Bizarre Colors Using Calibrated Monitor — Why?

JE
Posted By
jim evans
Dec 24, 2003
Views
657
Replies
9
Status
Closed
Until today I have been calibrating my monitor with the Adobe Gamma utility.

I just bought a hardware calibrator and created an ICC code for my monitor.

Now Photoshop 6 produces bizarre colors. Here’s an example: http://factsfacts.com/badcolor.htm (scroll down for correct image)

If this file is viewed in other ICC aware applications (e.g., Corel Draw) it appears correct/normal. That is, it looks like the second image on the above link.

Anybody know why a hardware created ICC file causes bizarre colors in (and only in) Photoshop?

jim

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JE
jim evans
Dec 24, 2003
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 20:28:35 -0600, jim evans
wrote:

Until today I have been calibrating my monitor with the Adobe Gamma utility.

I just bought a hardware calibrator and created an ICC code for my monitor.

Now Photoshop 6 produces bizarre colors. Here’s an example: http://factsfacts.com/badcolor.htm (scroll down for correct image)
If this file is viewed in other ICC aware applications (e.g., Corel Draw) it appears correct/normal. That is, it looks like the second image on the above link.

Anybody know why a hardware created ICC file causes bizarre colors in (and only in) Photoshop?

An additional note:

When the image is viewed in Photoshops Print Options it looks right/correct/normal.im

jim
F
Flycaster
Dec 24, 2003
"jim evans" wrote in message
Until today I have been calibrating my monitor with the Adobe Gamma utility.

I just bought a hardware calibrator and created an ICC code for my monitor.

Now Photoshop 6 produces bizarre colors. Here’s an example: http://factsfacts.com/badcolor.htm (scroll down for correct image)
If this file is viewed in other ICC aware applications (e.g., Corel Draw) it appears correct/normal. That is, it looks like the second image on the above link.

Anybody know why a hardware created ICC file causes bizarre colors in (and only in) Photoshop?

Looks to me like you got a bad profile, and for some reason Corel isn’t using it (Frankly, I didn’t know that Corel was CMS aware). Re-run your profiler package and try again ~ that is WAY off!

(These profiling packages have, occasionally, been known to ship with bad colorimeters)

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W
westin*nospam
Dec 24, 2003
jim evans writes:

Until today I have been calibrating my monitor with the Adobe Gamma utility.

I just bought a hardware calibrator and created an ICC code for my monitor.

Now Photoshop 6 produces bizarre colors. Here’s an example: http://factsfacts.com/badcolor.htm (scroll down for correct image)
If this file is viewed in other ICC aware applications (e.g., Corel Draw) it appears correct/normal. That is, it looks like the second image on the above link.

Anybody know why a hardware created ICC file causes bizarre colors in (and only in) Photoshop?

Because other applications ignore the profile, or use a different one? Because the other applications ignore the profile in the image file? Because the image file lacks a profile, and the other applications make different assumptions about the file?

We don’t know which calibrator you used, or how you used it. If you’re on a Mac, you can examine the profile directly to see what’s going on. But for color management, you need all your ducks in a row: the correct profile for image, display, and printer.


-Stephen H. Westin
Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.
B
bhilton665
Dec 24, 2003
Until today I have been calibrating my monitor with the Adobe Gamma utility.

I just bought a hardware calibrator and created an ICC code for my monitor.

Now Photoshop 6 produces bizarre colors.
Anybody know why a hardware created ICC file causes bizarre colors in (and only in) Photoshop?

Here’s another possiblity, maybe not the problem but definitely worth checking out …

When you generate the hardware profile it becomes the default and when you turn on your computer it will write values to the LUT of your video card.

When you used Adobe Gamma to make a profile it created an AdobeGamma Loader.exe file that ALSO executes at start up and writes values into the LUT.

In this case two writes definitely make a wrong -:)

If you’re using Windoze check in the Startup file to see if the Gamma Loader.exe file is still there … if so, delete it. You may have to look around for the startup file, depending on OS, but in XP for example it’s at Start > All Programs > Startup.

