CS3 / ColorSync Issues...please help
So I am running into a lot of problems with my color in photoshop. I like the way it looks when I'm working on it, but as soon as I export it it looks horrible. When I go to get the project printed it looks bad as well. When I open a file in preview, it will look good for a second, but then the color will get darker and not look the same. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? I am working on another huge project now and I don't need these color problems.
Comments
So I am running into a lot of problems with my color in photoshop. I like the way it looks when I'm working on it, but as soon as I export it it looks horrible. When I go to get the project printed it looks bad as well. When I open a file in preview, it will look good for a second, but then the color will get darker and not look the same. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? I am working on another huge project now and I don't need these color problems.
Is this a new thing, or something that's always happened in your projects (if new, how recent)? If it's new, which build of CS3 are you running, and do all images in Preview grow darker after a second, or just those outputted with CS3? Oh, and what format are you exporting to?
Is this a new thing, or something that's always happened in your projects (if new, how recent)? If it's new, which build of CS3 are you running, and do all images in Preview grow darker after a second, or just those outputted with CS3? Oh, and what format are you exporting to?
I think ever since I upgraded to CS3 this has been happening. I don't remember problems with CS2. I check for updates at least once a week, so everything is up to date. All of the images exported from photoshop when viewed in preview have the same problem. It doesn't matter if its a jpg, tiff, pdf, or anything else, all the same outcome. As for other images, I really don't know. I just notice my own because I know how they look in photoshop and they look different in preview. When i open the same file in both apps, and put them side by side I can tell a difference, and i can tell which is which. How do I go about fixing this problem? I have tried changing the color profiles and I did calibrate my screen the best I could without buying any hardware to help, it is as close as its going to get. What the hell do I do?
Hmm, it's the darkening after a moment in Preview that's got me stumped (I'm trying to recreate what's happening on your machine on my machine -- though an MBP, so it's not exact). So do other, non-imported from CS3 images go darker when they're brought into Preview? (Grab a few anythings off the web and try them.) Calibration is always a pain and a frustration, but this darkening after a second has me stumped.
I am at work right now, when i get back I will test a few things and get back immediately. It's really getting me mad, because now I am in the middle of this huge project, and I really love the colors and the design, but now when I export it, it looks like hell, and it's very frustrating.
I hear ya on the frustrating. I hope others with much more knowledge than myself (not that hard to be) chime in. I'm trying here because not being able to actually do work is the worst. I'll keep attempting to recreate on my end and think of other questions. I'll scan online to see if there are any other times this has cropped up as well.
Thanks a lot!
Well, I connected to my machine at home and took the .tiff file and opened it at work. I know how my stuff comes out through here, and the image looks real dark. Maybe I have my Cinema display to bright? How do I set everything up to get it to look right. I thought I calibrated my screen right, but after looking at the same image on this screen, it looks really dark. Taking the project file and exporting it on a windows machine shows slight differences as well. How do I get around this, and what can I do to make this stop?
What do you use to calibrate your screen to printer? Something like the ColorVision Spyder2PRO (or some of the many others of varying price)? There's also some software (I'm thinking of a Windows one that I use in Parallels: Qimage) that help to get very accurate prints. If it's for your job, everyone that I know who does graphics uses something like that to get their screen-to-printer route accurate.
What do you use to calibrate your screen to printer? Something like the ColorVision Spyder2PRO (or some of the many others of varying price)? There's also some software (I'm thinking of a Windows one that I use in Parallels: Qimage) that help to get very accurate prints. If it's for your job, everyone that I know who does graphics uses something like that to get their screen-to-printer route accurate.
well I used the one in colorsync. Its not anything special, but at the same time, it's all i really have to work with. If qimage is just for winodws, can't i set the monitor in parallels and work in os x?
well I used the one in colorsync. Its not anything special, but at the same time, it's all i really have to work with. If qimage is just for winodws, can't i set the monitor in parallels and work in os x?
Try the Qimage in Parallels (that's what I do, and it's recommended on their site) -- use the demo, and see if that helps. I do wish others with more knowledge would come save the day.
Try the Qimage in Parallels (that's what I do, and it's recommended on their site) -- use the demo, and see if that helps. I do wish others with more knowledge would come save the day.
I'll try when I get home in 2 hours
I looked around for some options, and I found the color vision Spyder2Pro for 179 bucks. I might just go and buy this after work today. I dont know what else to do. My only question is will this help at all, or is this just going to be a big waste of time/money? 179 is a lot of money right now, but if it's going to fix my problem, it's a good investment.
I'd try the Qimage for free, just to see if that made a difference. I know people who really like the Spyder2Pro. Others go for vastly more expensive (and probably more accurate) items. Me, if the Qimage didn't make a difference, I'd talk to whoever was selling the Spyder2Pro and see if they might not work a deal with you. If he says the Spyder2Pro should work after you tell him the problem and it doesn't, maybe there's a way to get a refund. I'll keep asking my friends to see if they have other advice.
I'd try the Qimage for free, just to see if that made a difference. I know people who really like the Spyder2Pro. Others go for vastly more expensive (and probably more accurate) items. Me, if the Qimage didn't make a difference, I'd talk to whoever was selling the Spyder2Pro and see if they might not work a deal with you. If he says the Spyder2Pro should work after you tell him the problem and it doesn't, maybe there's a way to get a refund. I'll keep asking my friends to see if they have other advice.
I downloaded and installed qimage real quick and loaded my image. After playing around with it for 15 mins, qimage seems to be a post image editor, not so much calibration software. I am looking to get my screen to match with my scanning and printing. This looks like it can do it, but manually. I didn't look at the tutorial though, so that might have something to do with it.
I just notice my own because I know how they look in photoshop and they look different in preview. When i open the same file in both apps, and put them side by side I can tell a difference, and i can tell which is which. How do I go about fixing this problem?
