20 Replies Latest reply: Jan 5, 2011 6:55 PM by Doug.S RSS

    Poor Quality Gradient on new computer

    brian-j Community Member

      I just got a new Dell XPS 9100 computer up-and-running and am baffled by a problem I'm having with gradients in Photoshop CS4.

       

      Gradients look aweful -- lots of banding. Even the gradient in the color picker is messed up. I'm assuming you'll see the same problem in the below image that I see on my computer. I'm thinking there's got to be a setting somewhere I'm missing as opossed to the issue being with my graphics card.

       

      In the following image, the gradient is too dark on the bottom and washed out as it moves to the top-left.

      photoshop_cs4_gradient.jpg

      I've tried turning off OpenGL and restarting Photoshop, but that didn't do anything. I doubt it's my graphics card, which is an ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB. I'm using the same monitors (looks the same on the 2 I have) that worked fine with my old computer.

       

      I've tried messing with proof settings (View > Proof Setup) but had no luck there.

       

      I'm working in 8 bit RGB mode, with sRGB color profile.

       

      Not sure what other information would be helpful... I'm at a total loss. I need this computer for work, so any help anyone can provide would be much appreciated!

       

      Thanks,

      Brian

        • 1. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
          brian-j Community Member

          Forgot to mention, I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.

           

          Brian

          • 2. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
            Q Photo Community Member

            Check that your graphics card is set to 32 bit color.  Not 16 bit, or lower.

            • 3. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
              brian-j Community Member

              I've checked the graphics card and it is set to 32 bit color. Any other ideas?

              • 4. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                Mylenium CommunityMVP

                There's no banding here in your screenshot. So if you see it, you have a rubbish LCD screen, have assigned some wrong color profiles to the monitor or anotehr graphics card related issue. The problem is not PS....

                 

                Mylenium

                • 5. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                  Noel Carboni Community Member

                  Unlike Mylenium, I do see some banding in the color picker shown.  Compare this image, captured from my screen:

                   

                  ColorPickerMagenta.jpg

                   

                  Have you calibrated/profiled your display?  What is your monitor profile?

                   

                  -Noel

                  • 6. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                    Chris Cox Adobe Employee

                    Yeah, it looks like a bad display profile.

                    • 7. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                      brian-j Community Member

                      The color picker screenshot Noel posted looks good on my monitors, unlike the screenshot I took and how the color picker looks within Photoshop on my computer.

                       

                      I've never callibrated my monitors (I'm somewhat ashamed to admit as a web designer). I've looked into purchasing callibration software, but am a self-taught freelancer and have never been sure if callibration software was necessary to invest in.

                       

                      If my monitor settings are what's creating the problem, wouldn't Noel's screenshot look bad -- like the one I took -- on my monitors? (Which is not the case -- it looks good.) I've fiddled with my GPU settings, but am not finding that it corrects the problem. Not sure if it's just that I don't know how to best manually adjust the displays or not.

                       

                      Noel and Chris, are you suggesting that monitor callibration software is what I need to correct the issue?

                       

                      What do you think?

                       

                      I appreciate your help!

                      • 8. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                        Chris Cox Adobe Employee

                        How Noel's image appears will depend on how you are viewing it -- your browser probably isn't color managed, and thus not using the display profile.  But Photoshop is color managed, and uses the display profile to correct colors for your display.

                         

                        Picking a better profile that matches your display would be a start.  Just try using sRGB as a starting point, or if you have a wide gamut display maybe AdobeRGB(1998).

                         

                        Or you can just use free calibration software (eyeball calibration) to construct a better profile.

                        • 9. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                          Noel Carboni Community Member

                          Don't be ashamed, and don't allow yourself to be criticized for not profiling.  It's possible to get monitors calibrated and working quite well using the Windows default sRGB profile, and there are actually some advantages to doing so.

                           

                          But what this information DOES to is to complicate the diagnosis of what's wrong on your particular computer.

                           

                          What operating system are you running?  The answer to that will lead us to different questions regarding how your monitor color profiles are set.

                           

                          Have you updated to the latest video drivers for your particular card?  What card is it?

