IMAGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN P'SHOP & WINDOWS

[Roadrunner]

I can spend ages working on an image in Photoshop until its perfect.
I then save it, forget about it, and open it up later in the Windows picture viewer - nothing like the image I'd worked on then saved in Photoshop. However, if I open it in Photoshop its still the same great image I'd spent the time working on.
Why the difference, and which of the two is the image the printer works from ?

Help !

[floppypaws]

Photoshop is a color space capable program both on input, and on output, so it utilized the input colorpace table and the output colorspace table to translate the actuall values sent to your video or printer drivers. Most simple picture viewer are do not manage the input colorspace. Windows after NT4 does have the ability to attach an output color space to the monitor, which will allow setting the output device to a calibrated standard, but without translation from the input standard, your monitor calibration has to have the same gamma and color mapping as the image source.

In order for you to view a picture on YOUR system so it look exactly like what it looks like in Photoshop, you could convert a copy of image to the monitor colorspace you use when working in PS (don't use the original if you plan on further editing as conversions of colorspaces is not 100 percernt reciprocal and information from the original can be degraded).

This however will only look EXACTLY correct on YOUR system with a non colorspace aware viewer, and probably not on anyone elses. To get around the need for having color space aware viewers, some standardization seemed like a good idea, at least to get over the gamma differances between Mac users of 1.8 and Window users at 2.5, so of course they choose a gamma of 2.2 which is wrong for everyone. That is what the 'Internet Default' Colorspace sRGB uses. Generally if you are going to present a picture on the Web this is the target space that an image should be converted to, and is the default for most jpegs generated by most camera's.


For further reading, here is a start.
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB.html
http://www.aim-dtp.net/

[Roadrunner]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. Sadly, I'm something of a philistine & very much new to this, so a lot of your advice just further confused me.
In simple terms, I'm baffled that a picture should look so different if opened in two different pieces of software. How can i get them to match ?

[HulaMike]

My viewer in Windows Explorer gives me the same color as Photoshop CS. They're indistinguishable. Have you calibrated your monitor? When you do you'll assign a custom ICC profile that will help keep things looking the same.

[Linda G]

And to simplify it even more, if you print your image from PHotoshop, that's what it will look like...........as long as your aforementioned profiles are set up for your printer and paper.

[HulaMike]

Exactly Linda G. After calibrating and setting up my custom view in PS to use my printer profile I have continuity throughout the entire work flow. And I'm printing exactly what I see on screen.

Hey-Zeus! Just realized I zoomed over 2000 posts. I gotta get out more often..... :rolleyes:

[Roadrunner]

I thought I had calibrated the monitor, but the differences between P/S & Explorer are just too great. If I saturate the coloura is P/S & then order the print from the P/S programme, the printed image still resembles what I see in Explorer.
How do I calibrate so that I get the consistency you refer to ?
Thanks for your patience !

[Linda G]

what version of photoshop do you have? it is possible you are assigning a color profile to your image without knowing it. Photoshop will use it but explorer won't. I have version 7 and you find the color settings under edit/color settings.

[Roadrunner]

Photoshop Elements, supposedly the simple version for people like me !

[Linda G]

I will see if I can get to the computer at work that has elements and see how the color is managed there. I would like to you see, if you're shooting raf, if you assigne a color profile to it when you convert, that'd be the simplest thing to check first.

[darkroomdevil]

Roadrunner,

Idea 1

I think I might have your answer, or if not I know someone will find this info usefull, I shure did:). I have been doing this stuff for quite a while and just discovered this myself ...

Attached screen shots should help to clarify.

-It seems that there is a setting in "Save for Web" that Photoshop uses to to determines how to handle the embedded profile when it peocesses the image into jpeg. It uses this setting in both the "Save As" and "Save for Web" menu choices!

-Do Menu File>Save For Web
-Push the kinda hidden menu triangle at the top of the window just to the right of the preview window.
-Make sure "Use Document Profile" is selected (see attached screen shot)

My jpegs were comming out way different until I tracked this down!

Idea 2

If you are running monitor calibration software, be warned. Adobe automatically installs Adobe Gamma when Photoshop is installed. You end up with the two monitor profile programs running on top of each other. If this is your situation go to the Windows Start Menu>All Programs>Startup and make sure Adobe Gamma is not on the list. If it is right click on it and select delete to remove it.

Idea 3

Right click on your Windows desktop, click on properties and dig through all of your windows monitor settings to make sure everything looks like it makes sense. Also check your Photoshop color settings, I attached a screenshot of my setup. Check that your Gamma setting in your calibration software is set to 2.2? I don't remember off hand but having this set differnet to Photoshop can create this difference.

Good luck and I hope this helps,
Roger

[sandman]

I've got P.S , explorer and my printer set to Srgb , the same profile as the S2 and D70.
And all the pics look the same and print out correctly.
To set explorer
right click on desktop
right click properties
advanced settings
color management
click add
find srgb color space profile
apply as default.
In P.S
edit menu
color settings
working space /rgb
set to ''srgb IEC61966-2-1''
Then preserve embedded profiles

to set your printer
control panel
printer /faxs
right click on properties
color management
set to srgb

this set up works for me on my system

Brian