Photoshop CS4 gamma is wrong

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Posted By
dlscape
Mar 18, 2009
Views
819
Replies
19
Status
Closed
I’ve been using Lightroom and PS CS3 for a couple of years with no problems.

I’ve just updated to CS4 and now when I send a photo from LR to PS it always looks too light. I find to get LR and PS looking similar I have to apply an exposure adjustment mask with a gamma correct of 0.86 in PS??

I’m using;

Vista Ultimate 32bit
Photoshop CS4 v11.0.1
Lightroom v2.3
Camera Raw 5.3
Nvidia 9600GT (1GB memory)

My monitors are calibrated and profiled using GretagMacBeth Profile maker 5.05 and an Eye One Pro, the profiles have been applied as system profiles so Vista loads them correctly.

This issue has only come into being since installing CS4. Has anyone else seen this and if so do you have a fix?

Regards

James

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pfigen
Mar 19, 2009
Let’s see your exact Color Settings in all programs. Post a screen shot of the extended Color Settings and go from there.
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dlscape
Mar 19, 2009
Thanks for the reply. I’d love to post a screen grab but I can’t work out how to post an image?? I’m sure it’s something that’s really easy but I can’t see how to! 🙁 Am I missing an obvious "insert image" button somewhere?

A text overview of my settings from Photoshop;

WORKING SPACES
RGB – ProPhoto RGB
CMYK – Coated FOGRA27 (ISO 12647-2:2004)
Gray – Dot Gain 15%
Spot – Dot Gain 15%

COLOR MANAGEMENT POLICIES
RGB/CMYK/Gray – Preserve Embedded Profiles
Ask when opening, pasting or when missing

CONVERSION OPTIONS
Engine – Adobe (ACE)
Intent – Perceptual
Yes to ‘Use Blackpoint Compensation’, ‘Use Dither (8-bit/channel images)’ and ‘Compensate for Scene-referred Profiles’

ADVANCED CONTROLS
No to ‘Desaturate Monitor Colours’ and ‘Blend RGB Colours Using Gamma’

Thanks again for any help you can offer.

James
JJ
John Joslin
Mar 19, 2009
In case you need to post an image again, you can upload the image to pixentral.com and paste the page HTML it generates in a message here.
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Freeagent
Mar 19, 2009
I seem to remember similar cases that turned out to be OpenGL related, I guess by the RGB numbers being interpreted according to color space in the video card. I don’t have the details, but try to turn OpenGL off in preferences.

Since you’re using ProPhoto, it could be that the difference between gamma 1.8 and 2.2 is somehow slipping through.

Just a shot in the dark.
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dlscape
Mar 20, 2009
Thanks for the ideas.

I’ve never been able to get the OpenGL part working, always hangs PS when I zoom in or try to use a brush 🙁 I’ve even tried reinstalling graphics drivers and swapping for a new graphics card.. no luck. So I don’t think it’s OpenGL that’s causing the problems as it’s always turned off.

As for the colourspace – I’ve just tried using AdobeRGB and sRGB in both TIFF and PSD format to transfer files from LR to PS and still the problem remains. In fact I’ve found that any image I open in PS appears too light, whether they are photos, scans or images saved from the internet??

Is there anyway of changing the gamma settings for PS? Maybe it is stuck in 1.8 rather than 2.2 (or vis versa).

Any suggestions would be great!

James
CC
Chris_Cox
Mar 20, 2009
There is no "gamma setting for PS".
It’s either your document profile, or your display profile. That’s all there is.
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dlscape
Mar 20, 2009
Hi Chris,

I know what you mean but the odd thing is that images look fine (and the same) in everything apart from Photoshop.

I can take an image from Lightroom, save it as a tiff or jpeg and look at it in Windows photo viewer, Capture NX 2, View NX, Nero Photo Snap or even Word and it looks the same. As soon as I take a file into PS it appears lighter??

I can’t see how my display profile or document profile is working for everything BUT photoshop?

🙁

James
DM
dave_milbut
Mar 20, 2009
I can’t see how my display profile or document profile is working for everything BUT photoshop?

nothing else is color managed. photoshop is showing you what your display profile is set to (incorrectly).
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dlscape
Mar 20, 2009
I hate this whole colour profile thing. I keep thinking I’ve got it sorted and then something like this throws it all in the air…

So what you are saying is that even though I have a profile for each monitor, and those profiles are being loaded by Vista as the system profile, and everything I run looks the same (including things like Capture 2 NX and Lightroom which are surely profile aware?) they are in fact incorrect and PS is the only one that’s correct??

If that is the case, why was everything fine until CS4 was installed? I’ve only been getting this problem with CS4, when I was using CS3 everything matched. I have to say, so far PS CS4 isn’t winning any popularity contests… I can’t get the OpenGL to work and the colours don’t match. CS3 worked a treat. I might be downgrading soon…

James
CC
Chris_Cox
Mar 20, 2009
Yeah, the profiles for your displays are probably wrong. And yes, Photoshop is one of the few apps that really uses the display profiles.

There could be something odd about the profiles (like some that were made with scene referred tags by mistake) that CS4 pays attention to and CS3 didn’t.

Have you updated your GretagMacBeth software? They were making bad display profiles for a while…
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Freeagent
Mar 20, 2009
What threw me off here was that it looked OK in Lightroom. I don’t have Lightroom, but what’s the explanation for that? Shouldn’t a bad profile show up there as well?
CC
Chris_Cox
Mar 20, 2009
Lightroom uses an older build of the color conversion engine, and doesn’t have all the options Photoshop does (like the scene referred rendering compensation).
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Freeagent
Mar 21, 2009
Ah…got it. Thanks.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Mar 21, 2009
What is "scene referred rendering composition", and how do I recognize it?
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ElliR
Mar 21, 2009
Just bumping this up the list a bit before it gets lost somewhere at the bottom. Yes I too would be interested to learn more with regards to this "scene referred rendering composition" and how to recognise it.
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Gener
Mar 21, 2009
What is "scene referred rendering composition", and how do I recognize it?

If you click on the advanced settings of the Color Settings dialog in Photoshop CS4,then go down to the Conversion Options section,it’s the third checkbox down. Run your cursor over it to see a description in the bottom section of color settings.
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dlscape
Mar 21, 2009
THANKS GENER!!! Unticking that box did the trick 🙂

I’m going to to have to go away and read lots more about colour profiles but at least in the mean time images look like they do in LR. This means I can now get back to using PS to make advanced tweaks to my images.

And thanks to everyone who kept this thread alive long enough for me to get an answer.

Best regards

James
www.dlscape.com
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Gener
Mar 22, 2009
Great! I didn’t expect results so soon,but nice to hear the logjam cleared up.

Like the website,btw. 🙂
CC
Chris_Cox
Mar 23, 2009
Bottom line – if that setting made a difference: your display profiles are broken. Check for updates to the software that made your display profiles.

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