Topic awaiting preservation: Photoshop Changes my Colors

I just upgraded to os x and photoshop 7. When I open old photoshop documents or even when I make a screen shot and open it up through photoshop the colors are screwed up. My gradients turn to crap and everything looks saturated. In short it's not nice looking like I created it. This is not a monitor problem but a Photoshop display issue only. I played with all the color settings and still nothing. Does anyone know how to correct this problem? I was trying to make some jpg's for a client and I can't show them since photoshop altered the colors to look like crap on me.

I am not running OS X so this could be a 'bug' thing. (I have heard all sorts of stories about having to run both platforms and reverting to 9 in order to work PS properly so there may be some patch or such you need to download...

If that isn't the problem then...

Have you calibrated your monitor since you upgraded?

Another thing to check out is color profiles. Do you have PS set up on a customized profile or is it factory set?

When I upgraded to 7 I had to reset all sorts of stuff, but it's worth it.

I hope this helps.







[This message has been edited by sparks (edited 12-30-2003).]

Well I will try to explain Briefly. It realy requires a good read through the manual, but also check some of the color articals at www.creativepro.com

First you need to make sure your monitor is calibrated. If you have a CRT you can run Adobe Gamma. If you have a LCD well you are sort of screwed as Adobe Gamma is not for use with that type of display. You will need either a special applicaiton or device to calibrate so you best bet is just to adjust it to your liking.

You also need to make adjust your color setting, and to define the proper RGB working space. I do mostly print work use the US Prepress defaults, which used Adobe RGB as it's default. I would suggest you use Adobe RGB, If you do webgraphic sRGB might be the most approprate, it's the default for the web graphic preset and most closely matchs no calibrated hardware and non-profiled software.

Now the problem you are faced with is Photoshop uses Color Profiles, and most other application do not or don't support it fully which generally make life hard. First we must make sure you are opening the image properly. When you first open an image in Photoshop you must decide how, and what you wish to do with it embeded profile or lack-of.

If the image contains a profile but it doesn't match the current you will get the following:

Document XXXX.jpg has an embeded profile that does not match the working profile.

() Use embed profile <bla bla>
() Convert to working profile <bla bla >
() Discard embed profile (Don't color manage)

Now I would choose "Convert to Working Profile" in most cases. One could also choose to "Use the embed profile <bla bla>" In either case the colors should map and display properly in photoshop. If you were to choose discard embed profile, you will get a noticeable color shift.

If no profile present, should be prompted with a diffent dialog:

RGB Image XXXX.jpg does not have an embeded profile.

() Leave as is don't color manage
() Assign working Profile <Bla Bla>
() Assign profile < Select Profile here >

Here if you don't know the source of the image, assign working profile. The will map the non-profile image to the current profile.

One could also assign a profile to the image. If you happen to know where the image came from, say from a low end Digital Camera, or a comercial not profiled scanner that doen't embed profiles. It's most likely that the device was calibrated to produce something close to the sRGB. You could try assigning the profile at this point. Try expermenting with Assign profile until you get a differnet profiles, If you like to standardize your profiles, you can convert to your current working profile using the Image--Mode--Convert to profile or leave it as it is.

You could also choose to "Not Color Manage" the image, and use Image-->Mode-->Apply Profile after the image loads to experment with differnet profiles to determine which one best matchs the original values.

The only other thing in Photshop is viewing how the image display in not profile aware applications. Here you need to either turn off color management all togther or you can use View-->Proof Setup Choosing Monitor RGB, or PC or Mac RGB and select the View-->Proof Colors toggle.

This should show you what the image would look like outside of Photoshop in a non-profiled application, say for instance in IE or Opera.

This soft proof method works well, allowing you to work in one color space while viewing in another.

I hope this helps, It's a bit confusing at first if the above don't work something odd is happening. It shouldn't realy have much effect and I am not sure what color engine is used by Photoshop under OSX. You might try changin it to Adobe (ACE), It if it is not used already you should find it under the advanced mode, in the color setting dialog. Beyound that I guess I would try a reinstall.

Always embed a profile. In most cases it will not have any effect on unaware applications. About the only time I wouldn't is if it is specficly requested, and I would question the request. or you are trying to saving a little extra space for the web.

J. Stuart J.

Holy Profile. Now I'm even more confused. Thank you for the help. From your post I must conclude I have to modify some setting I find somewhere. This is a big thumbs down from me to Adobe. What a mess. I can't even build a website until I solve it.

Actually it's not really all that hard to understand and use as long as you use all Adobe products. It is the best implementation and most reliable Color management system.

The problem is it's not explained well in the manual and it?s a little hard to explain via email. It might be worth picking up the best book on the subject. "Real World Color Management." it's a heavy read and a little bit pricey but excellent for novices and pros. I plan on using it as at textbook for a Color theory and Print Production class I am planning.

The hardest part is dealing with all the other application that only make a half assed attempts at using profiles or the ones that use now color management. Try dealing with Corel Draw for Freehand files. Shudder...... Corel Draw has an easy to unique and easy understand profile set-up dialog but doesn't bother to embed the profile in it's own native file format. So you have to write down the settings so when you send it to someone else they know what profile to map the file too. How stupid is that, why even bother with profiles at that point. Freehand is even worse, It's a mess, at least as far as version 9 and 10. I haven't upgraded to MX yet.

