Need help with photoshop CS color problem

[ssra30]

mandrake, actually I still use Adobe RGB for my PS Workspace and actually changed my color profile from the one specific for my monitor over to Adobe RGB as well.
That seems to fix the problem so far.

 

[mandrake]

mandrake, actually I still use Adobe RGB for my PS Workspace and actually changed my color profile from the one specific for my monitor over to Adobe RGB as well.
That seems to fix the problem so far.

What do you mean by 'changed my color profile'?

You're supposed to generate a color profile for your monitor either manually (there are websites that explain what to do, but most of them are confusing or wrong), or with a software program like Adobe Gamma, or, best yet, with a colorimeter like the ColorVision Spyder, for one. Whichever method you choose, you create a profile specific to your monitor. Then (assuming you're using windows) you make this your active monitor profile.

Now in PhotoShop you should use a generic working space like Adobe RGB. PhotoShop is a color profile aware application that know both your current photo's embedded profile and your monitor profile, and will map from one to the other to display the photo correctly.

Almost all other programs besides PS are not aware of color profiles, so they will ignore embedded profiles and don't know about your monitor profile, so they display a photo incorrectly. This is they way they work. There's nothing wrong with it and you can't fix it. The problem you describe at the beginning of this post is the way the world works, there was nothing to fix. My photos look different in PhotoShop than they do in other applications too. PhotoShop displays them correctly, everything else displays them incorrectly.

If you try to fix this by making your monitor profile your PS working space, or by making Adobe Gamma your monitor profile, you'll get the photos to look right on your monitor but nowhere else. Anyone viewing it on a different monitor will see something very different from what you intend, even though it looks perfectly alright to you.

 

[lukeROB]

You are a wealth of information mandrake. Thanks for the excellent explanations. I had a vague idea of how the profiles worked before but now I fully understand.

I calibrated PS to use a custom workspace which I defined from the print shop photos I had made. I want my colour to look right on their printer. Is this correct, or should I use a generic profile?

 

[ssra30]

Mandrake, thanks for your very thorough explanation. I guess in the past I did use adobe gamma profile and recently changed back to my monitor profile which would explain why suddenly the pictures looked different. Oh well, I thought it was worth a try and did not realize how involving and complicated this is.

 

[Curt Bowen]

I will check the monitor profile at home tonight.
Looking at the picture on a different computer gave me the more faded color version just like when I am viewing the picture with other programs on my computer.
Basically I get the more saturated picture when I look at it in PS but when looking on the same computer with a different program, or looking at the picture on another computer, I get the less saturated and brighter version. In PS, I also see the less saturated and brighter picture in the save for the web preview.

99.9% of computer monitors are NOT color calibrated. True color calibrated monitors are VERY expensive and need to be calibrated almost every day. If you look at the same photo on 10 different monitors, each one will be a little different.

If I am using a photo for the monitor or web, I just make the adjustments so it looks best on my monitor than accept the slight changes on others. Its about all you can do...

Example: the little photo of the baby you see on my Avitar is really a photo of a Mexican boy eating black beans. See how your monitor has changed it.

 

[mandrake]

I calibrated PS to use a custom workspace which I defined from the print shop photos I had made. I want my colour to look right on their printer. Is this correct, or should I use a generic profile?

I have no idea. I've never printed a single photo. It would just necessitate the creation of a new filing system.

From what I've read about such things, the correct answer is that you do whatever the printing place recommends. If they have a custom profile they want you to use, then do all your edits in your workspace of choice and then at the very end convert your photo to that profile and send that to them. If they recommend sRGB or Adobe RGB then all the better.