Photoshop

[mar1300]

hey!

question: When I'm working in photoshop designing, working with images they seem alot lighter vs outside photshop, and it's throwing me off. example I'll have a JPEG image and instanlty as soon as I drag it into photoshop it lightens up. any idea? ?? I don't remember it doing this, it's just of lately.


thanks

[Drazan]

Check to see if you are in CMYK or RGB mode.

[mar1300]

I'm in RGB mode...right now I'm design a web layout...and just when I think I have the color perfect!!! it's way off

[PrintDriver]

What are you Photoshop Color Settings?

[mar1300]

color settings:

North America General Purpose 2
RGB:sRGB IEC61966-2.1
CMYK: U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2
Gray: Dot Gain 20%
Spot: Dot Gain 20%

Color Management
All "Preserve Embedded Profiles"

[PrintDriver]

Change the RGB to Adobe RGB(1998) and see what happens.

[PrintDriver]

Edit: After you do that, if you already have a document you are working on, Use the Mode Conversion rather than just telling it to change on opening.

[mar1300]

I made that change, but nothing really happend... images are still turing out darker than they appear in photoshop

[mar1300]

I'm not sure if this will help but it saids "Unsynchronized: Your creative suit applications are not synchronized for consistent color."

[PrintDriver]

I think I'm confused then. Rereading your first post, it says you are designing in Photoshop (which I'll not go into further). Then you ask about opening images in Photoshop and they are lighter. ??? Are you getting a color shift when dragging an image from one PS doc to another? Or are you designing in something other than PS?

What exactly is happening? And which version of software(s) are you using?

[mar1300]

I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS2. When I drag an image (JPEG, GIF) into photoshop I'm getting a color shift (lighter). Then when I'm designing in photshop and save out images (JPEGS, GIFS) they appear a lot darker when I view them out side of photoshop such as in a browser window.

[Ned]

You have color management turned off in the other applications, it sounds like. Go into Edit => Color Settings in all applications, and set them to the same settings you have in Photoshop (you can just save a custom setting, if you're not using a default).

For the record, it's usually the other way around. Images usually appear lighter in the other apps (Illy and Indy) than they do in Photoshop...

[mar1300]

The problem is when i look at the images in "windows picture viewer or a browser window" it seems a lot darker.

for example here's a web layout I'm working on...in photoshop the colors are a lot lighter. And now everything seems sooo dark outside photoshop.

[Ned]

Oh, I thought you said it was darker in other Adobe apps.

Browsers and Windows Picture Viewer are never going to give you correct color, because they're not color managed!

Please give us an example of how drastic the difference is. If it's not major, it's proabably not something you can do anything about (and shouldn't worry about, as it it's going to look different on each individual computer, anyways). However, if there is a real problem, we may get a better idea of what it is that way.

*EDIT: Okay, I guess you added an example as I was typing my message... Can you do two screenshots of what they look like on your computer, one from Photoshop, and one from the browser, instead (so we have a comparison)? Also, which browser are you using, and have you looked at it in other browsers?

[mar1300]

I would say roughly this is the diffrence maybe a little lighter..you can see the pattern behinde the girl in the background a little bit better in photoshop

[mar1300]

Even in photoshop when i go to "save to web" the image appears a lot darker than the image on the canvas.

[Ned]

Yeah, that's just from viewing in your browser... Nothing you can do about that. When you're desiging for the web, you don't aim for perfection, as it doesn't exist. Every end-user is going to see something different, depending on how their system renders it. If you're viewing on a Mac, it's going to look way brighter than on a PC, too. Out of curiosity though... Are you using web-safe colors? That might help, too, though new browsers have capacity for a lot more colors than on the web-safe palette.

[mar1300]

ok thanks......yeah I'm using web safe colors...I was just worrying about the transparency of images and patterns...

The one thing i still don't get is why my images shift lighter when i drag them into photoshop ( a regular JPEG photo)???

[Ned]

Where are you dragging from? The only place you're going to be able to drag an image into Photoshop and maintain color correctness is from another color-managed adobe program, such as Illustrator or InDesign, not from your computer, or Windows Viewer! When you save the file, make sure you save it with the sRGB (for web) ICC Color Profile.

PS - Tint is just as much a part of the color as tone. So yes, transparency and lightness is still a color issue.

[mar1300]

I was dragging it from my computer. thanks for all the help....so much still to learn.

[urstwile]

What RGB mode are you using in Photoshop? Web browsers use sRGB as their standard, it's possible that you're using an RGB color space that's different from that and so there's a color shift when you drag the image into Photoshop.

Try switching your RGB color space to sRGB in Photoshop, to see if that helps.

[activeseven]

Just wanted to add my .2 cents...but before you go off switching your color profiles around, perhaps you can calibrate your monitor first? You will still get a shift but you will be able to more accurately gauge your issues if you start from a good baseline.

"Eyeballing" color is typicaly frowned upon, well at least in my office it is.

What the op really needs is some research into color management, unfortunately that is beyond the scope of this post but fortunately there is a ton of information on the net about it.

[urstwile]

It's generally recommended that if you're going to be working on stuff for the web, that the RGB space to use is sRGB.

Of course all monitors will display color differently, so it's almost impossible to determine how it's going to look one someone else's screen, but it will at least provide conformity between what your web browser sees and what Photoshop sees.

[activeseven]

Accurate color reproduction for a web based medium is practically impossible. Its a shame really, there are some very talented designers out there with work that is being shown sub-par because of it. :(