25 Replies Latest reply: May 6, 2014 11:51 AM by twenty_one RSS

    Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5

    rtl300 Community Member

      Hi, I'm reposting another user's question as no one answered it when they originally posted it and I am now experiencing exactly the same issues.  My set up hasn't changed and when I open images that I colour adjusted in January where I know the reds were bold and true they look drab and muted.  My system is regularly calibrated with the Gretag Eye One system which I've used successfully for the last five years????  It's driving me a bit mad and I have lost faith in what I'm looking at in Photoshop.  Here's the original post;

       

      I photograph a bright red car in raw mode on a digital slr (Canon 20D) set to Adobe rgb 1998  and view it in BreezeBrowser and it looks just as I remember it. I open it into Pshop CS5 extended (which is set to Adobe rgb1998, Europe ISO Coated Fogra27, (as I am UK and this is what a calibration company set our works proofer to)  gray gamma 2.2 dot gain 20% and its become a little desaturated. Sampling it and comparing screens and colours with BreezeBrowser its definitley less red, a bit more orangey red instead. I need to up saturation to return the red, both in RAW converter and also after image opened if not done so beforehand in RAW converter.

       

      Colours just look muted.

       

      What tests can I carry out to find out what is going on ?

       

      Perhaps create a rgb 255 0 0 image in a way not influenced by photoshop and photo the monitor, then open this in photoshop and sample it. However that would be influenced by the exposure of the camera. Maybe I need to create a kodak grey card type image and establish correct exposure for the monitor brightness first. so what would that be as rgb ?

       

      Any other ideas ?

       

      I know though that Pshop is displaying duller. Once upon a time we had Adobe gamma and one would go through the calibration wizard to set up photoshop having already set up the monitor.

       

      What do we have to do after installing CS5 extended or CS4 to ensure Pshops display is correct ?

        • 1. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
          c.pfaffenbichler Community Member

          What are your Color Settings and has the Color Profile been embedded with the image?

          • 3. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
            rtl300 Community Member

            Colour Settings.jpg1413.jpg

            Hi, I'm afraid I've managed pretty well until now without going into colour profiles and all that so don't know where to look to find out if the colour profile is embedded!?  This image is from 2009 and is one I've had printed successfully with a really rich deep red, the left image is a screen grab of photoshop with colour settings shown (whch haven't been changed recently) the right hand image is the original file. Apologies for my lack of technical knowledge, I'm afraid I'm of a generation that came from film!

            • 4. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
              c.pfaffenbichler Community Member

              Hi, I'm afraid I've managed pretty well until now without going into colour profiles and all that so don't know where to look to find out if the colour profile is embedded!?

              Not going into Color Profiles is basically inviting problems.

               

              One can set up the Infor Panel (also the Status Bar) to display the Profile.

              infoPanelOptions.jpg

              • 5. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                twenty_one Community Member

                Actually this looks like a different issue, a corrupted or bad display profile (shows how risky it is to hook on to other people's posts...)

                 

                Bad profiles are often pushed through Windows Update (don't get me started on that).

                 

                Try to set sRGB as display profile in Windows Control Panel > Color Management > Devices. Unless your monitor really is wide gamut, in which case you should use Adobe RGB:

                 

                display_profile_4.png

                 

                This is a diagnostic and temporary fix. The real solution is to make a new custom profile with a calibrator.

                • 6. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                  rtl300 Community Member

                  Have just replied, thank you for your answer but it doesn't explain teh change in set up between January and now and also if what Iseeing in Photoshop is correct and calibrated then surely I'd receive the same colour back from professional finishers using calibrated systems, however the prints I receive back have strong vivid reds, nothing like those shown in Photoshop?

                  • 7. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                    rtl300 Community Member

                    It does feel as though the sudden change is likely to be down to an uninvited update of some kind, wouldn't the Eye One software take this into account and adjust things accordingly?  Only asking as until now I've trusted the Eye One software to do its thing and it has pretty well.

                    • 8. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                      twenty_one Community Member

                      Whenever you see a change, the most likely problem is the display profile. If you have a calibrator, that's the time to recalibrate. You should do that regularly anyway.

                      • 9. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                        rtl300 Community Member

                        I have added the srgb display profile but nothing appears to have changed, all the other profiles appear to have been created by the Eye One software...

