How to prevent Photoshop from auto correcting the colors of my images

[jjonez642]

Hey everyone,

There's this issue that keeps occurring from time to time and I can't find any fix even after an extensive Google search.

When I open some pictures on Photoshop (I specifically use CS5 for Mac if that makes any difference) the colors automatically change without me even doing the slightest little thing.

Now as I said, it only happens to some pictures, not all of them, which is strange. I cannot find a fix for this guys. I'm suspecting there's got to be somewhere in Preferences an auto color correction setting enabled, but I don't know if that's the case or where to find it.

My Color Settings are set to North America General Purpose 2, if that matters.

On the left is the picture opened on Preview (and several other apps) and on the right is the exact same picture opened on Photoshop. Both pictures are unaltered by me, meaning this is what I get just by opening them. As you can see the one on the right has brighter colors.

Anyone knows a fix for this? Please help me cause this bug has rendered Photoshop unusable to me, on one too many occasions from time to time.

Thank you very much for your time.

[Bettina Di Virgilio]

Check if you've on the soft proof. Press Cmd/Cltr + Y to enable or disable it.

[jjonez642]

Hi, thanks for your response.

I tried that and there's no difference whatsoever.

[Danny Whitehead.]

Looks like the image has the AdobeRGB profile assigned. If that's the case, then the image on the right, in Photoshop, is the correct colours (as intended by whoever assigned that profile). If you prefer the appearance on the left, Edit > Assign Profile, and try assigning sRGB.

[Barbara Ash]

Check Edit > Color Settings. Color management may be converting images to working RGB without asking.

[D Fosse]

Converting won't matter. It will display the same. This is a color managed application, which displays everything correctly whatever the document profile.

This is most likely, yet again, a display profile problem. Probably not a corrupt profile, more likely just the wrong one.

Is this a dual display setup? If so, exactly what displays are used (make and model)? This is what it would look like if the display is wide gamut, but the application uses an sRGB-type display profile for it.

[jjonez642]

Ok, bingo!

This is fixed by Assigning Profile: Display

Now the picture and its colors are identical whether I open it with Preview or Photoshop.

Finally.

Thank you all for your help guys.

[jjonez642]

Oh, sorry, one last thing.

Is there any way to set it that it assigns the "Display" profile by default, so I don't have to do it every time manually?

Thanks.

[D Fosse]

This is fixed by Assigning Profile: Display

No, no, no - you're getting this all wrong. The display profile and the document profile are two very different things, serving different purposes, don't mix them up!

The display profile is set up at system level. Photoshop gets it from the operating system and uses it, on the fly, without any intervention from you.

The document profile remains sRGB or Adobe RGB.

What you just did was to disable display color management. But that does confirm that this is a display profile problem.

First of all - answer my questions above. Is this a dual display setup, and if so, what displays, specifically?

[jjonez642]

In response to "Is this a dual display setup?" the answer is no.

To be honest, I don't see what I'm getting wrong. I actually opened the image on Photoshop, assigned profile to "Display" and now it looks the way I want it (I mean like it does on Preview and all the other apps I use). I also saved it and compared the images (one from Preview and the one from Photoshop) and they're identical now.

Are you saying that I messed it up somehow?

[D Fosse]

j64253144  wrote

Are you saying that I messed it up somehow?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. You may have managed to sweep the immediate problem under the carpet, but you haven't solved the underlying problem, which is a faulty/wrong/defective/corrupt display profile. It's still there.

The document needs to be in a standard, universal color space. Your monitor doesn't qualify. The document profile should always, no exception, be sRGB, Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB. Anything else defeats the whole purpose.

And, of course, as per the little sub-discussion between K'mo and myself above - the profile must be embedded in the file.

This gets converted, by Photoshop, on the fly, into your monitor profile. You need both profiles present and correct. All color management, everywhere, depends on two profiles - a source and a destination. With only one profile there's no color management.

What type of display is this? Make and model?

[jjonez642]

It's the MacBook 4,1 (early 2008) Core 2 Duo, running 10.7.5

[D Fosse]

OK. So let's just get it out of the way first: Before you assigned your display profile - did the file in question have sRGB IEC61966-2.1 embedded? If it didn't, what happens if you assign that now?

