Photoshop CS2 is making me confused!

[CyberPet]

OK, I've got all working in Photoshop CS, but now I have Photoshop CS2 and things just don't do what I want! Not sure, but I guess there's some setting that I'm missing here, either in PS or in the Bridge.

Normally I shoot in sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (my print service suggest I should, and the conversion to the web is soo much easier and quicker that way - or at least was in CS). Anyway....

The picture looks great when I bring it up in Photoshop CS2, but then I want to save for web, and its all washed out and looks just darn awful!!! All saturation, all full and rich colors are gone.

I'm going nuts over this!!!

I mean I thought "save for web" was using sRGB anyway... and the same profile I shoot in. *sigh*

What am I missing? I've checked the "Assign profile" part and it doesn't matter what I choose, it looks dreadful anyway.

The color settings is confusing.... heck I wish I could turn them off like in CS! Anyway... could the "Preserve Embedded Profiles" be the culprit? It's set as default to the latter. I get a warning if I choose "Convert to Working RGB" or to "Off" but the images still don't look good. *sigh*

I love all the other new features in Photoshop CS2, so until I get this sorted out, I'm going to refuse to play with my web published images on it (and use "old" CS for that) until I know what I need to do to get the same results on both.

*help*

[Pelao]

Hi
Can't help with your specific issues, but I can strongly recommend this book. Re-written for CS2 it can help with the sort of detail you are questioning:

CS2 for Photographers (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321330625/qid=1118055144/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-9755036-8733555?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

[psk4363]

Hi Petra,

I'll second Pelao's tip re Scott Kelby's book. I sold my CS book and upgraded to his CS2 book - well worth it too! It's actually here on my desk as I type and there's a large section on colour management/calibration.

Barry

[RAitch]

Why are you using the 'Save for WEB' option?
If your image is in the right colour space, why don't you just resize appropriately and save as a JPEG? Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never used 'Save for WEB' and post pictures online.

[AjP]

check you color profile setting and try to Save As instead save for web

[Longwatcher]

I had that problem with PS 7and PS CS, I am just trying to remember what I did to fix it, but I think I changed one or more of the settings so it matched up with my monitor, then I had that problem again when transfering DPP converted RAW images, unless I select ignore embedded profile.

I do remember I had to change more then one setting to get it fixed. Strangely, I don't have same problem with old computer and PS 7. It got everything right from the get go, but then the monitor was better anyway so maybe it was color calibrated closer to PS to begin with.

I have been trying to properly calibrate my camera, monitor, and printer together to get the same results no matter what I do, but so far my attempts have done more harm then good and I had to adjust temporarily to the new conditions. At least my prints look good and I seem to be getting closer with last attempt. All of my different papers print the same now. They just don't quite match the look on my monitor. I think I have it figured out now, but can't afford to mess it up for at least a week, which is why I have PS CS2 and a camera firmwear upddate sitting ready to be loaded, but have not loaded them yet.
Next week with luck.

[CyberPet]

Well, the VERY ironic thing is that I'm translating Scott Kelby's books from english to swedish, but I have not yet gotten that book (will get that when I'm finished with this 3rd book of his). So right now I want to fix this CS2 problem, that is not occuring in CS.

There's a few other peevees I have too with the CS2 version compared to the CS version. Like where the heck did Adobe hide the command to "activate" another layers selection. I.e. in previous versions you could cmd-click (or on PC ctrl-click) on another layer to select it's edges as a selection and work on another layer with that particular selection. This to save you from saving selections and go some extra miles to load that selection.

RAitch & AjP, reason being: Smaller files when saving for web since the "Save as" jpeg version also saves thumbnails (for Mac and PC) and takes up room you don't really need when you load a website (I build a few of those).

Since Photoshop CS works perfectly and do what I want, it's kind of frustrating that it doesn't work in CS2 as I want. I don't want to work in two different apps just to create some images for the web. Heck I do 99.99% of all my web layouts in Photoshop!!!!