                        • 10. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                          rtl300 Community Member

                          I did take a look at colour setting back in October last year after reading an article on how it should be used but found the advice useless as it suggested keeping everything as adobe RGB which is fine if you only ever look at your images in photoshop but when you send Adobe RGB files to print at the majority of photo finishers the resulting prints come back flat and under saturated (much like my images look in Photoshop at the moment).  By saving my final images down as sRGB my colour reproduction is far more as I'd like and expect.  The colour profile on this image is sRGB IEC61966-2.1

                          • 11. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                            rtl300 Community Member

                            Thanks, have run the calibration a few times but no change but will take a closer look at it and see if I can produce any variations to the results

                            • 12. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                              twenty_one Community Member

                              rtl300 wrote:

                               

                              I have added the srgb display profile but nothing appears to have changed

                              I forgot to mention that after "set as default" you have to relaunch Photoshop. It needs to pick up the correct profile at startup.

                              • 13. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                rtl300 Community Member

                                Many thanks, it doesn't appear to have changed anything but a suggestion has come in to change the proof view to monitor RGB and that has brought the reds back to life

                                • 14. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                  twenty_one Community Member

                                  Then you've not done it correctly. If proofing to monitor RGB "fixes" it, then the problem is definitely a bad monitor profile.

                                   

                                  What proofing to Monitor RGB really does is to disable the monitor profile and show you the image without display color management at all - the raw RGB numbers in the file going directly to the display.

                                   

                                  What monitor are you using? Exact make and model.

                                  • 15. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                    rtl300 Community Member

                                    Thank you so much for your help on this, it has occured to me that there are still two colour profiles going on and I'm no clearer as to which is right!  I've managed to update the gretag software which I was unable to do before due to a glitch in the update but have reinstalled the new version, nothing appears changed from that but something to tick off.  I'm afraid I haven't mountains of cash and have been getting on for the last few years ok with the Samsung SyncMaster 2232BW...

                                    • 16. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                      twenty_one Community Member

                                      Then it's not a wide gamut model. Just wanted to rule that out.

                                       

                                      Yes, there are two profiles at play. One is the embedded document profile, the other is the display profile. Both need to be correct, because when Photoshop displays, it converts from the document profile to the display profile. The RGB values thus modified are sent to the display.

                                       

                                      What Photoshop needs to display correctly is that each of these two profiles is an accurate description of the color space it represents.

                                       

                                      Other software without color management just sends the RGB numbers in the file directly to the display, and that's what you simulate with proof to monitor RGB.

                                       

                                      My money's still on a bad display profile. Try sRGB as display profile again and follow procedure exactly.

                                      • 17. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                        rtl300 Community Member

                                        Thank you, in another universe everything would work the same and make perfect sense!  I've closed the office now but will start afresh with it in the morning. Again thank you for your help, very much appreciated

                                        • 18. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                          rtl300 Community Member

                                          Hi, I hope you've had a great weekend.  Frustratingly the forum was down for maintenance when I tried to revisit it on Friday.  After rebooting my system the change in profile to the srgb setting you've suggested has put everything right in that Photoshop and RAW images have their reds back as they should be and look much closer to other programs and archived colour images.  I'm happy to work with things as they are now but should I be?  Presumably if Photoshop uses different colour profiles that are more accurate I should be investing in a replacement calibration system and recalibrating or would the sRGB profile be reliable enough?

                                          • 19. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                            Noel Carboni Community Member

                                            It's kind of up to you whether you're happy with color that's "close" but not "highly accurate".  Clearly you came here to the forum with the issue "my color is not close enough".  Absolute perfection is impossible to achieve, though (depending on the hardware) you can get very close.

                                             

                                            In short, how close is "close enough"?  The answer differs from person to person.

                                             

                                            Keep in mind that when you set the monitor profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 the color response overall on your system will be simplified and may seem more consistent to you.  You will, for example, see the same color in an image displayed by Internet Explorer as you see in Photoshop.  This is ONLY possible when you use the sRGB profile - the reason being that Internet Explorer is coded overly simplistically - it's actually always WRONG except if the monitor is sRGB, believe it or not.

