Color Management Help

[kirian]

I have a problem I just can't figure out. I have calibrated my monitor with a Pantone Huey in order to be able to get the most accurate prints. When I compare my prints to my monitor (using PSE4) the images on screen look cooler and have a kind of grayish cast over them. In my frustration I decided to try and preview an image in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Oddly enough - they looked perfect.

I have figured that this is because I am using sRGB as my working color space. I *have* to embed a color profile for my print house. Is there anyway to have elements display with the monitor profile I have?

I found a workaround in Photoshop 7. I have my working color space set to sRGB and set up a custom proof profile to use my monitor settings. I can then click on "view proof" and it does show my images the way they look when printed and removes that gray cast.

Anyone have any suggestions of how I can get PSE to do something similar? I really prefer to work in that as opposed to Photoshop. Or - am I maybe doing something wrong here? ANY help would be so very much appreciated!!

[Juergen D]

Color management... I don't know the answer, but I can suggest you go to Ian Lyons' Computer Darkroom: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/.
There's a wealth of information.

Juergen

[Wendy]

Hi Kirian ...

... and welcome to the forum :)

There was a thread here a little while ago on colour management that may help you too:

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7052

Wendy

[kirian]

Thank you both for your suggestions. Juergen - I did actually stumble on Ian Lyons site last night just after posting this and read a lot of good stuff! Wendy - I just finished reading through the thread you posted, thanks for that and for the welcome :)

I have pretty much come to the conclusion that my monitor profile conflicts with my embeded color space (sRGB) in PSE and Photoshop for some odd reason. If I turn off color managment my photos look just like they do when they print (problem is I have to have a color space imbedded in my photos for my print house). I don't know if this is a flaw with my calibration utility or I am just not getting something :rolleyes: I do have a great work around if I want to use Photoshop, but I don't. I think I may have figured out a bit of a cheating trick in PSE too but I need to play with it some more. Boy - what a pain in the butt this calibration stuff can be!!

[Juergen D]

Kirian,
You also may want to take a look at the Adobe Elements Forums. I just noticed a discussion there about color space in context with RAW. Also, there are a few color management gurus over there:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@249.rJNgaKbUpNU^43@.eeb4f8b

Juergen

[kirian]

Juergen,

Thanks for the additional info. I will certainly check out that link. I found another great forum too that is just about color management (thanks to the post from Wendy) and I have posted there for advice too. I did see someone post a similar problem (only his was a green color cast) and people were advising that he verify that Adobe Gamma was not in his startup list. I checked and it was in mine. However, after deleting it and restarting I still have the same problem. I do feel like I am getting closer to a solution.

The thing that is really driving me nuts is that I am quite knowledgeable when it comes to computers - I just can't get this. I have a feeling it is something so completely simple too that I will be bashing my head against a wall even more when I figure it out *LOL*.

Kirian

[kirian]

Just a quick update, posted in the Adobe forum too :)

In my total frustration with this odd problem last night I decided to get more in depth and do some real serious trouble shooting. I have a dedicated Windows box that is my stand alone graphics/editing station and that is what has been giving me grief. I also have a laptop that has Linux and Win on it. I rebooted into Win on my laptop and compared images - no gray haze everything looks great and matches wonderfully. I then proceeded to install the Huey to my laptop and everything looked beautiful and the colors still matched. So - I at least ruled out that Huey was the cause.

My next step was to rule out any software conflicts that may have been happening from pieces of various programs that may have been left behind when I had been trying to software calibrate. I reinstalled Win on my graphics station and loaded a bare bones install of just my graphics card drivers, my monitor drivers, Huey and Photoshop. I still have the same problem.

Last - I brought my laptop over to my desktop and plugged my monitor into the back of my laptop. Everything still displayed perfectly. My final conclusion is that it is either something with the dvi interface (which my desktop has and my laptop does not) or with my graphics card all together. My card only takes dvi so my husband is bringing me home another card to try tonight and we will see if we can solve this issue.

It certainly isn't a horrible thing to deal with - especially because I did find the cheating trick to get around it. However, I am not one to let silly things like this go - I would at least like to know the cause for certain.

Thanks again for the help I have been given - I really do appreciate it!

[Codebreaker]

Kirian....

Have you disabled the Adobe Gamma Loader now that you have the Huey?

Also the Working Color Space has no significance if your source image has an embedded or tagged profile. The Working Colour Space is only there for new images created in Photoshop or images that are not tagged with a profile.

So if your image is tagged sRGB then that's the space you will see it in converted on the fly through your Monitor Profile. If the profile is good then you should see a good representation.

