To Daryl, message #3:
I downloaded the MS Color Management utility, as you suggested. No luck. The monitor has only 1 profile, and it shows as installed. The printer has only 1 profile, and it shows as installed.
You said "you are basically viewing the image with whatever happens to be the default color lookup tables (gamma tables) for your graphics chipset" If so, those colors are just fine. They match the printer output very closely.
But I don’t see those same colors in PS10. There they are much more saturated and the grays are brown.
My PS background area is set to the default gray. It looks gray. OTOH, if I choose Custom, and set the values to 128-128-128, the color is brown, not gray. I wonder what the default "gray" is…
You say that PS and ID can’t see the profile. If so, how do we explain the following?
(a) In Color Settings, RBG working space, the Dell 1905FP profile is listed as a choice.
(b) In Assign Profile, this profile is a listed choice.
(c) Ditto for Convert to profile.
(d) When I switch to View/Proof Colors (using Monitor RGB): the colors change dramatically, and in this view they are correct, i.e. they ‘match’ the printer output. PS is obviously changing the data sent to the monitor, but what profile is it using for Monitor RGB?
The what I see with View/Proof Colors (Monitor RBG) is close enough for my needs. I am a home user, not a graphics pro, so spending hundreds on a hardware color calibration system isn’t cost effective for me.
I didn’t have this problem with PS9/CS2. If I open an image with an embedded sRBG profile, created in PS9, why does it look so different on screen in PS10, with the same monitor and same working space color profile? This isn’t deterioration of the monitor. The change in behavior coincides precisely with the switch from CS2 to CS3 (PS9 to PS10).
The question is, what did they change in CS3, and how do I cope with it? I just want to see the same thing I saw when I opened the image in PS9.
Myrna,
I’m trying to help within the limits of my knowledge, but I’m not an expert. I’m not sure how best to explain things but I do see how I failed to state things clearly, with regard to my "PS and ID don’t see…" comment. What I meant was not that they don’t find your monitor profile available to populate their menus with, but rather they are not seeing the color values as loaded to your graphics chipset, or at least I believe that to be true.
I’ll return later and add more, but if you didn’t have the problem with PS9/CS2, I can only guess that even if you failed to calibrate your monitor using Adobe Gamma, it was nonetheless still installed to your startup menu and was thus loading some sort of values to the gamma tables that yielded a good color response on your monitor. In CS3, Adobe Gamma is not installed…that is the only difference I am aware of with respect to color management and as far as I know, some sort of gamma loader should be used. I’ve never read the user’s guid on this topic since I run a 3rd party gamma loader anyway, for my Monaco EasyColor software. But, if I didn’t have that, I’d be using something to serve that function.
While available elsewhere, it’s easier for me to upload this file rather than search for the link: <
http://ambress.com/photoshop/DisplayProfile.zip>
DisplayProfile is a free utility provided by GretagMacbeth that is a standalone executable…just unzip it and run the file by clicking on DisplayProfile.exe. It will launch and show which color profile on your system is currently loaded to the gamma tables, and clicking any other profile will load that profile instead. Doing so, you will see the color rendition on your monitor change; to revert to your Dell profile or make it active (assuming it wasn’t active to start with, which is my guess), just click on it. Then launch PS CS3 and see if your colors look different within it. If they look correct, that is what I’d expect; if they differ, ther it seems to me that something else is awry with your color settings.
I thought someone else might chime in with better ideas or corrections where I might’ve said something wrong…I think the basics of what I’m saying are correct though.
Regards,
Daryl
Hi, again, Daryl:
I have resolved the problem, but almost certainly in the WRONG way <g>.
I eventually found messages in the Dell Support forums saying that the profile they supply with the 1905FP monitor doesn’t "play well" with Photoshop. In PS, grays are brown. Supposedly this doesn’t happen with non-color managed apps and not with color managed apps from sources other than Adobe.
So, after searching unsuccessfully for an updated ICM file for the monitor, I deleted the 1905FP.ICM file and associated the generic sRBG color space file with the monitor.
Now things are back the way they were before I installed CS3. Images in PS10 and ID5 look just the way they did in PS9 and ID4!
I wonder if somehow CS2 wasn’t using the monitor profile. I certainly didn’t change the profile assignment myself, though I did install a new driver for my nVidia graphics card.
As I said, deleting the profile is probably the wrong thing to do, but it solves my problem. If what I see on the screen is very close to what I get from my inkjet printer, I am a happy camper.
In the mean time, thanks for all of your help.
re DisplayProfile.exe
I just ran this, and it shows the sRGB profile that I assigned a few minutes ago. Then I associated a couple of other profiles with the monitor. Now I see all 3 profiles, but there’s no indication of which one is loaded into the video card, if any. And clicking on one of the profiles doesn’t do anything. And there are no buttons like Associate, Remove, Uninstall, Install, etc.
What is it supposed to do?
Myrna,
From what I’ve seen when I’ve used DisplayProfile, it basically just provides a temporary loading of whatever profile you click on, acting the way other gamma loaders do but not maintaining the profile the way a utility in the startup menu would do following a reboot.
I think you may be confusing "associating a profile" with actually…I’m not sure what best to call it….enabling, activating, or loading a profile. If clicking on a profile in DisplayProfile doesn’t change anything much, then the profile may have a very similar color space to the one that was active. I’ve never seen too much information on this tool. I primarily used it to check and verify for my dual-monitor setup, that each monitor had a separate profile actively loaded to the gamma tables (lookup tables) of the graphics card. If something should confuse you about DisplayProfile, I’d suggest you just reselect the sRGB profile so you’re back to those settings. This utility does not add or remove profiles, so it will not change anything other than what is currently loaded to the gamma tables. The inidcation of which profile is active is provided simply as whichever one is highlighted in DisplayProfile before you close it. You should be able to verify that by launching DisplayProfile, choosing any profile, then closing and reopening DisplayProfile to find that the last left setting is what it shows first highlighted. If not, that may be a quirk of the program that I’ve seen on a few occasions.