[lancea]

I have Scott Kelby's CS2 book but can't find the answer to Petra's question in it. The problem is puzzling me too. Even though I'm using Adobe RGB, I still would have thought it should be quite easy to save an image so it has the sRGB colour space needed for screen display.

[CyberPet]

(oops, I meant the upgraded CS2 book, I've translated "Photoshop CS for Digital Photographers" and "Photoshop Elements 3 for Digital Photographers".... right now I'm doing his iPod book).

[lancea]

Well, the VERY ironic thing is that I'm translating Scott Kelby's books from english to swedish
Just leave the jokes out - you'll only have half the translating to do :) . He's a funny guy.

[CyberPet]

lancea, thank you for looking! I find it very odd and confusing too. Installed it on friday night when I got it from Adobe (on loan), so I doubt something could have gone corrupted.

Nice stuff about the CS2 verison that I've noticed so far: The possibility to mark several layers (not in order) in the layer palette and link them or drag them over another image (great for adjustment layers on several images). The new Bridge software... very nice (too bad it doesn't show the previews of the camera raw files (guess a reason to shoow RAW+JPEG). The new Camera Raw 3.x software. Schweeet! And that little toy "Exposure" in Image adjustments... kind of fun to toy around with. Well, those are the things I've found so far after a few days of playing.

[CyberPet]

oooh... lancea, I have edited his jokes a bit in all three books... so the Swedish readers should get a bit more "straight forward" than the original english book... but it's hard not to have them, it's part of the fun (although his chapter intro's can be somewhat challenging to translate into another language at times).

[mgbeach]

Have you tried Image...Convert to Profile before saving for web? That's what I have to do in CS sometimes. Not sure if it's the same in CS2

[CyberPet]

mgbeach, yep... tried that one too. This is soo very puzzling!! Or maybe it's just the preview that's totally off, cuz the images looks totally washed out when you use save for web, even when you've shot the images in sRGB and should be in the same colorspace anyway.

[ejwebb]

too bad it doesn't show the previews of the camera raw files Is this really true? Doesn't seem like an upgrade to me. :confused:

[lancea]

I have edited his jokes a bit in all three books... Well, I have struggled on a few of the jokes but (sadly perhaps) I did know who Clay Aiken is! Does the rest of the world?

Hopefully the answer will soon be posted. I saw your question appear during the weekend and thought to myself "ah! that's what I want to know!", but the answer is (unusually for these forums) slow to come ...

[CyberPet]

I could actually email Scott and ask... now that I think about it. After all I've bugged him about all the books I've translated now. (His technical staff is the greatest though, especially Polly Reincheld, who's helped me with all those small quirks that show up in a book [also called "erratas"] and files needed to take screenshots etc – Love ya Polly!).

I'll be back, hopefully with an answer.... should I ask him about Clay Aikens too? :D

[tim]

Just a little note - "assign profile" doesn't do profile conversion if it's not already in the target profile. For example, if you're in adobe RGB and want to use "save for web" you have to use "convert profile" first. This almost certianly isn't the problem you're having Petra, it's just a FYI for everyone.

[CyberPet]

Tim, yes I'm aware of that it's two different things to have a working color profile and assign one to the open image. But I'm grasping at straws here as I'm so confused about how CS2 is working.

Normally, in CS if you have set Photohsop to another working profile than the image you're opening, you get a warning that ask you what you want to do with the image (keep the profile used in the file, convert to your working profile, or throw the profile away). That doesn't happen in Photoshop CS2 at all. So if you have set Photoshop to use sRGB you should get a question about opening an Adobe RGB picture and what you want to do about it.

Very confuzzling.

[lancea]

Well Petra, 7 hours on and I'm still stumped. Not that I've actually spent 7 hours looking into it. I was at work when I posted my last message (during lunch time of course!). Using all colour options for "Save for web" gives me jpegs that all look the same. Unfortunately they all look bad.

As for Clay Aiken - he was the runner-up in one of the American Idol series. Now you'll understand Scott's joke when you translate the CS2 book :)

[Lotto]

Petra, I had this problem before and I think I found a place to tweak it.

