I have this same Problem, but it happens all the time. So when I save for web the colors dull down. It seems to have something to do with Image Ready – My colors are set to sRGB – I just don’t understand why its happening? I had no problems in PS 6, but since they intergrated image ready as the ‘save for web’ function the colors have dulled down.
Does anyone have a clue why this is happening? I haven’t played with any color settings.
Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.
See if it helps to turn off both Adobe color management and color profile embedding
Adobe Community Expert
I haven’t played with any color settings.
Then you should.
Because Photoshop is a colour-managed environment you need to tell it how to communicate with your monitor via a correctly adjusted profile. To do this, run Adobe Gamma – or if you have and LCD screen, your third-party profiling device/software.
One should see little if any difference when viewing an image with Photoshop (aka a color managed app) and something like Windows Viewer or in a web browser, IF the monitor is calibrated correctly.
You should NEVER turn off colour management in Photoshop – that’s about the worst possible advice to give anyone. That’s going back to the days of Photoshop 3x.
can defiantly notice a difference between adobe photoshop and image ready, so i think the problem lies there.. How do i know what color settings i should use in photoshop? and why would the color be turning dull from photoshop to image ready when i haven’t played with any features? Doesn’t really make sense to me.
I’m running on a PowerBook if that makes any difference
I’m going to play around with the settings now and see what happens, if anyone has any idea that would be great.
and why would the color be turning dull from photoshop to image ready when i haven’t played with any features?
Your issue is monitor calibration. Or, the three or four very tenured posters telling you this are just screwing with you to make you waste time. If guessing is quicker, have at it.
can anyone tell me exactly what i can do? If its a monitor calibration then how do i fix it on a mac? I’m really lost. i really thought it would have to do with photoshop and image ready, why else would it dull down the colors between 2 programs?
You need to read the link provided earlier. Note however, this is the Windows forum, you may get better help in the Mac forum. I did a search on Ians’ site and found:
If you read the first link provided regarding PS9 color management, you will no longer be confused. What you do about it may be captured in the link above.
thanks YrbkMgr, i went and did exactly what you said and it worked like a charm. You don’t realise how long that’s annouyed me. This is going to make a big difference for me.
By the way, Z, this is the Photoshop WINDOWS forum. You’re welcome to participate, but the Photoshop MAC <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.ee6b362/> forum might be a better place to ask for advice on how to set up Photoshop on a Powerbook.
You should NEVER turn off colour management in Photoshop – that’s about the worst possible advice to give anyone. That’s going back to the days of Photoshop 3x.
Color management controls color for printed media, not for images intended for use on the screen. Color profile embedding doesn’t work for Web pages because browsers can’t read it.
— Linda Rathgeber – Adobe Community Expert, Fireworks
That is absoultely NO reason to turn off CM in Photoshop (and incidentally, embedded profiles are beginning to be supported in browsers).
Color management controls color for printed media<<
NO, it is designed to keep appearance constant regardless of output device. When ‘outputting’ to a non-colour managed device (i.e. a web server) then we have View Proof Colours available to preview appearance in a monitor colour space.
You can never actually completely turn off colour management in Photoshop, and using Proof colours is by far the best method to use to preview images intended for web use.
On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 09:15:07 -0700, in adobe.photoshop.windows wrote:
Linda,
Photoshop is NOT Fireworks….
No it’s much better at doing one thing — Screen media than Photoshop/ImageReady.
BTW Linda is absolutely correct, colour management is useless when working in ImageReady, and if one is doing this regularly, then turning off colour management is the thing to do — It eliminates the OP problem.
There is only one browser that supports colour mgmt TMK, and that’s Safari.
Oh and Len, even being the cop, doesn’t entitle you to be rude — Ever heard of professional courtesy ?
Linda is a guru, and does amazing work — Perhaps educate yourself about someones pedigree, before making a fool of yourself.
Len didn’t make a fool of himself. He knows what he’s talking about and has been a source of sage advice to millions in the time that he’s been here. When you listen to him over time, you find that he doesn’t make emphatic statements about things he’s not sure of. <wink>
BTW Linda is absolutely correct, colour management is useless when working in ImageReady
That is where we disagree. For me, when I create an image, I want it to display reasonably consistently across the gamut (pardon the pun) of monitors.
