6 Replies Latest reply: Apr 26, 2012 1:00 PM by emil emil RSS

    Color profiles don't display consistently

    Arrow'd Community Member

      I tried searching for this but couldn't find the same problem I'm having so I apologize in advance if this has already been covered.

       

      Here's my story:

      I'm the manager of the in-house Production and Imaging Teams. We receive art from illustrators, prep it as needed and deliver for production/printing.

      Every computer in the department uses the exact same color profile settings (I know because I create, maintain and install them), we're all on the same version of PS (CS 5, version 12.1), the Imaging Team calibrates their monitors every week, and yet we have one machine in the group that won't play nice with the incoming art.

       

      There are 4 Macs in the Imaging room. Machines 1,2 and 3 all display the illustrations exactly the same way, machine 4 displays the art as if it has been oversaturated and the contrast pushed up, as a result we are losing subtle details in the art.

      We can't even embed our color profiles using machine 4 since it will convert the art to what we are seeing on screen. If anyone on the other machines opens the raw import and embeds the profiles the art looks the way we expect, but open a copy from machine 4 and there is a drastic difference.

       

      So far we have deleted all color settings, profiles and presets and reinstalled them. No effect.

      Figuring we missed something, we deleted the entire Creative Suite (and all peripheral bits and pieces) then reinstalled it. No effect.

      The next step is throw it in the trunk, drive it up into the hills, shoot it, light it on fire and bury it in a shallow grave.

       

      Does anyone have any suggestions?

      No reasonable (or even unreasonable) recommendation will go untested.

        • 1. Re: Color profiles don't display consistently
          Noel Carboni Community Member

          Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that reinstalling the software does NOT clear the preferences. 

           

          Have you tried clearing the Photoshop preferences back to defaults?

           

          This involves pressing and holding Command+ Option + Shift  during a cold start of Photoshop, then confirming the prompt asking whether you want to delete the preferences.

           

          -Noel

          • 2. Re: Color profiles don't display consistently
            gator soup Community Member

            one of the first things i like to try is setting up a New User account

             

            besides Photoshop user preferences, it also rules out all user preferences

             

            you may be able to copy a functing set of Photoshop preferences from a 'good' machine to save you from reconfiguring...

            • 3. Re: Color profiles don't display consistently
              gator soup Community Member

              >> machine 4 displays the art as if it has been oversaturated and the contrast pushed up, as a result we are losing subtle details in the art.

               

              that would point to a bad monitor profile or profile issue (a New User account may or may not use a different monitor profile)...and be sure you are set up to Use the embedded profile

              • 4. Re: Color profiles don't display consistently
                emil emil Community Member

                Have you profiled your monitors with a color measuring device? Was the image displayed using the same color space on all monitors?

                 

                Have in mind that not all monitors are equal even different units from the same model, and some may age faster than others which changes the physical characteristics and thus the way colors are displayed. When this happens during calibration and profiling the color space of the monitor described in its color profile usually gets reduced to a narrower color space. If the colors of the image are outside of monitor's color space, they cannot be displayed precisely and the closest possible match will be used which may give a different appearance than the display of the same image on other more capable monitors. In such cases converting the image to the monitor color profile is a bad idea because this will reduce the color gamut of the image to the capabilities of the worst monitor in your shop. While, as you found out, this will ensure that the other monitors will display the same image like the worst monitor because their color space is wider, at the end that's not your goal. So if this is not some sort of user mistake, or improper calibration, and everything is set properly, the only reason for this to happen is that your monitor got bad.

                • 5. Re: Color profiles don't display consistently
                  Arrow'd Community Member

                  This is what we call PIBCAK (Problem Is Between Chair And Keyboard)

                  It turns out, opening the illustration was stripping out the embedded color profile (what the artist was using).

                   

                  I appreciate everyone's feedback though, it's just a facepalm day.

                  • 6. Re: Color profiles don't display consistently
                    emil emil Community Member

                    This means "no" to my question: Was the image displayed using the same color space on all monitors?

                     

                    Check the list in post #3 of this thread, for details how to find out in what color space an image is being displayed  on the monitor.