Go to CS2 -- Edit-- Color Settings

Click on More Options if it isn't already expended, look at the botton under Advance Controls, check the box that says "Desatuate Monitor coloer by:". Try the defaut 20%, I set my at 15%, that makes the image in CS2 match the web image pretty close.

Also under the same Coloer Setting, you could check Profile Mismatches.

Give it a try on your Mac, if I recall correctly.

[CyberPet]

Iancea, THANKS! You saved my rear there, now I can replace it with the guy who won the Swedish Idol instead (and people might know who he is). That's what I do, try to replace some text with stuff that makes more sense in Swedish. Like we don't have American football here, so I had to replace stuff about soccer instead (which is a sport I totally loathe, but that's another thing).

Lotto, Great! I'll give that a try. Sounds like we're on our way to the solution. I'll report back as soon as I've tried it!

[CyberPet]

Lotto, I think I got fairly close now! I set it to 10% instead and the only difference I can see now is that the "save for web" image seem to be a bit brighter compared to the original in Photoshop CS2. Guess I can play with the gamma setting too to get that close, then I should be able to get it close enough to be happy about.

Thanks!!

[PhotosGuy]

Normally, in CS if you have set Photohsop to another working profile than the image you're opening, you get a warning that ask you what you want to do with the image (keep the profile used in the file, convert to your working profile, or throw the profile away). That doesn't happen in Photoshop CS2 at all. I think there's a way to get it to ask, just don't remember how. Sorry! ;-)

[CyberPet]

Yeah, Lotto got it... you check those boxes by mismatch. Now it asks.

I got the book today btw from the publisher... so I'm soon getting the evil legal papers, called the contract. Had to look up that name, now that we talked about it. I'm soo silly! :D

[robekert]

Why are you using the 'Save for WEB' option?
If your image is in the right colour space, why don't you just resize appropriately and save as a JPEG? Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never used 'Save for WEB' and post pictures online.

I second this. When you use save for web it does something to the images.

This is what I do:
Resize image-over in the "help" pull down menu on a Mac
Set image for "online" and make longest measure 800 pixels
Change image to 8 bit
Convert to profile in "edit" pull down menu (I convert to sRGB)
"Save As"-jpeg (don't use save for web)

When you convert a RAW image make sure you set the ppi in Camera RAW to 72 ppi. Monitors cannot display more ppi than that.

Rob

[robekert]

Normally, in CS if you have set Photohsop to another working profile than the image you're opening, you get a warning that ask you what you want to do with the image (keep the profile used in the file, convert to your working profile, or throw the profile away). That doesn't happen in Photoshop CS2 at all.
I think there's a way to get it to ask, just don't remember how. Sorry!


I think there's a way to get it to ask, just don't remember how. Sorry! ;-)

It is a preferences setting
Rob

[lancea]

It's in Edit > Color Settings. Under the "Color Management Policies" section there's a checkbox "Profile mismatches". If you don't want to see a warning, uncheck it.

But as for saving for web - I find the "Desaturate monitor" setting doesn't help. It just changes the current on-screen image too. There must be a way to edit in either sRGB or Adobe RGB and save for the web with the correct profile for the web. I'd have thought the first option should simply work with no changes. Does it do exactly what you want Petra?

[CyberPet]

Iancea, yeah, does the same to me... it's not satisfying at all!

And to do it one more time.... *hehehe* Lotto found the solution on the "question" on what to do with the mismatched color profile. This setting in CS2 is by default turned OFF, so you need to turn it on. Like was described by Lotto and Iancea just above.

And once more: I do not want to do "Save as..." since the jpeg file gets BIGGER than the "Save for webb...." jpeg file, since the Save as also stores thumbnail views for both Mac and Windows by default (yes, you can turn this off, but if you want to view the images on your computer, you want this on, but on the web you want to save every small byte to make the web pages to load faster.

This problem of mine has worked flawless in CS, but is now being a pain in the rear with CS2. Which is now hogging down my computer a great deal, since I have BOTH applications open at the same time. Wonder if ImageReady behaves this way too... might be an idea to have that open instead and save for web... should be a less memory hog than to have both CS and CS2 open.