                                             

                                            If you create a monitor profile that accurately describes your monitor's display characteristics, you may feel more comfortable that you are seeing colors exactly as intended, but then you'll have to understand that there will always be niggling differences between viewing images in different applications that don't all implement color management equally well.  And in practical terms this DOES happen (e.g. my Internet Explorer example, above).  Other applications don't implement color management at all.  It really is kind of a mess.

                                             

                                            For those in the know, especially when they know about the practical limitations in a modern system, the choices start to become more clear.  I know that twenty_one finds color accuracy paramount in his museum archival work.  He's got a really expensive monitor that touts high color accuracy and consistency, and he has (and keeps) his system calibrated and profiled using colorimeter hardware.  By contrast I have less need for absolute accuracy but more need for consistency, so I have purchased good monitors that actually do emulate the sRGB color space very well.  Thus I use the sRGB profile to describe my monitors, which is good for my uses.  There are advantages to both approaches.

                                             

                                            The point I'm trying to make is that there's no one "best solution".  It depends on what YOU want and what YOU feel is important.  For some folks color accuracy is paramount and for others consistency between applications (some of which assume your monitor really is sRGB) is more pleasing.

                                             

                                            -Noel

                                            • 20. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                              rtl300 Community Member

                                              I suppose at the end of the day I'm a jobbing wedding photographer and my images are generally to be viewed by my clients on uncalibrated systems on programs that don't use any colour management so it makes more sense to me that my images look good in various 'domestic' programs.  I also have work printed through a wet process lab and albums produced so it's important that they come back the colour I'd expect them to.  My initial issue with Photoshop looking different to other programs has certainly been addressed by twenty_one as the red saturation it was showing was very clearly wrong in the extreme whether due to calibration device failure or corrupt profile information I still don't really know but what I'm seeing on screen at the moment is more as I'd expect and so will continue with things as they are and perhaps invest in a new calibration device as and when funds allow, assuming that my clients don't start bouncing images back to me due to bizarre colour on their own systems!  Thanks very much for your clear and succinct answer, much appreciated

                                              • 21. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                                twenty_one Community Member

                                                Noel Carboni wrote:

                                                 

                                                a really expensive monitor that touts high color accuracy and consistency

                                                You bet . I've had the new Eizo CG246 up and running for a couple of weeks now, and, well, it's an almost zen-like experience...It's definitely worth the price. But of course there's the law of diminishing returns and all that, and you pay a lot for that final bit of accuracy.

                                                 

                                                I remember when I bought my first calibrator and thought of it as some sort of luxury. But what this is really about is peace of mind. How accurate do you need it to be to sleep at night? The answer to that question tends to work itself out over time.

                                                • 22. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                                  twenty_one Community Member

                                                  rtl300 wrote:

                                                   

                                                  viewed by my clients on uncalibrated systems on programs that don't use any colour management

                                                  This is a very common concern. My policy on this is very simple: it's their problem. As long as I know the file is right, that ends my responsibility.

                                                  • 24. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                                    Noel Carboni Community Member

                                                    twenty_one wrote:

                                                    How accurate do you need it to be to sleep at night? The answer to that question tends to work itself out over time.

                                                     

                                                    Couldn't have said it better myself.

                                                     

                                                    It's interesting that the definitive answer so many seek ultimately works out to be "it depends".  All those options really are there for a reason.

                                                     

                                                    MatchingColors.jpg

                                                     

                                                    -Noel

                                                    • 25. Re: Muted looking colour especially reds in CS5
                                                      twenty_one Community Member

                                                      Discussing hardware, I'm always reminded of an episode of "Veep" with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (funniest show since Seinfeld).

                                                       

                                                      There's a photographer, shooting some official event and minding his own business. Jonah, the white house liaison disliked by everybody, sneaks up to him: "Is that a 5D MkIII? You should use a 1Dx, I have one and it's much better".

                                                       

                                                      Photographer (fed up already): "You don't need a 1Dx, unless you're out covering the war in Afghanistan or something. It doesn't take better pictures".

                                                       

                                                      (long pause, photographer still minding his own business)

                                                       

                                                      Jonah: "Well...I have one".

                                                       

                                                      And the funny part is, there's nothing the photographer can counter this with, even though he's right. It's the coup de grace. This little incident in passing, so easily missed, gave me a laugh and a sobering reminder.

                                                       

                                                      I do insist that I face some specialized requirements that others may not, and the Eizo was a huge relief. I didn't pay for it myself, but I would have if I had to.