Bogus Color Points

LH
Posted By
Les_Helgeson
Jan 19, 2009
Views
404
Replies
2
Status
Closed
It appears CS4 has a problem displaying established color points in the Information Palette correctly. For example, setting a highlight color correction target point (shift/click using the eyedropper) creates an RGB value which is significantly different from that displayed by the cursor readout display ("first color readout" in the Info. palette). In other words, you think you are establishing a point with say 245/238/227 but the resulting point (#1 of 4 allowable in the Info. Palette) reads perhaps 215/227/228. Aaaargh!

Unfortunately, there appears to be little consistency with the display discrepancy and worse yet the RGB discrepancies are not proportional. That leaves those of us who prefer to correct color by the numbers (at least in part!) without a reasonable foundation to work from. The situation is reminiscent of CS2 whereby the numbers would simply disappear from the palette altogether when making color corrections. Fortunately, Adobe released a patch that corrected the problem in CS2.

System is Win XP Pro w/3GB RAM, 3 GHz processor, etc. etc. more than sufficient to run CS4, which otherwise runs OK save for random minor slowdowns of cursor displays when using a mouse (plenty from others in "CS4 is a Disaster" on that one).
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M
Mylenium
Jan 19, 2009
Any color profiles? The interactive readout would display the current profiling, while the static spots might display the uncorrected info.

Mylenium
LH
Les_Helgeson
Jan 19, 2009
I realized after posting that the color profile stuff should have been included so here goes.

I’m correcting 16 bit PSD files in ProPhoto color space. The files originate in a Canon 5D and are processed in ACR using the Adobe "Standard" camera profile (sometimes use "4.4" or others but rarely). I pretty much stay in RGB but also use LAB or rarely CMYK for some tonal stuff (after initial color RGB shadow, highlight and neutral corrections). I also keep LAB as the "secondary display" in the info. palette, which also appears to display incorrectly: ie neutral RGB values should display as 0,0 LAB or close but often the display will be -2,0 LAB when the static RGB values are say 20/20/20 for example. I can only guess if the interactive readouts are accurate, though.

The static spots appear to display both the uncorrected/corrected numbers as do the dynamic interactive information. Also, the only correction performed after opening a file in CS4 is a "capture sharpening" via Photokit Sharpener (great product, BTW!). The file is then flattened for color correction and/or other tweaks as needed.

I should also add that overall I am currently performing some relatively extreme corrections on shots taken at an indoor bluegrass music festival under "creative" lighting conditions without flash. ACR gets us most of the way there using a white balance correction so the corrections in CS4 are theoretically relatively modest. Unfortunately, correcting "by the numbers" is proving to be problematic.

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