Color shift when saving images

[Valentino]

I use Photoshop for all my photo editing. My Canon 40D camera and PS color space is sRGB, because majority of my photos are made either for viewing on my monitor (Syncmaster 245T) or placing on web.
My problem is that when I save the photos taken with my camera (after being touched up in PS) and then view them in Windows Picture Viewer the oranges and reds are over saturated. I understand that if working in Adobe RGB I would need to convert to sRGB before saving to web but as mentioned, I am already working in sRGB.

Mind you, if I only open (in PS) photos directly from my compact flash card nothing changes. But when they are saved (after being open in PS) on hard disc the colors become saturated. These odd things did not happen before I calibrated my monitor with SpyderPro2 tool, 2 weeks ago.

Attached are my monitor profile (assigned by SpyderPro2 after calibration) and my PS color settings.

Browsing the web I find this explanation, but, alas, without solution to my problem...

"The display profile is not at fault here. The ICC profile for the display tells any application that uses color management what the color values for the display are. Thus Photoshop, which is using the profile, corrects for the colors on screen, giving correct results. A non-color managed application (such as Internet Explorer for Windows) would not use the profile and thus the colors would be oversaturated on your wide gamut screen. This is not the fault of the profile (that would make the color look wrong in Photoshop, where the profile is being used), but the lack of a profile (which makes the color look wrong in non-color managed applications).

This is the problem with using a Wide Gamut display for viewing in non-color managed applications. A typical gamut display is not color correct in such applications, but is at least approximately correct; a wide gamut display is noticably oversatured in some colors. On the Mac many applications, including web browsers and OS utilities, are color managed, so it is less of an issue than on Windows."

So, is there a trick or work around for this situation? Should I revert my monitor profile to the default and give up the benefits of hardware calibration?

[Jabo]

I don't think that your monitor profile plays a role here.

You could either try to play with the Intent-options (under Coversion Options in the Photoshop dialog, try anything else instead of "Relative Colormetric"), and then actually convert the image to a certain profile, instead of just assigning one. By assigning, you just tell applications to use that profile when viewing the image. By converting it, you actually change to color information in the image. This will change the colors of the image, tho. So if you don't want to ruin the picture by changing the pixel information, you could try to delete the color profile from the image (Edit -> Assign Profile -> "Don't color manage This Document"). This is usually done when working for web purposes. It will give you less control over how the image looks, but will instead leave that decision to the application it is viewed with.

my 2 cents, I don't know exactly tho.

[Mike Frank]

I had the same problem recently and had to convert the color profile to generic for when I am saving for web.

[Valentino]

I asked this on another forum but nobody seem to know how to manage this situation.
So, the only solution seem to be converting the color profile to generic and give up the benefits of calibration...

[Fipse]

The problem is that when you change the colour profile to generic PS automatically sets it to the american SWOP standard - maybe not a problem in online work, but whenever you want to print. Best thing is to chose a good rgb-profile: sRGB or better the ECI http://www.eci.org one. As a croatian I suppose you´re working mostly in european standards.

Your calibration with this monitor is not very reliable because it isn´t really hardware-calibratable - as far as I´ve read the specs - anyway so it´s a little bit tricky. To get your picture looking like the profile says - I suppose you´re using the proof view with it - you have to apply the profile view to your picture - sorry if this is a bit confusing but I haven´t got an english PS and addtionally work mostly on Mac ;). Should be the last point in the second menu ... after this your profile would have been applied to the pic and it should be seen on other monitors more or less the way you see it. Most other programs - like Browsers - don´t get the profile info so this would explain the problem you´re exeriencing atm.

Hope this could help a bit.

Fipse

[Valentino]

Fipse, I admit I am a bit confused. If you wanted to say that I should view my pics in Windows RGB proof in order to see how they will look like in non-color managed application, I already do that, and the colors are unchanged. The colors get oversaturated, however, when I vew jpgs in Monitor RGB proof.
I just wish my PS edited images look the same when I view them in Windows Fax Viewer or when I upload them on my website. They did look the same before May 10th calibration.
It seems that there is no solution to this. I'll have to convert the color profile to generic.

[Fipse]

I had this problem once on my pc, too, as far as I remember. I will see if I remember what solution I had. It was something quite simple ...

Fipse

[Blue]

This might be your problem.

