White is no longer!

SS
Posted By
Susan_Sherman
Mar 6, 2009
Views
402
Replies
7
Status
Closed
I have PS CS4 v.11.0 loaded on a Dell Optiplex 755 running Windows XP Pro SP3 with a Dell 1908FP(Digital) on ATI Radeon HD 2400 LCD monitor.

When running any program EXCEPT PS, white appears as white on the screen. When running PS, white appears as a pale shade of ecru in all open files, swatches, and color selection tools. All other colors are also "off" in this same manner.

However, when I use the PS-created files in other applications, white is once again white, but colors (unless I stick with Pantones) are also off.

Please save me from the insane asylum and offer me some advice on how to rectify this situation.

Thanks!

Susan

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DS
Dennis_S
Mar 6, 2009
Sounds like a problem with your monitor profile to me. If you right-click your XP desktop, select Properties, click on Settings tab, click on Advanced button, and select the Color Management tab, what is the name of the profile that is selected as default?

Is this occuring with a fresh install of CS4 or have you been using CS4 for a while without problems and all of a sudden this started happening? If the latter, do you remember changing anything on your system at about that time?

Are you using a device/program to calibrate/profile your monitor (Eye One, Huey, Spyder, etc.)? If so, which one and when was the last time you performed the calibration?
SS
Susan_Sherman
Mar 6, 2009
Dennis,

Thanks for your help!

There is only one profile available and it is called 1908FP.

It began with the fresh install of CS4 and I have been battling it for the 2-3 months since that time.

I am not using anything to calibrate/profile the monitor.
J
Jim
Mar 6, 2009
wrote in message
Dennis,

Thanks for your help!

There is only one profile available and it is called 1908FP.
It began with the fresh install of CS4 and I have been battling it for the 2-3 months since that time.

I am not using anything to calibrate/profile the monitor.

It seems to me that 1908FP is the generic profile that was supplied by Dell. These profiles may or may not work correctly with a particular monitor.

You need to buy one of the calibration programs and use it.

Jim
SS
Susan_Sherman
Mar 6, 2009
Well, I believe I solved the issue. I downloaded updated drivers for the monitor, which seems to have corrected the problem.

My PS Color Settings are set to – RGB: Adobe RGB (1998); CMYK: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2; Gray: Dot Gain 20%; and Spot: Dot Gain 20% and that my color management policies were set to – RGB: Convert to Working RGB; CMYK: Preserve Embedded Profiles; Gray: Preserve Embedded Profiles.

So my last question is, if all appears to be fine to my eye, are there any of the above settings you recommend that I change?
SJ
Sheri_Jackson
Mar 7, 2009
does photoshop cs4 have pop color?
DS
Dennis_S
Mar 7, 2009
So my last question is, if all appears to be fine to my eye, are there any of the above settings you recommend that I change?

That is a simple question that unfortunately can have a less-than-simple answer.

In general, none of THOSE settings is going to have a dramatic impact on how things look to your eye, particularly if you are using your eye on a monitor (as opposed to a print). You are using Adobe RGB as your working RGB space and that is not necessarily a bad choice depending on the types of images your work with, your preferred workflow, and your intended output medium. If you are posting images to the web, just make sure you convert to sRGB for those.

What COULD impact how things look to your eye and how well you get a match between what you see on your display and what you get in a print, is how well your monitor is calibrated and profiled. If you plan on doing serious work, I would recommend getting a calibration/profiling device. These start at the low end with devices like the Huey and go up from there to devices like the Spyder3, Eye One, and so on.

Here is a pretty good document that covers both of the above topics:

<http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/WGuidelines.pdf>

Color Management, calibration, and profiling can be rather daunting at first but there is a ton of information on the web. Just try drinking it in a little at a time.

does photoshop cs4 have pop color?

Well, you had me going with that question because I was not familiar with the term. If you mean being able to keep a specific color in an image and turn the rest of the image shades of grey, yes, you can do that in Photoshop. It is not as easy as clicking a "pop color" button and then selecting the part of the image where you want to keep that color but it’s pretty easy. Here is one of probably 10 ways to do it:

– Do a Select>Color Range from the PS menu.
– Click on the color you want to keep (not turn to grey). – You can shift-click to add samples that will add additional tones – You can adjust the fuzziness to also control the breadth of tones selected. – You can use the Selection Preview options to see the select portions in different ways. – Once you have selected what you want, click OK.
– Now on the menu, do Select>Inverse. This will now select what you want to change to greys. – Now do Image>Adjustments>Desaturate.

That’s it. As I said, there are several other ways to do it and you can use adjustment layers instead of direct image adjustments but I gave you one of the quick and dirty methods.

Hope that helps.
SJ
Sheri_Jackson
Mar 7, 2009
thank you for your help!

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