Gonna read Scotts book tonight and see if there might be something I missed.

[lancea]

Oh dear. Maybe it is rocket science.

I'm at work, so can't try this, but have read in CS2 for Dummies that in "Save for Web" you should select "Uncompensated color", and uncheck the ICC Profile box. Funny feeling I tried that. The other suggestion is that when preparing an image for the web you should go Edit > Assign Profile, then select "Don't color manage".

But I still think it should be possible to edit in any colour space and then save a jpeg with perfect colours! :)

[tim]

When you convert a RAW image make sure you set the ppi in Camera RAW to 72 ppi. Monitors cannot display more ppi than that.

Makes no difference what you set that too, applications look at the number of pixels and display it according to how it wants it, and in 99% of cases they ignore the ppi value in the jpg.

[CyberPet]

Iancea, I must be blind, I don't see any "Uncompensate color" in the "Save for web" dialog. And the ICC Profile box is already unchecked by default. I've tried "don't color manage" too. *grrr*

Now I've messed around so much in the settings that I'm getting all cross eyed... but I've come as far as the image being at least not washed out, but lacks "umph" and some reds. Very confusing since the image color profile is sRGB and the Working profile is the same. *sigh*. I've converted, assigned, and god knows what.... just don't look perfect yet.

Gonna deal with this again tomorrow with more clear eyes.

[lancea]

I don't see any "Uncompensate color" in the "Save for web" dialog.
It's not exactly obvious. The only way to find it's there is to click on everything! Anyhow - open the "Save for Web" dialog. Just above the top-right corner of your image is a little arrow like this " > ". Click on it, and you'll see the extra dialog for the colour settings (or should I say "color" settings - I just don't know any more ;) ).

Only one more working day till the weekend. Wonder what I'll be doing :rolleyes:

[Lotto]

Hi all again. I am too still looking into this, as I am not completely happy with the jpg color either.

Happy tweaking.

[lancea]

Still going round in circles .... but from reading posts in other forums I'm becoming more convinced that the problem is there simply because Photoshop is managing the colours according to profiles. When the jpeg is displayed in a browser (or any non colour-managed application) there will be a mismatch unless the monitor profile being used by PS is perfect. One reason I think that's the case is that things don't look so bad since I reran Adobe Gamma (which is hardly the best way to create a profile, but it is cheap!).

Opinion on other forums agrees that you should use "Convert to Profile" to change to sRGB (unless you're already using that of course). There seems to be mixed opinions about whether to set uncompensated colour in Save for Web, or to use the document profile. If you use the document profile then at least the colours will look the same in Save for Web, but you really want uncompensated colour because your jpeg will normally be viewed without a profile.

Ah well, doing colour in the darkroom was a pain so why should it be easier now ... :neutral:

[lancea]

Okay. Finally I am convinced that the problem (at least the one I have - and hopefully it's the same for you Petra) is due to the monitor profile. Today I've done the best job I could - without hardware assistance - of creating a new profile. The resulting jpegs are now very close colour-wise to those viewed in PS. Just a bit more contrasty.

Steps for Save for Web are therefore exactly as you'd expect: with your image in whatever colour space you want, go to Edit > Convert to Profile. Select sRGB. The options "Use black point compensation" and "Use dither" don't appear to make a difference when saving for the web. Click OK. Go to File > Save for Web. Right-clock on image and select "Uncompensated color". Uncheck ICC profile. Click Save.

It's been an education finding out just how much effect the monitor profile (and monitor settings) have, especially when going from a colour managed application to non-managed viewers. The thing that got me was that the colours of all my shots look really accurate on this monitor. It's a hightly regarded one (Philips 109P40), but obviously you still need a good profile.