                           

                          -Noel

                          • 10. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                            brian-j Community Member

                            Thanks for the encouragement, Noel. This is utterly frustrating.

                             

                            I tried several free monitor calibration tools but no monitor or graphics card adjustments are correcting the issue. The more I work on this the more I think it's got to be a setting in Photoshop that I'm overlooking -- and not my monitors/graphics card.

                             

                            Here's some system info...

                             

                            I running Windows 7 64-bit. My graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 5670 and I do have the latest driver installed.

                             

                            I was testing different Photoshop Proof Setup settings. If I change the Proof Setup (View > Proof Setup) to Monitor RGB, then TURN ON Proof Colors (View > Proof Colors), the gradients on my document canvas look fine. This does NOT correct the gradient quality shown in the color picker, however. I haven't touched Proof Settings before, but am assuming the Proof Monitor RGB is showing how the image will look in a web browser without whatever color settings are messing things up in Photoshop... anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong.

                             

                            And... the below image shows that when I take a screen shot of a gradient in Photoshop and view the image in a web browser, the banding is apparent. However, if I create a gradient, then save the document as a jpg, even though the gradient looked awful in the psd file it looks fine when viewed in a browser. If the below jpg file is opened with Photoshop, the bottom-left black gradient has the banding problem.

                            gradient-comparison.jpg

                            Does any of this information clue anyone in to what in the world is going on with my Photoshop?

                             

                            Thanks much!

                             

                            Message was edited by: brian-j

                            • 11. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                              Noel Carboni Community Member

                              I'm using that video card's predecessor, the 4670, and Windows 7 x64, so we have somewhat similar setups.  Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of what's going on.

                               

                              It's good you're doing screen grabs.  That helps.

                               

                              Let's check what you've got set up for monitor color settings first.  Do this:

                               

                              1.  Click Start, and type Color Management into the Search box (but don't hit Enter).

                              2.  When Color Management comes up under Control Panel, click it.

                              3.  In the Devices tab, do you see the [ ] Use my settings for this device entry checked?  If so, uncheck it.

                              4.  In the Advanced tab, Device profile setting, do you see System Default (sRGB IEC61966-2.1)?  If not, set that value.

                              5.  Grab a snapshot of the Devices and Advanced tabs and post it.

                               

                              Now check the ATI Catalyst color settings:

                               

                              1.  Right-click the Catalyst icon in the system tray and choose Catalyst™ Control Center.

                              2.  Verify the Catalyst™ Version is 10.12.
                              3.  Click the Graphics menu and choose Desktop Properties.

                              4.  Click the Color tab.

                              5.  Is the [ Reactivate ATI color controls ] button enabled?  If so, click it.

                              6.  Are the settings for All Channels equal to 1.0, 0, and 100 respectively for Gamma, Brightness, and Contrast?

                               

                              Finally, do you know of any color management applet that may be starting when your system comes up?  You may need to use the freeware tool AutoRuns to find out for sure.

                               

                              -Noel

                              • 12. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                brian-j Community Member

                                Excellent Noel, you're giving me hope! :-)  I was hoping I wasn't going to have to start looking for a different career.

                                 

                                I went through your lists and all Color Management settings in the Control Panel match your settings (I didn't need to change anything). Here are the screen shots.

                                 

                                Monitor 1

                                screen_shots_1a_monitor-1.gif

                                 

                                Monitor 2 (it's an old monitor which may explain why there's no Profile)

                                screen_shots_1b_monitor-2.gif

                                 

                                Advanced Tab

                                screen_shots_1c_advanced-tab.gif

                                 

                                It looks like the Catalyst version has a different naming convention than yours. I checked for updates via Windows and have the latest version. Here's a screen shot.

                                 

                                catalyst_version.gif

                                 

                                I downloaded "AutoRuns" and ran it, but am not sure what to look for to determine if I've got any color management applets running at system startup. Would they show up under the Drivers tab? Don't want to overwhelm you with screen shots, but if you have an idea of the tab I could take a screen shot.

                                 

                                OK, hope something here points you in the right direction. I REALLY appreciate your help.