(you need to do that anyway; it can't have your display profile assigned).

[jjonez642]

Ok, I don't remember if it did have sRGB IEC61966-2.1 or something else embedded, to be honest.

Here's what I did though; I just opened the original file on Photoshop (the one I posted in the OP, just the image as I got it from Google, unedited by me) and when I click on "Assign Profile" I get:

Working RGB: sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (that's the selection that's checked by itself)

Now, if I click (check the selection) on Profile: Display the image's colors are fixed to the desired ones; I mean the ones that were projected on Google when I downloaded it, Preview and all the other apps that I imported this image in. Why are you saying that this a mistake? 😕

By the way, thank you for your insight.

[D Fosse]

This is going nowhere. This is really simple if you just start listening to what I'm saying.

You cannot use your monitor profile as document profile because it is not a standard color space. What if you send this file to other people, or to other devices? What are they going to do with your monitor profile? That profile applies only to that specific MacBook screen, it is full of irregularities and idiosyncrasies, because it was made precisely to correct for those defects that your screen has. Do you think your MacBook screen behaves in a perfect, ideal way? No, it doesn't.

You have a source profile (the file), and a destination profile (in this case the MacBook screen). If both these profiles accurately describe the respective color spaces they refer to, the conversion preserves the file's appearance in the new color space.

And that is in fact a full and complete summary of what color management is. That's all it does. That's all it has to do to reproduce everything correctly across devices and systems.

So I'm asking again: What happens if you assign sRGB IEC61966-2.1 to the file? Don't just open the dialog - go ahead and do it.

[jjonez642]

Ok, I did it. Apparently, there's no difference at all when I assign it because as I said on my previous post that's what it already is assigned by default. More specifically, when I assign sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (even though it is selected by its own), the red "close window" button on the top left of the image's window doesn't add a black dot in it (which is what happens when a change is made on the file and prompts you to save before exiting). The image remains as it is on the right side of the image I uploaded in the OP.

If it's of any use to you here's the files:

(Original file downloaded from the internet)

(file opened and saved through Photoshop without making any edits myself, default profile assigned: sRGB IEC61966-2.1)

(original file opened and saved through Photoshop, only thing I did while it was in Photoshop, was to change the assigned profile to "Display".)

In response to: "What if you send this file to other people, or to other devices? What are they going to do with your monitor profile? That profile applies only to that specific MacBook screen":

In my computer it looks 100% exactly like the first image, are you saying in yours it doesn't?

Thank you.

[D Fosse]

All right. You should have said you downloaded this from the web. A lot of files on the web are untagged and don't have a profile embedded - and indeed, this one doesn't have one either.

And that's pretty significant, because while Photoshop displays untagged material as working RGB, converted into your display profile - standard color managed display - those earlier Safari versions don't. They just pass the RGB numbers straight on without any correction at all. Effectively, you'll see the file in your display color space, not sRGB. There's a difference. They don't look the same.

The very first thing you should always do with web files, is to check whether it has a profile at all. If not, assign sRGB. That's a safe assumption. Everything produced for web will be created in sRGB with sRGB numbers, even if the profile itself is stripped.

So. The next one is the one you saved out with sRGB assigned. It looks identical, once sRGB has been assigned to the original. As of course it should.

The third is the one you assigned your display profile to. That's the odd one out - it's less saturated and slightly yellowish. That's also expected because it's the wrong profile. The file wasn't created in your display's color space, it was created in sRGB.

There's no mystery at all here, in these three. It's all as expected. Case closed (- and K'mo, you were right...)

---

As for your insistence on using the display profile as document profile, I officially give up. You'll quickly find yourself in a total mess you can't back out from, but if you insist, what can I say.

[D Fosse]

BTW I don't know who marked my post #5 as correct, but whoever did should unmark it, and give the correct marking to post #6 by K'mo.

[jjonez642]

You should have said you downloaded this from the web.

I did. On post 17.

The very first thing you should always do with web files, is to check whether it has a profile at all. If not, assign sRGB.

But if I assign sRGB the colors are changed to not desired ones. I turns into the image on the right in the OP if I do.

