Tom,
Have you tried deleting the preferences? thats the first thing I normally try ….
Beth wrote a detailed way to do it a while back … I have copied it below
To delete the Preferences: With Elements closed, click on the start up icon and make a very quick grab for the (Win) Control, Alt, and Shift keys (Mac) Command, Option, and Shift. Hold all three down until you see a screen asking if you want to delete the Settings. Say Yes. The folder will rebuild as Elements continues to launch.
Wendy
Thanks Wendy, but a delete of the Setting file does not change the situation.
I still see a color image in the preview window when opening the file, but the image displayed in Elements is black and white, even though the window indicates RGB.
When I open the file in another program (Adobe Photodeluxe), the color is there in the opened window.
Tom
Thomas,
Where are these images coming from, a digital camera?
Hopefully another Mac user will pop in here with some ideas, I run Windows.
Hi Nancy
Some of the images are from my digital camera while others are attachments to emails (which I presume were originally from a digital camera).
Just as a side note, I transport the pictures between my desktop Mac and my laptop PC. (I only have Elements installed on the Mac). In every application that I use to open the images, including those on the PC, the preview AND the opened image are in color. It’s only when I open the images from within Elements that I run into the problem.
My sense is that it is not an issue with Mac or, for that matter, PC settings.
Tom
I think I’d try creating a new monitor profile. Elements being color managed, perhaps the old profile got corrupted.
😕
Have you deleted the preferences file in PSE? I’ve forgotten the Mac equivalent to these keys, but in Windows…
IMMediately after launching PSE simultaneously hold down alt/shift/ctrl keys until message appears, answer yes, let it load. If you don’t get the box, let it load and try again.
Brent
Thanks, but I’m not sure how to create a new "monitor" profile. I assume that’s in PSE.
Nancy
I had recreated the Preference file (it’s cntl/command/shift on the MAC). Didn’t seem to help.
Tom
OK, fine, so I’m getting into an area about which I know next to nothing, but go Apple>Control Panel>Color Sync and look around in there. Check to make sure the settings look reasonable. Mine show up as Input: Generic RGB, Output: Generic CMYK, and Proofer: Generic RGB. There’s also a monitor section, which on this PowerBook is set to Color LCD.
The other thing you could try is deleting the monitor profile; that’s kind of scary, but I deleted the preferences for my keyboard, finder, and system one day and lived to tell about it!
Thomas,
Take a look at Ian Lyons’ site, this is his calibration tutorial, <
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_2.htm> . It seems you can use either colorsync or Adobe Gamma on your OS ( although the Adobe Gamma is not installed, it can be copied from the CD ) . Hope it helps .
🙂
Brent
Hi, Beth.
No, don’t delete the profile. You can get into big trouble that way, but you should definitely try calibrating your monitor and making a new profile. Go to system prefs>displays>color and click the calibrate button. Be sure that "expert mode" is checked. Follow the directions then name and save the profile.
You can have as many different profiles as you want and switch between them at will. There’s even an app called gamma toggle that you can download that lets you do it right from the menubar without launching system prefs at all. Don’t know if it works in panther, though.
EDIT Whoops, OP I see you are using system 9. Monitor is in Control panels>monitor.
My bad! My correction didn’t get posted! I posted once and then noticed I’d accidentally said monitor profile. I went back to Edit and changed the word to preferences and then forgot to hit Post Message. There are preferences for both the monitor and Color Sync. I was after monitor preferences as a suggestion.
And the Color Sync on OS 9.1 is actually under Control Panels>Color Sync System Profile. Control Panels>Monitor just gives the settings from my previous post.
I appreciate the most recent attempts, but….
Messing with the Color Sync settings seems to be focused in the wrong area. Let me recap:
I get great color on the monitor in all areas and applications EXCEPT for one window in Elements. Everything in Elements shows perfect color except the window that contains the actual image being worked on. That window says it’s RGB so I’d expect color, but, instead, get grays.
When I open the image from within Elements, the preview window shows the image in glorious color, however, when opened, gray. In other words, the OPEN function sees the image as color but Elements displays it as gray after it opens it.
This happens with ALL images I open from within Elements. And, all other applications (Photo Deluxe, Canvas) open the images as color. This includes applications on a PC laptop that I also use.
I don’t think the problem is with the monitor or it’s settings since there is no problem with color in any other place.