                                 

                                Brian

                                • 13. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                  Noel Carboni Community Member

                                  Well, it may be that your driver software isn't quite up to date...  The way I read the packaging version, yours is from May 2010.

                                   

                                  Note the differences between your version and mine:

                                   

                                  CatalystVersion.jpg

                                   

                                  If I were you I might start by visiting the ATI (AMD) web site and downloading Catalyst 10.12.  It's possible Dell has done something tricky to ensure that you can only update from their version.  That would be a shame, because a lot of good changes have gone into ATI's drivers over the past 8 months.

                                   

                                  http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/radeon_win7-64.aspx

                                   

                                  Secondly, I see that your monitor has a profile associated, though the [ ] Use my settings for this device checkbox is unchecked (which I believe means it's supposed to use the system default).  You might try seeing if you can force it to use the sRGB profile by explicitly adding it to the list, making it the default, and checking the [ ] Use my settings for this device checkbox.

                                   

                                  Once we get your system to where it displays smooth gradients we can look at making it do a good job of rendering the proper colors.

                                   

                                  -Noel

                                  • 14. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                    brian-j Community Member

                                    I've downloaded the latest Catalyst Control Center from the AMD site and have it installed... unfortunately it didn't correct the problem.

                                     

                                    Regarding the profile associated with one of my monitors, it's interesting there's a profile even though the [ ] Use my settings for this device box is not checked -- it's an old LDC I use for extra pallet space, folders, Office docs, etc. I'm thinking that probably isn't related to my issue. Even though the one monitor has a profile, the gradient banding problem looks the same on my newer monitor with no profile. The problem has to be some system level issue that's not related to each individual monitor's settings. Is that a sound assumption?

                                     

                                    Any thoughts on a next step?

                                     

                                    Thanks,

                                    Brian

                                    • 15. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                      Noel Carboni Community Member

                                      Just to be clear, you installed not only Catalyst Control Center but the drivers as well, right?  Do your versions all match those I listed above now?

                                       

                                      Try adding the sRGB profile to the monitor's list, and making it the default.  You may want to restart your system to make absolutely sure it's set up right afterward.

                                       

                                      I feel sure you'll see a smoother display once Photoshop is made to believe you're using the sRGB profile for your display.

                                       

                                      Next steps after that may be to tweak the video driver gamma et. al. settings to try to make it display sRGB accurately, or to get a calibration/profiling device and set up an accurate, high quality profile for the monitor.

                                       

                                      Is your particular monitor model capable of being set to display the sRGB color space?

                                       

                                      -Noel

                                      • 16. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                        brian-j Community Member

                                        You're AWESOME Noel! Problem solved.

                                         

                                        The solution was to delete the monitor profile that was mysteriously applied to one of my monitors. And I was mistaken, that profile was applied to my main monitor... not that realizing that fact would have changed my assumption the profile wasn't the culprit of the issue.

                                         

                                        I searched 2209WA.icm in Google and it turns out others have had the same problem. For some reason the Dell 2209WA monitor installs a profile that institutes Windows color management -- and evidentially it overrides whatever color settings I've setup.

                                         

                                        Thank you so much! I'm so relieved.

                                         

                                        You mentioned possibly having some advise on calibrating/dialing in color settings for my monitor. If you've got any advise for monitor calibration I'd love to hear it. Since I don't use professional monitor calibration software, I've always been concerned about the color/tone accuracy of my designs.

                                         

                                        Brian

                                        • 17. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                          Noel Carboni Community Member

                                          Glad to help get to the bottom of that.  Thanks for the compliment; it offsets being called "annoying" by another poster recently. 

                                           

                                          Now that you have nice, clean output using the sRGB profile to describe the monitor, it should be possible to use the color settings in the drivers and the monitors themselves to get the color response close to right.

                                           

                                          But first we need to check a few things...

                                           

                                          Your monitor needs to be able to emulate sRGB.  If it's a wide gamut monitor, as many newer models are, then you risk seeing deeper and more saturated colors on your display than will be seen by people with calibrated monitors.  On the other hand, the vast majority of people do NOT calibrate their monitors, and so what you would see on a wide gamut monitor may be more representative of what the general browsing public sees than if it was truly profiled.