[Valentino]

George, thank you for your advice. But, as I already mentioned in previous post, when I vew jpgs in Monitor RGB proof the colors get oversaturated. I do not want them look oversaturated, I want them to look the same as when viewed in PS. (My proof setup is working CMYK, btw)

[Blue]

I believe the fact they only look good in photoshop is because your proof set up is in fact set to CMYK (which naturally de-saturates).

Perhaps you can upload a mini of one of your photos (like 300x250) so we can see if they are saturated on our screens as well. If they are not then indeed your monitor calibration is awry. However, if we see them as saturated, this might be a problem with your camera's settings.

[Valentino]

I thought the Workyng CMYK is default setting and it should be left as it is. I mean - everything worked fine before the calibration with that setting.

But, on the second thought I think you're right. I opened in PS two wip shots of the oil portrait I am working on. You can check those in the first screenshot (titled "comparision"), which is captured within PS workspace.
The left photo on that screenshot was taken and edited before the calibration, the right one (7059) after that process. Pay no attention to the background - I overpainted it on 7059 photo, but the reds on the robe are the same. Notice over saturated reds on 7059. (I am referring here on the top image, if you hover cursor over it, you'll see it's title.)

OK; now the things became more trickier to follow, but I'll try to be as clear as possible:

In the second screenshot (titled "PS") one can see how Photoshop desaturates images. When I saved the "comparision" jpg on my desktop and checked it in Windows Fax viewer, the colors were the same as when I looked at those two photos (IMG_7055 and IMG_7059) opened in Photoshop.

BUT, when I open in Photoshop the "comparision" screenshot (the one which was saved on desktop) the colors desaturate as you can see in the "PS" screenshot.

In that screenshot you can also notice that - when I tried to save for web the screenshot "comparision", the colors additionally desaturate.
The tow top left images are two separate (IMG_7055 and IMG_7059) photos, the lower left jpg is screenshot "comparision" (consisted of the two mentioned photos) and to the right is, obviously "save for web" screen.

My conclusion is that Photoshop desaturate images. But, if I set it to Monitor RGB, the colors will be oversaturated and unusable to me. What one should do? What is your Proof Setup?

[Blue]

I typically set my proof to Monitor RGB. My monitor is a custom calibration, but is based on sRGB.

I played around with the settings for a few minutes and I don't think I'm able to figure this out. Take a peak at our Photoshop (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=78) section and ask there (maybe a mod could even move this topic to save time?). To be honest, I've struggled with photoshop doing this as well, it isn't very intuitive in this respect.

[Blue]

Valentino, i think I may have a solution for you (see image).

What this did was set the color to calibrate to whatever your monitor is set to, there is no difference now from what photoshop sees and what other applications see. The tricky thing here is if your monitor is off, then you won't see what we see. So you may need to calibrate your monitor once more.

[Valentino]

George, thank you for additional advice. I set PS color to monitor profile calibrated with Spyder, and proof set up to Monitor RGB. Now the colors in PS and Windows fax viewer look almost the same.
However, If I set PS to monitor RGB, close the program, and restart it, it still resets to Working CMYK. How do I keep this from happening?

[Blue]

Well technically if you have your color settings set to monitor RGB, you don't need to adjust the proof settings (they shouldn't take effect until the "proof colors" option is checked, so if everything is set right you can leave it unchecked).

Are you noticing any other changes in color?

[Valentino]

This is how my settings are at the moment. Now the colors seems OK when i save them or save for web (I set the latter up to Use document color profile).

However, when I make a screenshot of the pics opened in PS and paste that screenshot on new PS document, the colors become desaturated.
Never mind.

[Blue]

Still some alteration to color? My only thought is setting conversion to perceptual. The proof set up we can ignore now I believe. If this doesn't take, i'm full out of ideas. :dead:

[Valentino]

The more I read (in the books and on the web) about color profiles, color settings, color spaces, color corrections, embedded profiles, tags, conversions etc the more confused I become. It is virtually incomprehensible and complicated beyond words. Soooo many parameters. Who can chose the right combination?

Btw, George, do you know what I gain and what i lose if I opt for perceptual intent instead of default Rel. colorimetric?

[Blue]

From my general understanding, perceptual works to make the colors look as accurate as possible, while color metric tries to match the originals as much as possible. So in reality, perceptual will alter colors slightly to make sure they look the same through conversions and file saving.

And yea, this is a fairly common nightmare among photoshop users...i'll never understand why adobe designed it as they did.