Since I also like to have my prints look as expected, I have to use color management practices; it begins with a calibrated monitor. And as a side point, I cannot see where "ignoring calibration" is the answer except in the most extreme of cicumstances.
Anyway, since I have to have it enabled to print, why should I turn it off to do any other work? I often create PDFs from images – Acrobat IS color managed; so guess what? Got to have color mangement on.
So the notion of turning color mangement off when working with web destined graphics may be sound if your ONLY work will EVER be web. But how hard is it to calibrate your monitor?
And besides the correct answer is, the reason for the differences that the OP and others see between the two apps is due to an improperly calibrated monitor. As a professional forum, I find it important that we tell folk the right answer as often as possible.
<shrug>
Peace, Tony
Edit And no disrespect to Linda intended, but the natives that have been visiting these forums for the past five or more years think that the "expert" tag line might be just a bit much – and if one is giving incorrect advice with "expert" in their name, it almost certainly is a bit much. Even the Adobe Engineers who visit the forum and answer questions have no compulsion to state their (formidable) credentials.
colour management is useless when working in ImageReady,<<
There is no colour management in ImageReady – it isn’t a colour-managed application. That, however, is no reason whatsoever to consider "turning off" Photoshop’s colour management, which was the point under discussion.
I would be seriously failing in my responsibilities to the users of this forum if I failed to point out blatently bad advice when it is given here – particularly when that advice is coming from someone who’s well respected within the community.
Oh, and if you prefer it I can sign off with:
Adobe Community Expert ,Photoshop if you prefer – but in these forums we are a little less formal than in the old Macromedia forums.
I would be seriously failing in my responsibilities to the users of this forum if I failed to point out blatently bad advice when it is given here – particularly when that advice is coming from someone who’s well respected within the community.
I see it as a difference of opinion, Len. We regularly tell people to turn off color management if they are going to be opening their Photoshop files in Fireworks, which, like Image Ready, is not a color managed application. That’s based on advice once posted to the Fireworks forum by an Adobe engineer. I’ll quote:
If my high-school German serves me, it sounds as if you are using color management in Photoshop and the file looks different and lighter when you open it in Fireworks. This is to be expected as Fireworks does not support color profiles or color management in general so the same rgb color numbers will look different in the two applications. Fireworks does support adjusting the image gamma (lightness response curve) and that could be how you can reconcile your problem.
In Photoshop, set the Color Management policy to "Off" to display the image without color managing it or to "Web Defaults" to use the system and modern browser default sRGB color profile. You can use the Photoshop View menu to simulate what the image will look like using Macintosh (1.8) or Windows (2.2) standard gamma. Now when you transfer the file to Fireworks it should look almost identical as it does in Photoshop.
While the statement at the bottom of the dialog is true, I do not see the statement that says "therefore you do not need to calibrate your monitor".
If we had gone the route of understanding this persons workflow and understood that color management would and should never play a role in this person’s work, then perhaps, a cautious "perhaps", turning off color management is a sound strategy.
But the fact is, rather than hide the issue by turning off the monitoring mechanism, why not resolve the issue with a simple 10 minute run of Adobe Gamma? Why not do it right?
In addition, we saw the response back in post 15
"went and did exactly what you said and it worked like a charm. You don’t realise how long that’s annouyed me. This is going to make a big difference for me."
I don’t think it’s fair to blindly assume that everyone works as you do, without care of color management, and indeed in this case my feelings are bore out by the posters follow up remarks.
In essence, there’s an analogy between it and using painkillers: sometimes masking the pain can cause more damage.
While the statement at the bottom of the dialog is true, I do not see the statement that says "therefore you do not need to calibrate your monitor".
I didn’t say anything about not needing to calibrate your monitor, nor have I assumed that everyone works as I do. I merely suggested that he try my method.