I have noticed some difference between Photoshop and Windows Pic/Fax Viewer and the only explanation I have is that they use different colour engines and maybe different rendering intents. They will both use the Monitor Profile.

You should always have a Colour Managed Work Flow from end to end -

Source image needs a profile tagged or embedded
Colour Management should be on
Printing stage should select the correct print space or let the printer driver do the colour management.

As for Raw - this has no Colour Space until process through ACR. If Colour Settings are Optimised for Screen then the image gets tagged with sRGB - if it's Optimised for Print, then it's tagged with Adobe RGB.

For No Colour Management images get saved with your Monitor Profile - which is not a great idea.

Finally, when you used your laptop with an external monitor are you aware that you can only Colour Manage one display at a time.

Colin

[Daviskw]

Hi There

Most likely you have done this but you may want to check.

After calibrating your monitor did you go to your system settings and choose your new calibration as the default? If not after shutting down and restarting your computer may have reset to the old default profile.

Butch

[Daviskw]

Just as a comment

I think Elements color settings are unnecessarily confusing and I do not use them.

I calibrated my Monitor, scanner and printer and produced profiles. I have Elements set to No color management. This defaults all color to my calibrated monitor profile. When I am ready to print I choose a calibrated profile for the printer and paper I am using. I get prints that match my monitor very well.

If I had to send a profile along with the file then my monitor profile can be saved with the file no problem. If I had to save the printer profile I can do that with a separate program provided with my calibration software.

Butch

[Codebreaker]

If using No Colour Management works for you that's fine and I agree the explanations are a little misleading.

However, in my opinion having No Colour Management set only works if you have source images that are close in their colour space to that of your Monitor which typically are sRGB or slightly smaller. When you come across an image in say AdobeRGB or from a scanner, differences can occur because no translation from any source colour space is being made to your monitor colour space.

Calibrating your monitor makes sense, profiling it and then using No Colour Management does not make sense as the profile is never used. Of course it can be embedded in the image for use by Printer Colour Management but I remain unconvinced it's the best method.

But if it works for you that's what really counts :)

Colin

[Daviskw]

Hi Colin

I am pretty sure that if No color is set the color space will be your default monitor profile.

With the Monaco software the target is printed and scanned then compared and adjusted according to your Monitor profile to match. The printer and scanner are profiled to match the monitor. So as long as I edit with my default profile and print on my printer I am using color management. Now if a printer requires a particular color space I should be able to convert and save.

I don’t think Elements is able to deal with custom profiles like Photoshop. Elements is set up to deal with two major color spaces, at least easily.

However you are surly correct in go with what works. I wish Elements would deal with custom profiles the same way as the full version. It would make things much less confusing.

Butch

[kirian]

I use sRGB as my embeded color space. I don't use ACR to convert but the software that came with my camera as I prefer the workflow in it over that of ACR. I do shoot in RAW and do have my conversion software set to use sRGB.

Yes - Adobe Gamma is disabled - that was the *first* thing I checked after reading some of the threads here. It was also never run on my machine at all!

That difference between the Adobe programs and programs like win pic and fax viewer is the problem as the images in the latter are what match my prints and what look more correct for color. In the Adobe programs they have that gray/dark cast to them.

I do not have color management turned off in Elements or in Photoshop I was simply stating that when I do turn it off the images are then displayed correctly. The problem is that in Elements 4 if you turn off color management it deletes the embedded profile from your image when you save it (I know, I have tried) and again, I have to have it there for my printhouse.

After all the troubleshooting I found out that it is a conflict somewhere between my monitor / my video card / and/or Huey. Everything was fine with Photoshop, my graphics card drivers (VERY basic), and the generic windows drivers for my monitor. Once I either installed the drivers for my monitor (again very basic ones) or windows recognized the monitor (which it does when I install Huey) the problem started again.

I just simply had enough of troubleshooting to be honest :) I went as far as to install win, then photoshop - do a color check. Then install the vid drivers - do a color check. Then install the next piece - do a color check and on and on. I decided to just stick with using photoshop instead of elements for now since I do have a very easy (albeit odd to some people) work around that I am happy with for now.

Thanks for the additional suggestions - again, they are appreciated. I hope I answered all the questions put to me in the last few posts!

[Codebreaker]

Butch....

You're correct - when No Colour Management is set then the Colour Space is your Monitor Profile BUT no colour management translation is being done. Your source image is not converted on the fly via your Monitor Profile.

Your process of printing and scanning matches your Display and Printer but doesn't ensure your display is presenting the correct colours from a camera for instance.

Elements does take into account any profile if Colour Management is enabled and the profile is embedded in the image source.


Colin