I’m not sure what value is to be had in associating multiple profiles to a monitor. If I had a calibrated laptop screen and often worked under different lighting conditions…incandescent, fluorescent, etc., then I could see where a profile for each environment might be good to have. That is also a situation where I might well just rely upon using DisplayProfile as my gamma loader, rather than having anything in the startup menu.
I think your associating the sRGB profile to your monitor may relate to what I wrote in an earlier posting…that since you’re not using a gamma loader in the startup of your PC to actually load the gamma tables with the profile information, everything is working with default values which most likely are targeted at an sRGB workspace. However, the fact DisplayProfile showed the sRGB profile as active when you opened the utility, it does sound like the gamma tables are being set up for sRGB…I can only guess again that is just a default behavior rather than being due to anything you’ve done.
I hope I’m making some sense…I even feel lost in this at times, and particularly here before I go to bed at nearly 3am.
Daryl
Hi, Daryl:
re the original PS problem:
This is my understanding of color management. The intent is to see the same colors on the screen that you see on the printed output. That requires accurate descriptions (profiles) for the devices. Those profiles tell you what RGB values must be sent to the device to produce a particular wave length of light.
I find the following in "Real World Photoshop CS2" by Fraser and Blatner, sidebar on page 146:
"Photoshop *always* displays images through your monitor profile, which it picks up from the operating system. It performs an on-the-fly conversion on the data sent to the video card from the document’s space … to your monitor space. This conversion is only for display — it doesn’t affect the contents of the file."
There is nothing there about loading different tables into the video card — just translating RGB numbers *before* they are sent to the card.
If the quoted paragraph is correct, then my problem is that the monitor profile is faulty, resulting in incorrect colors on-screen.
That seems to be a correct description of what’s happening, because
(a) when I print the image, it looks nothing like what I see on the screen when using the 1905FP monitor profile
(b) when I change the default monitor profile to sRGB, the display changes and now matches the printer output
(c) when I Proof Colors using Monitor RGB (which I conclude means "send the raw RGB numbers to the video card without any translation"), the display also changes and now matches the printer very closely.
I think that when I was running CS2/PS9, 1905FP was not the default monitor profile, and now it is. How/why that changed, I don’t know.
Anyway, removing that profile as the default for the monitor cures my problem.
Again, thanks for the insights and for the DisplayProfile utility.
re DisplayProfile.exe, I found the following in another message:
"[it] only works with profiles that contain certain tags inside the actual profile…. When you click on one of these "compatible" profiles, you will see your monitor change as the profile is loaded into your video card lookup table (VLUT). If you click an incompatible profile (ie, one without the proper tags), you will see no change at all, since DisplayProfile.exe cannot load this into the VLUT. …. sRGB, AdobeRGB and many of the other standard profiles do NOT have the necessary tags."
This explains why the program doesn’t do anything for me. No profile in my list has an asterisk 🙁
Ooops…yet another oversight on my part Myrna, regarding the missing asterisk on profiles listed in DisplayProfile. Indeed, I see the same thing, and it is only those profiles which I have built using my Monaco EasyColor that have the tags.
Because they don’t provide the data needed for populating the VLUT with data specific to one’s monitor, I’m not sure if sRGB, AdobeRGB, etc. are wise to use as a monitor profile. I believe their primary intent is to be used as a color workspace, establishing a device-independent profile that is then embedded with your image file. Regardless, if use of the sRGB profile is giving you good results, I can’t argue against using it when my own knowledge is limited.
I wonder if folks here are watching us to see what we learn on our own? I’m a little surprised by the lack of input from someone who may understand the details better! 😉
Daryl
When I go into the monitor setup (using the buttons on the front) and select Color Settings, I see several presets: "Blue", "Red", "Normal (sRGB)" and "User". With that last one I can change the R, G, and B settings individually.
I have selected "Normal (sRBG)". That setting, plus assigning the sRGB profile as the default with the Win Color Setup utility, is giving me good color in PS10 and ID5.
Thanks again for your help.
Myrna,
I once bought a Dell 2407WFP flat panel that was defective and I returned, opting to buy a BenQ FP2431 instead. Not long afterwards, I learned that BenQ was supposedly the integrator for the Dell monitor, so I guess it shouldn’t suprise me that where you have a "Blue" and "Red" color temperature setting, I have a "Bluish" and "Reddish". I suspect "Blue" corresponds to a 9300°K color temperature while "Red" is likely 5000°K. The sRGB setting is 6500°K. Meanwhile, "User" is where you get into custom calibration of your monitor by adjusting the individual R, G, and B settings until a colorimeter reports a true temperature that you’ve targeted. Because of manufacturer variances, those canned settings aren’t always accurate and an example is my BenQ, where I just measured the sRGB (Normal) setting as having a 6000°K temperature, while my calibrated User setting is as close to the desired 6500° of sRGB as I could obtain, measured at 6485°K. This is the calibration phase, followed then by a profiling, whereby a series of color patches are presented on screen and measured. Given that my color temperature goal was the sRGB ideal, I think it is correct to say that the profile is, in effect, an sRGB profile uniquely built for my monitor.
So, what you have gone with in using your monitor’s native sRGB setting and an sRGB profile is, in effect, the same as what I have done. Theoretically, my calibrated results should provide a more true and accurate rendition of colors, particulary when coupled with knowing that the gamma loader is loading my custom profile to the VLUT. But, if what you see pretty well matches what you print, then I sure can’t fault the approach you took.
Daryl