The other most likely possibility is just as Flycaster said, either the profile was made wrong or the colorimeter is not working right. I went thru 3 colorimeters before getting one that did everything correctly.

Good luck.

Bill
JE
jim evans
Dec 24, 2003
I think I’ve figured out the cause of the problem. To read my current beliefs return to http://factsfacts.com/badcolor.htm.

jim
F
Flycaster
Dec 24, 2003
"jim evans" wrote in message
I think I’ve figured out the cause of the problem. To read my current beliefs return to http://factsfacts.com/badcolor.htm.

Huh. I can’t remember anyone else having this problem with Optical, but I guess there’s always a first time for everything.

The first part of any profiling/calibration package is there to simply get your monitor as close a possible to a calibrated white point, black point, and a neutral starting point (vis a vis balancing the individual color guns) for the whatever gamma and temperature settings you select. This is really all that Adobe Gamma does, anyway, just without a colorimeter to assist. Frankly, this isn’t so much true "profiling" as it is "calibration."

It is the second part where the color management magic "rubber hits the road." Starting with a [now] calibrated monitor, the colorimeter then measures actual color ramps against known ICC values, resulting in an accurately predictive "profile" that allows CMS aware apps to give far more accurate screen renditions of colors *other* than black, white, and neutral grey. The more colors measured, the more accurate the profile. Caspisce? The bottom line is this: using Adobe Gamma, you can get a pretty darned good screen match for black, white and grey. The profile built by AG, otoh, has *zero* information from which to predict anything else, so if the monitor has anything other than linear color ramps, the screen rendtion will suffer color inaccuracies, sometimes small, other times large.

In spite of that, if you have a reasonably new and good CRT monitor, for most people AG will do a fairly decent job for screen-printer color matching; this is because good CRT’s have a relatively "linear" color response, which is what AG assumes.

Last, as Bill correctly pointed out, make sure you do not have both Adobe Gamma and Optical load at the initial boot. Bad jus jus.

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JE
jim evans
Dec 25, 2003
Last, as Bill correctly pointed out, make sure you do not have both Adobe Gamma and Optical load at the initial boot. Bad jus jus.

Thanks. Yes I’ve understood about removing Adobe Gamma from the Startup folder from the outset. That’s never been part of the problem.

jim
S
Skee
Dec 25, 2003
On 24 Dec 2003 18:08:45 GMT, (Bill Hilton)
wrote:

Until today I have been calibrating my monitor with the Adobe Gamma utility.

I just bought a hardware calibrator and created an ICC code for my monitor.

Now Photoshop 6 produces bizarre colors.
Anybody know why a hardware created ICC file causes bizarre colors in (and only in) Photoshop?

Here’s another possiblity, maybe not the problem but definitely worth checking out …

When you generate the hardware profile it becomes the default and when you turn on your computer it will write values to the LUT of your video card.
When you used Adobe Gamma to make a profile it created an AdobeGamma Loader.exe file that ALSO executes at start up and writes values into the LUT.
In this case two writes definitely make a wrong -:)

If you’re using Windoze check in the Startup file to see if the Gamma Loader.exe file is still there … if so, delete it. You may have to look around for the startup file, depending on OS, but in XP for example it’s at Start > All Programs > Startup.

The other most likely possibility is just as Flycaster said, either the profile was made wrong or the colorimeter is not working right. I went thru 3 colorimeters before getting one that did everything correctly.
Good luck.

Bill
OK, how can you tell whether Adobe Gamma Loader has been invoked? And is there any way to shut it down short of re-booting? It’s evidently not an active process.
BV
Bart van der Wolf
Dec 25, 2003
"Skee" wrote in message
SNIP
OK, how can you tell whether Adobe Gamma Loader has been invoked? And is there any way to shut it down short of re-booting? It’s evidently not an active process.

Just remove it from the Startup folder, and it will not load a LUT to the video card at start up.

Bart

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