If I hadn't recently ordered a flash I'd be getting myself a hardware profiler, but that will have to wait. A little while anyway $$$:rolleyes:$$$

[CyberPet]

Well, my monitor profile is pretty accurate..... but while I was fiddlling around with a million and ten settings, the Save for webb now looks better, at least it doesn't look like a photo that's been laying in the sun for a week. But it still lacks that "umph", i.e. some contrast. Colors seem to be alright.

But If I were asked what I did, I could not answer!

I think I tested every little setting in the program. I'm still not happy with it, so I'm going to save as Jpeg for a while longer, until I've come up with an idea.

[Lotto]

lancea, I will try new profile later. Had been up all night:lol:

Please test this for me:

Open a new image in CS2
View--Proof Setup, choose Window RGB
back to View, select then unselect Proof Colors

Do you see the color shift? Then test it under Save of Wed to see make any different for you.

I think Proof Colors get something to do with previewing color prints.

Thx

[drisley]

You can do 2 things...
Before saving, goto Edit>Convert To Profile> and set the DESTINATION SPACE profile to sRGB. This should fix it.
The other thing you could do is make your default working space sRGB since it sounds like you use it all the time...
Edit>Color Settings> Set the RGB working space to sRGB.

[PhotosGuy]

You can do 2 things...
For those still using PS7 (like me), that would be Image> Mode> Convert to Profile.
;-)

[CyberPet]

Well, the setting for my working workspace is sRGB since my digital camera pictures are saved in sRGB (I know I could use Adobe RGB in the camera, but I'm not going to do that as long as I don't need to).

I even tried to turn off the color management completely... still no go (i.e. it'd be using my monitor profile).

[lancea]

Open a new image in CS2
View--Proof Setup, choose Window RGB
back to View, select then unselect Proof Colors

Do you see the color shift? Then test it under Save of Wed to see make any different for you.

I think Proof Colors get something to do with previewing color prints.
Didn't get a chance to do that thoroughly before coming into work - but yes I did see the shift when unselecting Proof Colors. Like it's been desaturated. However when I Saved for Web it looked about right. I'll try again tonight.

[lancea]

Well, the setting for my working workspace is sRGB since my digital camera pictures are saved in sRGB (I know I could use Adobe RGB in the camera, but I'm not going to do that as long as I don't need to).

I even tried to turn off the color management completely... still no go (i.e. it'd be using my monitor profile).
Hi Petra. I'm pleased your results are at least looking better. I take it then that you get JPEGs out of your camera, as opposed to raw. That's something I haven't tried - changing the camera's colour space to Adobe RGB to see what jpegs then look like straight out of the camera. But that's a bit off-topic...

Just curious - are you using a hardware monitor profiler at all? I thought my monitor was pretty accurate too, but after going through a multitude of test charts during the weekend I found all the "visual aids" to be somewhat lacking. It's pretty hard to be sure when the gamma is "just right". I'm certain my gamma was too high before.

[CyberPet]

Iancea, well, if I adjust the images to look right in Camera Raw and then choose to use sRGB instead of Adobe RGB while opening the picture in Photoshop, the photo loooks the same as in Raw.... but it still does "fade" the image a bit when saving for web. Now I'm considering making an action to duplicate the image, increase saturation, contrast, etc just for saving for web, then I'll get what I want and don't ruin the original image. *sigh*

I'm on a Mac, so the gamma is set for something between PC and Mac, i.e. 2.0 instead of 1.8 that Mac uses or 2.2 that PC's uses. Anyway, that shouldn't matter since the images from Adobe CS was right and I've been using the same profile for both. It *has* to be in the software somewhere. I even tried to change the image in that secretly hidden popup-menu (yeah I find it eventually, between the preview and the list of things you can do to the right in the Save for web)... you can change it to Windows, PC, generic, etc... lots of different choices and it's still confusing. :D

[Longwatcher]

The new Bridge software... very nice (too bad it doesn't show the previews of the camera raw files (guess a reason to shoow RAW+JPEG). The new Camera Raw 3.x software. Schweeet! And that little toy "Exposure" in Image adjustments... kind of fun to toy around with. Well, those are the things I've found so far after a few days of playing.

