD screen, the image is reasonably clean with some very faint smudges in the background. Dragging the image over to my CRT, the smudges, which are the remnants of an off-white partially erased background, are clearly visible.

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:33:23 -0700 (PDT), Parvardigar

I look forward to sharing your information. I don’t have the orignal with me.
I did ask the supervisor to send me the ‘damaged’ image. Here is a link that will allow you to view our problem. Thanks !
http://www.box.net/shared/fbs5oyel4b

Here’s a way to examine the image for all problems. I couldn’t see anything wrong in the main window.
With the navigator/info tab, using info, I saw a lot of numbers changing from 255,255,255. But visually no problem.

Took it to ‘variations’ and the highlights tab with clipping selected, and those artifacts jumped right out. As to how to edit it, you can’t do it from variations. Only way I can see to edit those areas would be in quick mask mode.
here’s the variations result.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7637/clippingn.jpg

here’s the variations result.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7637/clippingn.jpg

I used the Magic Wand at a tolerance of 40, shift-clicked in the two lens openings and the little sector-shaped opening under the nose bridge and hit <Delete> with colors at Default. That left the little shadows under the lens frames intact as well. I bet there’s a half-dozen ways to do it.

here’s the variations result.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7637/clippingn.jpg

I used the Magic Wand at a tolerance of 40, shift-clicked in the two lens openings and the little sector-shaped opening under the nose bridge and hit <Delete> with colors at Default. That left the little shadows under the lens frames intact as well. I bet there’s a half-dozen ways to do it.

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:58:44 -0700, Mike Russell
wrote:

I’ll bet my last gulab juman it’s a monitor issue.

On my LCD screen, the image is reasonably clean with some very faint smudges in the background. Dragging the image over to my CRT, the smudges,
which are the remnants of an off-white partially erased background, are clearly visible.

[snip]

The smudges are VERY noticeable on my monitor. There is nothing subtle about them.

The white background shows RGB 255,255,255
The smudges show typical RGB 240,244,225

How about gamma adjustment?

Gary

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:58:44 -0700, Mike Russell

wrote:

I’ll bet my last gulab juman it’s a monitor issue.  

On my LCD screen, the image is reasonably clean with some very faint smudges in the background.  Dragging the image over to my CRT, the smudges, which are the remnants of an off-white partially erased background, are clearly visible.  

[snip]

The smudges are VERY noticeable on my monitor.  There is nothing subtle about them.

The white background shows RGB 255,255,255
The smudges show typical RGB 240,244,225

How about gamma adjustment?

Gary