For web design profiles are not all that useful. So I guess you could just turn off color management all together. It will not solve problem if any of the files contain embedded profiles. But it may be worth a try.

Have you tried loading them in ImageReady? What were the results? If they come up looking odd then it?s a OS problem.

What I find weird is that the screen shots are coming in badly. If it weren?t for that I would suspect that your color setting might have been set-up oddly when you originally created the images pre-upgrade.

J. Stuart J.

PS. I would be interested to know, is this Panther? I just interviewed for a position as a ?Color Control Specialist? and they were having a similar problem. So it may well be some deeper problem rooted problem.

quote:

---

First you need to make sure your monitor is calibrated. If you have a CRT you can run Adobe Gamma. If you have a LCD well you are sort of screwed as Adobe Gamma is not for use with that type of display. You will need either a special applicaiton or device to calibrate so you best bet is just to adjust it to your liking.

---

jstuartj - Very good rundown on the often daunting process of dealing with color calibration and profiles. The one thing, since you professed a lack of information on os x, is that it does not use AG. It just doesn't exist for os x. If you are using mac os x you need to use colorsync to generate your profile. This is located in the system preferences, in the "display" preference pane. You switch to the "color" tab, choose your monitor's default profile and then hit "calibrate". From there on out, you will get the standard color calibration procedure much akin to Adobe Gamma. In mac os 9 you can choose to use Adobe Gamma (located in the control panels) or colorsync (make sure it's version 3+) located in the monitors control panel (same process as os x once you open "monitors").

I'm not aware of any color issues on os x, I have used version 7 on both os9 and os 10.1/10.2 without any issues (other than the speed of the OS itself being slower in os x). I have not tested panther (10.3) so I'm not sure what issues might occur there, but I have heard that color calibration is actually more reliable in os 10.2+ than in previous iterations. My guess is that this is not an OS issue, but simply a learning curve issue, as color calibration can outwit the best of us at times (especially in the beginning). I wouldn't rule out an issue, but as I said, I haven't heard of or experienced any.

Hope that helps clarify on the mac end of things.


It's only after we've lost everything...
That we're free to do anything...

Thanks, good to know. Haven't had much time to play with OSX as we havn't changed over at school yet and I run windows for my freelance work. I do have a Mac with OSX but haven't got Photoshop for it as I only use if for QuarkyXpress 4 that I run mostly under OS 9. But I do remeber now that you mention it, setting up my colorsync when I installed OSX, I will have to pick up a few Mac magizines and see if there are any related info.

J. Stuart J.

I haven't turned up much information searching, but then I haven't searched that hard yet. heh. I'm interested to hear what you find out though; feel free to email/ instant messenger me if you want to have something tested on OS X, or if you don't want to beat this thread into the ground.


It's only after we've lost everything...
That we're free to do anything...

I'm running os x 10.1 with Photoshop 7. I used the Colorsync Utility and it came up with some errors and then fixed most of them. Two errors seem unfixed however. I click the fix button and it sais it fixed them but it really hasn't. It gives me an error type (-39) and points to two color profiles in the Adobe folder. I don't have the specific message on hand now but I'll post it when I get home to the problematic computer. It looks to me like it doesn't like the installed photoshop profiles though. The solution would be to gain the contents of the profile folder on a working drive using 10.1 with 7. Maybe it differs from mine. Does anybody here have os x 10.1 with Photoshop 7?

The error -39 is an "end of file" / "no additional data in format" error.

I would recommend searching out the exact files that you got that error for, and either replace them from your PS7 install CD, or try deleting them, though I don't know if they are the kind of file that'll pop right back up or not after you delete it and run the program again.. Worth a shot though. (Actually, just try moving the file somewhere else for a moment, start up PS again, and if that breaks more things than it fixes, put it back..)

I know little to nothing about the whole color profile stuff, so I can't say anything to that.

Oh yeah, it's also always worth a shot verifying/repairing your permissions, since OSX is a Unix-based system it occasionally needs to have things like that cleared up for it. Fixing permissions on occasion has made several problems of mine poof with little to no effort. (This function is in the "Disk Utility" in your "Utilities" folder by the way.)

That's all I got.

-Xel

The error -39 is an "end of file" / "no additional data in format" error.

I would recommend searching out the exact files that you got that error for, and either replace them from your PS7 install CD, or try deleting them, though I don't know if they are the kind of file that'll pop right back up or not after you delete it and run the program again.. Worth a shot though. (Actually, just try moving the file somewhere else for a moment, start up PS again, and if that breaks more things than it fixes, put it back..)

I know little to nothing about the whole color profile stuff, so I can't say anything to that.

Oh yeah, it's also always worth a shot verifying/repairing your permissions, since OSX is a Unix-based system it occasionally needs to have things like that cleared up for it. Fixing permissions on occasion has made several problems of mine poof with little to no effort. (This function is in the "Disk Utility" in your "Utilities" folder by the way.)

That's all I got.

-Xel

Rondavu,
I am sorry that I left you such an undetailed post! *blush*

Thank you jstuartj and Mindbender for going into to more detail.
I'll try to do better in the future...

I'm all set now. Thank you all for your help. I'll contribute to newbies as my knowledge increases.

[This message has been edited by Rondavu (edited 01-02-2004).]