Photoshop's working color space should be the same as your display profile to get matching images. By default PS is set to use Adobe 1998 or something. If you set your display profile to that, the images should look identical side by side as preview uses your display profile. You may have to quit some programs for this to take effect e.g Safari needs to be restarted for it to use the selected profile.
The standard one used by most computers is sRGB, which is best if you are putting content online. I actually set Photoshop to use this all the time. Adobe 1998 gives you more vibrant colors though, sRGB is very washed out and desaturated.
If you need to target a specific printer, you need a profile for that printer. My brother works in a print shop and he used one of those spyder things to calibrate his display.
Color space profiles are basically just translators. The color spectrum is continuous but digital sampling isn't so the values for 32-bit images are 8 bits per pixel or 256 samples per color of this spectrum. Not all devices (including screens) can generate the same range of colors though and some use different sampling to get a better range suited to a particular task and that's why although the numbers e.g. (255,0,0) would be constant and in this case red, it might not be the same red from one device to the next.
It's not just RGB color space either because in the case of prints you use the subtractive color space CMYK, which is a major pain to use in a lot of software. CMYK will actually just crash programs like Shake or Final Cut or display as a funky inverted image. I think iphoto's the same. In video you get things like YUV color space where if you work with DV, you have to deal with issues like the U and V are only stored at 1/4 resolution whereas Y (the luminance) is stored fully so it has less artifacts.
All in all, the whole system could use the Apple magic wand to make it easier to grasp. The more you deal with color spaces and get a work flow for color accuracy, I think the problem will start to diminish but I think that everyone has the whole WTF is happening to my colors at some point and you have to wade through pages of info about profiles and things.
From what I understand how it works is you have this fixed set of values to describe the image say 8 bits per pixel. You can optionally have an embedded profile which describes what the pixel values actually mean i.e what red they actually are. You then have display and workspace profiles which translate from the embedded profile into your working space profile so that you can see on your display what the output will look like.
My brother works in a print shop and he used one of those spyder things to calibrate his display.
Them "spyder things" do do the job.
Glad someone who had some idea of what was going on decided to 'splain.
Them "spyder things" do do the job.
Glad someone who had some idea of what was going on decided to 'splain.
yeah me too! The question I have now is, if I use say the 1998 profile and working in CMYK, when I send it to a print house, how do I know that it's going to come out the same? I am working on this flyer right now, and it's a huge deal in NY, possibly one of the biggest club events to come around in years. Everyone that sees this flyer on my computer can't believe the amount of work I put into this, but when I sent it to myself at work and opened it I had a heart attack, it looks horrible. I just hope i can get this to look as good as it does on my screen. I will set the profiles the same, and preview it in preview and see what the outcome is. Hopefully it looks the same, but how do I know it's going to look like that when I print it? Is there a way to make sure that the outcome is going to be the same besides the trial and error? lol
Thanks again for all your input, I do appreciate it!
"The idea you're thinking of in terms of a "handshake" is an ICC color profile, which is basically a summary of your color settings that tells Photoshop how to handle color. If he's using Photoshop, then all he has to do is tell it to "embed" the color profile within the graphic file: All he needs to do is make sure that when he saves a photo he uses File > Save As, that he remembers to a) save it as a Photoshop file, not a JPEG, TIFF, or PNG, to make sure this works and b) in the Save As... dialog box, make sure that the checkbox "Embed Color Profile" (on the Mac, or "ICC Profile" on the PC) is checked. Then, tell the print shop to use the embedded color profile, and he should be all set."
I think couple this with a Spyder2Pro to get true colors on your monitor, and it might do the trick. You could always have the print shop send you a sample to double-check.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
The question I have now is, if I use say the 1998 profile and working in CMYK, when I send it to a print house, how do I know that it's going to come out the same?
Hopefully it looks the same, but how do I know it's going to look like that when I print it? Is there a way to make sure that the outcome is going to be the same besides the trial and error?
There's no absolute guarantee that it will be the same because there has to be a color space conversion somewhere in there. In your case from your image profile to the printing device's color range. My brother once showed me supposedly color accurate printing and it's close but there are variations. You'd really expect that to some degree due to the way different media react to light. Plus you have color changes due to absorption and things when dealing with ink.
It shouldn't be extreme though and if you embed the profile as mentioned above, that should do the trick - you may have to assign one first. This won't necessarily work for displaying on another computer because it may ignore the embedded profiles. I think this is one reason why Macs are preferred over PCs in prepress and DTP - they seem to be better at system-wide color management than Windows.
Basically if you embed the profile from Photoshop where it looks good then it is letting the program displaying it know what color space the image looks good/correct in and it will adapt the colors to look the same in the color space it is using. If it ignores the embedded profile, the program will assume the image was created in the same color space it's using already and so it won't look right.
You also get an option in Photoshop to convert to profile. This can be useful if you want to target a color space where people may not be using a color managed workflow. For example, if you want to put stuff online where sRGB is standard but you're working from Adobe 1998. Most people won't have a color managed setup (not sure if IE is managed). The conversion will pretranslate to the target color space so even in an unmanaged system, it will look how you intend assuming the target profile is most common on the receiving end.
You generally don't want to do color space conversions as you can get clipping of your colors. For example if you have two bright red values in your color space that get translated to another color space and the translation result is that there is one red that most closely matches both then you lose the variation that was in the original.
Here are a couple of sites that explain more stuff:
http://www.gballard.net/psd/assignconvert.html
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/profiles.htm
You should have some discussion with your printer though and maybe get some tests done because they can advise you what will come out looking best on your target printer and print material. Where I work, we get told not to use so much black in designs as they have problems printing some stuff. You may also need to include bleed information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleed_(printing)