We regularly tell people to turn off color management if they are going to be opening their Photoshop files in Fireworks…
Which is precisely why those poor ill-advised souls come to this forum to ask why their colours are way off!
Do us all a favour Linda. Stick to advising people only on matters pertaining to the software in which you are considered "expert" and quit telling them how to mess up the world’s most advanced image manipulation program.
What you’re doing can be enlikened to an "expert" cyclist advising someone who’s just bought a high-performance car to "lean heavily to the left when taking a left-hand corner!
What you’re doing can be enlikened to an "expert" cyclist advising someone who’s just bought a high-performance car to "lean heavily to the left when taking a left-hand corner!
I do know, however, that whatever web authoring application one uses, the correct procedure when preparing an image in "colour-managed" Photoshop, is to "Convert to sRGB" before saving.
Telling users to "turn off colour management" is doing them a huge disservice.
As Tony and Len have pointed out, for the vast majority of new Photoshop users, colour management is a mystery but, if they are ever going to understand it, they need to calibrate their monitors. And, if they are ever going to print a picture or send it to a printer, they will need to use it.
While some people will use Photoshop exclusively for preparing web images, this will be a tiny minority of those who visit this forum. Why would anyone pay out hundreds of dollars for an application, to use 1% of its capabilities? Especially when there are dozens of cheaper or even free programs that will do the job.
This forum has its own preferred colour management guru (Ian Lyons) because his "Computer Darkroom" site has pages that explain colour management in terms understandable for the layman or beginner. There are other sources (I have always been a fan of Bruce Fraser) but no-one explains it better than Ian.
It is appreciated that the experts in Macromedia products (I have used use two for years) are used to appending their qualifications to forum posts but it can give the wrong impression of "authority" to newbies in a Photoshop forum, who most probably never heard of Fireworks. This is bad if the advice is not 100% spot on.
It is appreciated that the experts in Macromedia products (I have used use two for years) are used to appending their qualifications to forum posts but it can give the wrong impression of "authority" to newbies in a Photoshop forum, who most probably never heard of Fireworks. This is bad if the advice is not 100% spot on.
One question, and please don’t everyone jump all over me for posting it. How does a newbie know who to rely on as an authority in the Photoshop forum, if the Photoshop forum Community Experts don’t identify themselves as such?
One question, and please don’t everyone jump all over me for posting it. How does a newbie know who to rely on as an authority in the Photoshop forum, if the Photoshop forum Community Experts don’t identify themselves as such?
Because the advice given is sound.
(And, your likely next question:)
But how do you really know the advice given is sound?
Because people here will instantly jump and correct the advice. That’s why this forum (Mac and Win sides alike) is so good: It’s a sheer nerdocracy of merits. But they (we?) are good folks in spite of their grumpy character 😉
I’m not a newbie to preparing graphics for the Web
The point is, when we give advice here, we do so with the understanding that Photoshop is many different things to many different people.
For instance: I personally never work on images in CMYK, but would never dream of telling users to avoid CMYK at all costs! To do so would be a disservice to any newcomer who might be preparing images for the print industry.
You can defend your "switch off colour management" advice as much as you like. But you will not alter the fact it is B bad advice!
Well with all due respect to Marc, I still say that turning off Photoshop’s colour management is very poor advice, and I wonder to what version of PS he was referring, since in the last 2 releases, Proof Colours allows the user to view exactly what they will see in a non-colour managed environment. Turning off colour management may have been acceptable advice for prior versions, but not now.
I’ve no problems whatsoever with Marc’s alternative suggestion of Web defaults.
For instance: I personally never work on images in CMYK, but would never dream of telling users to avoid CMYK at all costs!
Nor would I Chris. I didn’t say that color management was bad, or that he should turn it off permanently. I merely suggested that he *try*, as in experiment with, switching color management off to solve a problem. Regardless of whether or not you consider it bad advice, it works.
I love this forum – and in extension its core users. 43 posts of professional bantering in the name of giving the best advice to our visitors. Does it get any better?
For anyone that is beyond calibrating monitors and wondering about the Color Settings dialogue, try a visit to the Camera RAW forum, where the heavy color management stuff is avidly debated by the grand old men of all that is computer color.