I didn't see any further mention of this...
I just loaded CS2 upgrade and unless we are talking about something else, I am seeing my 1DsMkII .CR2 raw files fine as previews in Bridge (formerly known as file browser).
Maybe you have them disabled as they are taking fooorrrrreeeeeevveeeeeerrrrrr to load. But since I had this problem with PS7 then CS, I was hoping they had fixed this to load faster. The initial thumbnails at least loaded faster then CS version. Although I usually shoot RAW+jpeg, I only have CR2 files in the folder (the jpeg are put into a different folder). So I highly doubt it is using anything other then the CR2 file to display the thumbnails and previews.

I will let my opinion be known on th software when it gets done loading the previews as until done, it is slower then molasses. So far looks good though at least Bridge does after I figured out a couple of things.

[CyberPet]

Yes, the problem was that I had not updated Camera Raw to 3.1, and I hadn't restarted Bridge... when I did that, the problem was gone and the previews of the Raw-images showed up no problem. So the update requires to restart both Photoshop CS2 AND Bridge (which was not stated in the upgrade info as far as I could see). Since Canon EOS 350D came out after Photoshop CS2, it's support was not built-in with the first Camera Raw 3.0, but now works fine with 3.1.

[lancea]

but it still does "fade" the image a bit when saving for web
Oddly my images now look a bit more saturated when they are saved for the web! Since you have a Mac I guess the alternative of using right-click to bring up the hidden menu wouldn't help? :) I'm sure the the Mac does have some way of doing a "right click" action, but I haven't used Macs since the little monochrome ones. I even used to write programs for them :cool: . I don't really understand why the different gamma is used for different platforms. Thought I must have read it all in the weekend, but still a lot to learn. My monitor had a default gamma of 2.7, but is now "around" 2.2.

Good luck!

[CyberPet]

Actually, I've been told that they now use the same gamma, but for some reason the Mac OS installs the Mac's pre-set to 1.8... oddly enough! Higher gamma increases the contrast too, which makes the images get more "Umph!" so I've used Gamma 2.0 for the last 7-8 years actually.

To right-click on a Mac, you actually use the ctrl-key and hold it down while you click. If you buy a two (or more) button mouse, the right-hand mouse key is actually programmed to be doing ctrl-klick. So hopefully Apple will catch on one day and make two button mice! Microsoft makes really nice mice, so I'm having one, even if it sounds like an oxymoron to have Microsoft hardware on a Mac. :D

[mkitson]

too bad it doesn't show the previews of the camera raw files


I have CS2 and bridge shows the previews of RAW. It will also play a slideshow of the RAW images. I have actually stopped shooting RAW+JPEG since upgrading.

[mkitson]

I just can't get the hang of this quote thing! Obviously the first line of my last post is from Petra.

[CyberPet]

Martin, did you notice I had to do an errata on myself?.... since the previews *does* show in Bridge... I just didn't know I had to reboot Bridge to get it to work after the update to Camera Raw 3.1. :)

[lancea]

Lotto - I've done your steps again carefully with the following results:

1. Opened image in Adobe RGB space
2. Go to View > Proof Setup and change from default "Working CMYK" to "Windows RGB". This immediately causes a marked visual desaturation of colours, i.e. they look less colourful.
3. Return to View, and deselect "Proof Colors". This causes the colours to saturate back to what they were at the start.
4. Open the "Save for Web" dialog. The colours in the preview look desaturated. NOTE - I have "Save for Web" set to "Uncompensated Color". If I change that setting to "Use Document Color Profile" the Save for Web preview becomes saturated again. If I change the setting to "Standard Windows Colour", it desaturates again. But I'll leave it on "Uncompensated Color" since we're saving for an unmanaged image-viewer.
5. Save the jpeg, and view it in an external viewer. The resulting jpeg is unsaturated.
6. Just to prove my colour setting in Save for Web didn't have an effect, I used the "Use Document Color Profile" setting, i.e. the preview looks saturated.
7. Save the jpeg, and view it in an external viewer. The resulting jpeg is still unsaturated.