It’s as if Elements thinks the image is not color after it opens it. Almost like setting the window to gray or B&W. I’d have thought that was what had happened, but the display says RGB and the mode selection is for color.
Thomas,
As I use Windows I can’t be a help, but it did occur to me…what have you selected under Edit>Color Settings? Whatever it is, see what happens when you change to another.
Hi Nancy
The Edit>Color Settings is set to No Color. But that, it turns out, was not the issue.
I’ve been able to get the color back, but in a way that mystifies me.
My earlier comment about the Monitor setting was a dead end because the monitor was displaying color alright everywhere but in the image window in Elements was wrong. I went in to mess around with the Monitor Calibration settings (on the Mac this is in Control Panel>Monitors) There you can set the number of colors that are used (256, millions, etc.) and can actually calibrate the monitor. I went into the Calibrate section and just selected a different calibration setting and, poof, color is back in the display window in Elements!
I have no idea why this has occurred. (The calibration setting that was selected was a grayscale calibration, but I’d of thought that the grayscale would apply to all windows.) In other words, I don’t know why a Calibration setting would only affect a single window within an application like Elements while all other windows in all other applications, including the desktop, we just fine.
In the mean time, my problem has gone away and glorious color has returned to the image editing window within Elements. I guess I should be grateful, although I don’t like these types of mysteries.
Thanks to you and all for your willingness to help.
Tom
I run elements 2.0 under WinXP. A problem showed up recently in that after I have scanned an image with my Nikon scanner and imported it into PS the color is great, matches the slide. But after I go thru print set up the preview window always shows a marked color shift to more magenta and the print comes out with too much magenta. Any ideas.
Ellis
Thomas,
The "fix" of getting your color back occurred because Elements is the only "color managed" application that you own, and it displays every image based upon the monitor profile ( which you just re-created ). Ian Lyons Image Flow <
http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.lyons/ps7-colour/ps7_color.gi f>
Having an accurate monitor profile is the only way to display the images accurately. How yours got messed up, is the real mystery <G> , but computers do amazing things everyday, very fast .
🙂
Brent
Ellis,
Have you run the Adobe Gamma utility in the Control Panel?, because this is a must.
What setting are you using under Edit>Color Settings?
What printer do you have?
EDIT—–I see now Ellis has another thread on this
Brent
Thanks for getting me started on learning about color management. Welcome to the wonderful world of….
I spent just a few seconds doing a Google search for Color Managed Applications and, at least, found a couple sites that differentiated color managed from non-color managed applications.
It seems that I’ve entered a new world of color control when I licensed Elements. It’s not surprising that all the other applications I use are non-color managed. Elements is the first move I’ve made into manipulating images. For the most part I just wanted to be able to control quality and size for digital images I was creating for use on my web site. Photo Deluxe wasn’t giving me the basic controls I wanted.
I also think I know how things got changed to display grayscale.
I have a relatively new Samsung 17" SyncMaster monitor. It’s an SVGA monitor that I wanted to connect to my Mac G3 (a no-no without an adapter). I used a Belkin adapter to connect the monitor to the Mac. I didn’t have the switch settings on the adapter quite right (although I could hobble along adequately) and not too long ago did the research and experimenting to get the setting more in line with what I wanted. I bet when I changed the settings it affected the image display for Elements.
I noticed when I experimented in response to the suggestions here that the configuration selected included the word "grayscale". Until I understood the idea of color managed, I didn’t realize that that setting would not effect color display for other applications. What I suspect is that the grayscale configuration was selected but when I changed the adapter switch settings something happened in the color flow that manifest in Elements.
I went through the configuration process and created a new configuration profile which changed to a non-grayscale setting which returned Elements back to a color display.
Thanks to you and all the other contributors for saving me my one support phone call to Adobe.
I’ve very grateful, but am in awe of the color management education I need to get. Hope someone has "dumbed it down".
Tom Carpenter
There’s lots of good web references, Tom. I like Ian Lyons’ website for his expert " to the point" articles.
<
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/>
I also read a lot at Norman Koren’s photography site . It has a ton of information ( some I’ll never understand ) .
<
http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html>
Welcome to the forum , and don’t be a stranger . I’m amazed at how our group has grown in knowledge, simply by sharing ideas and experiences .
Happy New Year !