As for your insistence on using the display profile as document profile, I officially give up. You'll quickly find yourself in a total mess you can't back out from, but if you insist, what can I say.

No, I'm not insisting in using the display profile. What I insist in, is merely finding a solution to the issue. I don't care which profile I'm going to assign as long as it provides a solution to the issue. The 'display profile' just so happened to provide a solution for me. Apparently, according to you, I shouldn't use it, but If I use sRGB, as you insist, I get messed up colors, the ones on the right image in OP. When I use 'display profile' I get no change in my document at all. No change on my document's colors is what I've been looking for this entire time now.

The third is the one you assigned your display profile to. That's the odd one out - it's less saturated and slightly yellowish.

Are you telling me that the third and the first image are not 100% identical on your computer?

[D Fosse]

We finally got down to the core of the issue here.

But if I assign sRGB the colors are changed to not desired ones.

This is the precise point where you misunderstand what's going on, and get off on the wrong track.

• Your web browser - I assume Safari - is not color managing untagged material. It is not correcting the data for your display. No conversion from source to display happens, and the RGB numbers in the file are just passed straight through uncorrected.
• Photoshop does color manage everything. If no profile is there, the working RGB is assigned, and those sRGB numbers are then converted into your display profile. This way, the data are corrected for your display.

In short: Photoshop is right. Your web browser is wrong.

Yes, I'm telling you that the first and third images are not identical. The first and second are identical. That's because I'm viewing them all with full color management, and you're not.

You should ditch Safari and use Firefox instead. It assigns sRGB to all untagged material, and correctly color manages everything. Safari doesn't.

First and second:

Second and third:

[jjonez642]

Your web browser - I assume Safari

I use Safari, Firefox and Chrome. I just tried opening the 1st image (original file) in all 3 and I got the exact same result in all of them.

In a nutshell, on my computer:

Preview = Safari = Firefox = Chrome = 1st image on post 19 = 3rd image on post 19 = image on the left in OP = the exact way I want the picture's colors to look like

Also, from I see on the 2 pictures you posted:

1st image = 2nd image

and

3rd image = all the aforementioned ones (on my computer)

So, what is the proper way to get the colors you get on your 3rd image?

[D Fosse]

I left out one bit, just to keep things focused and not go off on too many tangents at once.

In Firefox, you have to manually enable color management mode 1. By default it's at mode 2, which is the "Safari mode" where untagged images are not color managed at all.

Mode 1 assigns sRGB to untagged material, thereby ensuring full and correct color management to everything. You get this by typing "about:config" without the quotes in the address field, and refresh. Scroll down to gfx.color_management.mode, and change it from 2 to 1.

Firefox is the only browser that has this option. I believe Safari behaves this way in the latest versions of Mac OS, but that doesn't apply in your case. In practice it works just like the working space in Photoshop.

[jjonez642]

Thanks for that tip.

However, when I said "what is the proper way to get the colors you get on your 3rd image" I was referring to PS, not Firefox.

So far, in order to get the colors of your 3rd image (while the image is imported on Photoshop), assigning profile: Display is the only way to do that for me, and since you've made it clear, this is not the route I should go.

While, from what I understand, sRGB is the profile that should be assigned (because that is the way to get the correct colors), that alone is not saying much to me as it doesn't serve my needs, since I simply personally prefer the colors on the 3rd image of yours, and not the ones on the 1st two – even though they are considered to be the correct ones.

So, which is the right way to get these colors on your 3rd image, while the image is opened in Photoshop?

[Test Screen Name]

I see this differently. I see that the original poster has seen a picture in their browser, liked the colour and downloaded it. On opening he has seem in Photoshop different colours. Now he doesn't want to accept that the problem is that it's not a good picture, that Photoshop is right, and that the browser is wrong. Is this fair?

[jjonez642]

Pretty much.

I guess you could say that I don't care about whether the browser or PS is, technically, right or wrong.

I'm just looking to use the colors on the left side of the image in the OP, while the image is imported on Photoshop. That's it.

And then when I export/save it from PS and upload it somewhere, to still use the same variation of colors, not the one that PS overrides it with, again, whether it's right or wrong.

Thank you.