BTW, there is no such thing as turning off color mangement in Photoshop. You simply can’t do it any more – regardless of what the Color Setting dialogue tells you. There is good reasons for this.
I used to frequent several other fairly high-profile Photoshop-centric forums, PlanetPhotoshop being a chief exemplar among them.
I saw SOOOOO much bad, or incomplete advice being given that it drove me nuts. I was going crazy trying to run around correcting people and putting out the bad advice fires that I had to quit visiting, for my own sanity, and because it was just taking too much time.
The reason I like this place so much is that the calibre of advice given is just about as good as it gets. Couple that with the speed of the forums, the heavy traffic, and the long established tenure of MANY of the participants here…it really can’t be beat. I know that if I just don’t have the time or energy to answer a question, that there are plenty of people here whose participation I trust. And because of that, I don’t have a compunction to try to answer or participate in every thread that appears.
And I STILL get to learn new stuff here because there are so many regulars here that work in industries that I don’t know much about, or who have been doing things day in, day out I’m only tangentially acquainted with. And because of THAT, I will quietly keep my hands away from the keyboard (which can be difficult for me!) when the question at hand would be better served by someone who knows it more thoroughly than I do.
And because of THAT, these forums have intrinsically evolved a well-oiled system of checks and balances where bad or incomplete advice is amended, corrected and expanded upon by a large and dedicated coterie of people for whom I have a great deal of respect. In that respect, the threads in these forums are almost as responsive as a Wiki insofar as the good advice FAR outweighs the bad.
But perhaps if I knew who the forum guru’s were, I wouldn’t argue with them.
Not necessarily. Chris Cox is an Adobe Engineer and is routinely challenged for his views on certain things.
I don’t know fireworks, but I know photoshop. And what I know of photoshop is that there are areas of it that are still a mystery. Unlike other forums I’ve visited, folks here don’t just give the quick fix advice – usually. As Phosphor said above, and what Chris alluded to is that, simply, if you don’t understand what something does, but want to share your experience, you should state it as such.
If you had appropriately cautioned the user, this color management issue may have been 20 posts instead of 50. And by that I mean, it would have been entirely appropriate, in my opinion, to say "As a test of whether or not it’s color management, try turing it off temporarily. If that ‘fixes’ the problem, then you should calibrate your monitor".
Alternatively, you could have said "I use Photoshop only for its web tools and therefore turn color management off and it works for me – your mileage may vary".
But what happened is, your good intent was followed by innaccurate adivse, and topped with "I’m an expert". It was a faux pas at best, but that’s the reasn that so many of the regulars are taking issue with it.
I can tell you that there are folks that are NOT "community experts" that provide correct information, and from whom I learn – so in regards to who one should listen to, I’m not sure of the answer except to say that when bad advice is given, it’s usually called out on the carpet, as you’ve by now noticed <smile>.
Alternatively, you could have said "I use Photoshop only for its web tools and therefore turn color management off and it works for me – your mileage may vary".
It has Web tools? 🙂 I only use it for photo editing.
Hey, I’m with Linda on this one. Fireworks has far, far better web tools than ImageReady. There just is no comparison. I’d love to see FW replace IR if one of the programs is to bite the dust as a result of the merger.
But I agree with the rest of you on the points relating to color management. And apparently we all agree that Photoshop is unrivalled for photo editing.
Hey, I’m with Linda on this one. Fireworks has far, far better web tools than ImageReady.
Uhm, I don’t get it. With Linda on what? No one is or has ever contested the competency of Fireworks. That’s not really the conversation at all, is it?
Hey, I’m with Linda on this one. Fireworks has far, far better web tools than ImageReady. There just is no comparison. I’d love to see FW replace IR if one of the programs is to bite the dust as a result of the merger.
I’d rather see Fireworks continue to be developed as a stand alone app. Web and Print are two very different design spaces. IMHO, it doesn’t enhance Photoshop in any practical way to graft Web prep functionality onto it. Neither Photoshop nor Fireworks gets the full attention of their engineering teams that way.