                                           

                                          I looked up your monitor, the Dell 2209WA, and from all I can see, it is a good fit for this strategy, as it is not a wide-gamut monitor.

                                           

                                          You can use a gamma test chart and the aforementioned settings to get the display very close to the proper color response.

                                           

                                          Download the following chart and display it at 100% zoom.  If you open it with Photoshop, assign the sRGB profile (the default if you haven't changed your Photoshop color settings).

                                           

                                          http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/temp/2.20%20Gamma%20Calibration.png

                                           

                                          How does the above chart look?  Ideally, if your gamma for each color channel is about right, you should see even gray gradients, something like this:

                                           

                                          ChartAppearance.jpg

                                           

                                          You should also *just* be able to make out gray squares in the dark bar at the upper-right, while the lower one should look pretty much all black.

                                           

                                          If the chart doesn't look right, start by setting the settings in your monitor to center scale.  I don't have your monitor, so I don't know the specifics.  Then I'd go into the ATI Catalyst Control Center, choose Desktop Properties, and click the Color tab.  Adjust the Gamma, Brightness, and Contrast tabs to make the chart look fairly neutral.  You can finish up by tweaking the on-monitor controls, if you really like to fine tune things.

                                           

                                          Assuming you have a printer from which you'd like to have the colors match your screen, it would be good to print a few images and compare them.  You might find they're off a little - possibly because the printer needs to be profiled.

                                           

                                          Chances are this exercise will get your system close to being an sRGB reference system.  Certainly close enough to do good web work.

                                           

                                          Then you have some additional advantages...  For example, your screen grabs of sRGB images in web pages will exactly match what you see in Photoshop.  And you should never again see banding in output from your color-managed applications due to a poor monitor profile.

                                           

                                          -Noel

                                          • 18. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                            Noel Carboni Community Member

                                            By the way, about the Catalyst controls...

                                             

                                            The Gamma control makes the response curved.

                                            The Brightness control moves both the black point and white point.

                                            The Contrast control moves just the white point.

                                             

                                            Generally speaking, so that you don't truncate dark colors to black, try to keep the black point (lower-left) right in the corner.  This means that you really probably don't want to move the Brightness control very much.

                                             

                                            You probably also don't want to max out too many very light levels to white, so try to keep the Contrast values at 100 or below.

                                             

                                            Ideally, if you can change only the Gamma control and leave Brightness and Contrast at center scale you'll be better off.  You may need to change the Gamma control for each of the 3 colors separately though.

                                             

                                            -Noel

                                            • 19. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                              brian-j Community Member

                                              Thanks for the calibrating tips, Noel.

                                               

                                              I downloaded the calibration chart and had a go at it. I've used similar charts in the past. Trying to get Gamma dialed in always has me cross-eyed after a while. I can't seem to get the charts to look like they're suppose to on a properly calibrated monitor. Maybe my vision is off. But, I gave it my best shot.

                                               

                                              Thanks again for all your help, I really appreciate it.

                                               

                                              Brian

                                              • 20. Re: Poor Quality Gradient on new computer
                                                Doug.S Community Member

                                                Out of curiosity, can using the "proof" display mode (ctrl+y) set to ??? (monitor or ???) can we learn anything more?

                                                 

                                                Or can it be used to "forecast" what other typical sRGB displays (both LCD and older analog) might display (aside from resolution) as they are usually not calibrated?

                                                 

                                                I use proof to better predict what my printer will print (my display is not calibrated; except by eye; but is suitable for my non-pro work; and my print results are excellent with little tweaking)

                                                 

                                                And, tho I often read its best to use AdobeRGB 1998, why not use sRGB as the color setting default in Ps since its so ubiquitous for web work and photo sharing?  I've tried both and the display is slightly different but of course the printing result is the almost identically the same as the limits of my printer (Epson 1270) are probably reached....and the colors on another PC look about the same (non color managed browser or MS office photo viewer or Picasa or similar)