Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with colormanagement

How to make Photoshop manage colors less stupidly on a Mac

migurski — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:28:26 -0800

I’m trying to get Adobe Photoshop CS3 on Snow Leopard to show me the colors I expect. I’m using it to do some basic color selection, which will ultimately be pasted into a Python script that generates data graphics for use on the web. Part of my workflow involves screen captures from a browser that get round-tripped through Photoshop and into code, so I need basic RGB hex values to stay consistent through the process. Photoshop is messing with me in two ways:

If I open up a new document or a screen capture, I get it in “sRGB IEC61966-2.1” color mode. Looks right in Photoshop, but when I save this out to a new PNG via Save For Web, the colors come out super saturated, juiced, and wrong-looking in a web browser.

If I open up a new document and turn off color management in Photoshop, then pasted screen captures look washed-out and desaturated. When I save these to a new PNG via Save For Web, the colors look correct and match the originals.

How can I keep the colors looking identical throughout the entire process?

Color Inconsistency Between Two Calibrated Monitors

roundrock — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:02:42 -0800

Why do two properly calibrated monitors look very different? I have a dual monitor setup -- a Samsung 216BW and a Wacom Cintiq 21UX -- with each monitor running on its own graphics card (Nvidia 8400 and 8800, respectively). I'm calibrating with an X-Rite i1Display2. According to the i1D2, both monitors are properly calibrated -- but the Cintiq is much warmer/redder, and the Samsung is considerably cooler and yellow/greener. What gives? It occurred to me that the problem could just be that I am using monitors of two different qualities (cheapie Samsung with a TN panel vs. H-IPS panel Cintiq), but shouldn't that only affect the color gamut - not the basic color tones? I'm considering dropping $2K on an NEC or Eizo to replace the Samsung, but it's only worth it if I know I that I can achieve color consistency with my Cintiq and ultimately accurate color overall.

At this point, I just have no idea if I'm getting inaccurate color from the Samsung or the Cintiq -- and, more importantly, I don't know why it's happening. Please help!

What is the best approach to reproducible color management?

teem — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:08:23 -0800

What is the best approach to color management? I only just realised that how I see my photos in iPhoto, Photoshop, and Safari isn't how the majority of people on the net are seeing them? What is the best setup for consistent color management that still looks good? Example: Smitten Kitchen versus Use real butter. Both food blogs (neither one mine) look great in Safari, but in Firefox Use real butter's pictures lose saturation, while Smitten Kitchen's remain brilliant.

What combination of setups should I use in my camera, iPhoto, Photoshop, and browser in order to color manage like Smitten Kitchen?

I read This previous question, but was keen to know if any recommendations have changed now that 2 years have passed.

How Do I Load a Color Mgmt. Profile into Photoshop CS2?

philmas — Sat, 10 May 2008 08:48:34 -0800

How Do I Load a Color Mgmt. Profile into Photoshop CS2? I am trying to load the latest version of a color print profile into Photoshop from my local Costco. I have downloaded the profiles and placed them in the appropriate place on my (IMac OSX 10.4.11) hardrive (Library/ColorSync/Profiles) but when I use the Load command, under Edit - Color Settings in Photoshop, and navigate to the folder, the files are not active (they appear washed out) and cannot be selected. What do I need to do to get these profiles loaded into Photoshop? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.
Philmas

Images are distorted in Photoshop.

brain_drain — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 16:14:59 -0800

Photoshop is distorting the color and contrast in all of my images. Examples linked within. Help! I am an amateur with Photoshop, but I have been using it consistently for several months without any problem.

Today I uploaded some RAW images from my digital camera and they look all wrong. I thought it might be a RAW conversion problem, but when I opened some old images, they all look distorted too. Every image I open in Photoshop looks screwed up now. The colors are completely off, as is the contrast. But images look fine when I open them in another program (including the images I uploaded today).

Here are two examples. In each example, the image on the left is the Photoshop view; the image on the right is the same photo viewed in ZoomBrowser.

Example 1

Example 2

Any ideas about what is causing this? I have never had this problem with Photoshop before.

Monitor Calibration

spicynuts — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 07:35:39 -0800

Monitor Calibration Issues - why is my 225 dollar software making my colors look worse? Recently I bought a Greta Macbeth Eye One Display 2 monitor calibration/profiling package for use on my CRT monitor. When I run the software I consistently get results telling me to set my monitor's brightness at around 75%. This ends up totally washing out any black at all and making everything look underconstrasty (if that makes any sense - I don't know what the term for not enough contrast is). This happens regardless of what I set my target luminance at. I've tried settings of 60, 70, 75, 80 and 100 (recommended for CRT) and in each instance I'm told to set the brightness at 75 or 78%. Before the system is even done creating the profile I can tell that the monitor is going to be way off because, as I said, the black immediately gets washed out.

So, my question is, am I doing something wrong or is my software screwed? Here is some more info on my settings:

White Point: 6500K
Gamma: 2.2
Luminance: as stated above, I've triend multiple combos
Contrast: 100 (as determined by the software)

The software has no black point feature.

I work in a mostly dark room. I've used a couple of different test images downloaded from www.chromix.com to look at my end results.

Any advice is appreciated. I've tried the Fred Miranda forums and the Chromix forums and all were dead ends.