Hope that's of interest to you. I'm happy with the process I've settled on as the results look fine to me. It all gets pretty complex when playing with all the possible settings!

[lancea]

Actually, I've been told that they now use the same gamma, but for some reason the Mac OS installs the Mac's pre-set to 1.8...
Oh. Okay. That makes sense at least. Maybe it was just to do with the way they liked things to look, and the contrast effect is probably why mine had such a high gamma in the manufacturer's profile.

As for Mac mice - the original one wasn't too bad. Those round things are the worst they've come out with when it comes to functionality. Yes. Microsoft does make nice mice. I've had so many! Now I'm almost always using the Wacom that came with my tablet. It's not a nice as the Microsoft one, but very convenient and ultra accurate.

As for it being an oxymoron to have Microsoft hardware - Microsoft software has been with the Mac right from the start. And just think, buying a Microsoft mouse will give you a warm fuzzy feeling as you just know Bill & Melinda Gates will donate most of the profit to a worthy cause :mrgreen: And thanks for the explanation of right-clicking.
Lance

[Lotto]

lancea, thanks for the testing. I knew that wasn't the correct way to solve the problem, but I was trying that way, I got the nicer color.

Petra, I was bumping the saturation up 20% before saving for web, that's how I was suggesting the Desaturate the Monitor Color setting after I start reading this thread.

Following what drisley said, I set up my default working space to sRBG, when I open my original CR2 image with Adobe RBG space, just convert it ot sRBG before I do anything to it. That seems let me get the consistant color when save to jpg. Convert to Profile works too if I didn't convert the Adobe RBG at first. Now on to test some printing to see any other bugs.

Thx drisley for the guidance.

[Lotto]

Interesting read on what I think is the same subject...

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=78361

[CyberPet]

Lotto, I read that thread and the funny thing is that the only difference I see in the first post of the image from the beach is that the one that was posted as Adobe RGB is a bit more "rich" in contrast, while the sRGB is not that much different. Just a tiny bit brighter than the first version.

And the odd part is... if I save as instead of save for web, I see the images in my web browser much like that example... the one with the sRGB profile is lacking "umph"... which leads me to believe that the sRGB "imitation" on screen by Photoshop CS2 is not very accurate, even if you use the right color profile (sRGB) and/or also convert to the same profile.

I have no clue why Adobe *in* Photoshop shows a more full image than the one I see in the save for web preview and in my web browser. And it seems however I turn, someone is not going to see the same image I do, since some web browsers doesn't support color profiles at all and previews them at a generic sRGB version.

I'm soooo confused! :D

[PhotosGuy]

And it seems however I turn, someone is not going to see the same image I do, since some web browsers doesn't support color profiles at all and previews them at a generic sRGB version. 99.99% of them have never calibrated their monitor. Why worry about what you have no control over? ;-)

[CyberPet]

PhotosGuy, true :D
(only problem is that I'm anal about it... and if I want to show some other photographers my work, they are most likely owning a calibrated monitor... and I look like a fool. :D :D :D

[PhotosGuy]

:D:D So, do you process 2 sets? One for the PCs gamma & 1 for the MAC? ;)

[lancea]

Lotto - that's fine. I didn't realise you weren't converting to sRGB from the start. Certainly there's no problem at all working in Adobe RGB as a default (in fact it's the recommendation colour space according to all the references I've found) - unless you only view images on the monitor (and post to the web). I guess if you were doing a batch of photos for the web it would make sense to temporarily change your main setting to sRGB so you don't need to add the Convert step.

I take it that you no longer need to desaturate your monitor? I'm sure it's a bad thing if you have to do that routinely. It means your monitor or colour space isn't set correctly.

[CyberPet]

PhotosGuy, no that shouldn't be needed... actually, I've checked the images on hubby's (not so calibrated PC, even if I did try to get it right with Adobe Gamma), and I'm pretty darn close. It's just soo annoying that this aint' working as I want..... I know, I turn off the working profiles completely.... problem solved. :D (now that should probably work.... but it'll look odd on some machines)