🙂
Brent
Thomas,
The other side of the coin is, about half the people on this forum, myself included, use the setting "No Color Management" under Edit. For starters, the Adobe RGB wasn’t a good color space for my digital camera images, they displayed there like everyone had a wicked sunburn. Oh, I could majorly adjust color settings to compensate, but why? That color space just doesn’t fit my files. Using No Color Mgmnt gives me a display on my monitor which matches the real life situation I photographed. I do have my monitor well calibrated using the Adobe utility and I get excellent match between my monitor and printout. I think the real advantage to using CM, though it is in its infancy somewhat, is for people whose images will be sent around to various people and printed on many different printers. Though that will only be advantage if the recipient has the necessary software/hardware. I just print at home. Though they would be just fine if I were to put them on disk and have them printed at Costco or somewhere. So, I only offer this post to let you know that using CM is certainly not mandatory. See what gives you the best results.
To continue Nancy’s thoughts a little.. web graphics are generally done in sRGB space or "no color management" which implies "monitor RGB" , a fairly generic , uncalibrated space which is what most people see on their web browsers .
Probably the only real issue is the Color Management issues can occasionally screw up your life a little ( like working with an unprofiled display in a color managed application ). You don’t necessarily need to use color management, but you do need to know it exists.
🙂
Brent
Thanks Brent/Nancy
Nancy, your note threw me a little. The mystery may still exist.
My color setting is for No Color Management (has never been changed). That setting doesn’t seem to make a difference on what is displayed in the Elements image window. As I read a little about the setting, it appears that it is used to tag an image when it’s saved. Since the images I’m looking at have never been tagged, I’m not certain how that setting is relevant to the display problem I was having. I suspect what you’re trying to do is to help me with my overall education on color management.
Again, I really do appreciate your help. And, Brent, I’ll start my education journey at the sites you posted.
Tom
Thomas,
You’re right, my post had no relevance to your earlier problem. I was just aiming at rounding out the info supplied by Brent, who uses Color Management, making sure you knew it was not mandatory. Being aware of choices gives one more opportunity to find the workflow which works best for them (and I didn’t know until your post that you are using No CM). The universal foundation to getting accurate colors in prints is a good monitor profile. One needs to know that the colors you are editing on screen will be faithfully reproduced (except for the small difference which is inevitable because of the monitor working in RGB and the printer working in CMYK).
Actually, using No CM sets the image to be "untagged". When saving one is offered the choice to save with a tag for your monitor profile, but I do not save it as such. When using CM, the image is saved with a tag of Adobe RGB. If you bring up an image and for a moment switch to "Full Color Management", you will probably see quite a color shift. This is because your image is displayed using that Adobe color space rather than viewing your image just through your monitor’s color space.
Getting a good grasp on using layers and making accurate selections will allow you to begin using the power of this program. It is possible to do amazing editing with this program. If you haven’t checked out our off-site "Challenge", take a look. With the image supplied every week, anyone who wishes to can edit it in any way they want. The top left thumbnail is the starting image. Click on a thumbnail for a larger image.
<
http://www.cavesofice.org/~grant/Present/index.html>
Nancy
If you don’t see a colour shift on changing from no colour management to full colour management it means that your photos are already tagged – probably by the EXIF info on your camera as sRGB. If you don’t like this appearance – and I don’t on my canon G3, it’s too red – then you can persuade Elements to ignore the EXIF colour tag by using the ignore exif plugin down;oadable from the ADOBE site. (free).
Thanks for the further education, Susan and Nancy. I have a lot to learn.
I’m starting to fool around with some of the features in Elements and am quite excited. Layers is the next area I will tackle. I have a small business that sells soy candles and accessories and I use the web as my storefront and as an online catalog.
I take digital photos of the products and, until I started to think about layering, had to be concerned about the background I used when taking the pictures. It looks like I can remove all the image (except the product, of course) and then place it on a background that I choose. Pretty cool!
I’ll experiment with the color shifting to get a better understanding of what’s going on.
I love learning about this stuff. It is so gratifying to work in Elements and then transfer the images to the web site and see the results.
Thomas,
Seems like real soon you too will be saying,
"Hello, my name is___, and I am an addict" (to PSE) 🙂
It’s such fun.
Nancy
I think you’re right. I’m far from a pro and PSE is my first venture into working with the digital images I capture for the business, but from the very little I’ve seen so far I LIKE IT!
There’s a whole new world out there….
Tom
