Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 1/9/2008

Question
QUESTION: First off... I am very new to Photoshop. I have CS2 and when I open my RAW image and edit it, it looks great in Photoshop. However, when I go to File/Save As and save the image as a jpeg, the colors in the saved image are faded or desaturated. I am not going throuh the save for web function, simply the Save As. I would like the colors of the resulting saved image to match the bright colors that appear when I am working on the image in Photoshop. I am sure that this is a fairly simple fix by changing a few options, but I am lost. I am not using these images for websites, most of them will be printed (I am converting to 8 bit before saving as jpeg). Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

ANSWER: Hi Chad,

The only reasons I could see your photos looking desaturated when saving from Photoshop is because you are converting to 8 bit, Im assuming from 16 bit at the end before you save. This will always drop the intensities of some colors (reds, greens, etc.) You should convert this immediately before you do any color corrections if you are going to print. Otherwise you will always have this problem with saturated colors dropping off and not matching. Unfortunately, as you probably know, 16 bit is not print supported.

The other reason I can think of is if you are converting these to CMYK. This will change your color range into the printable spectrum, giving the appearance of dulling colors. RGB can support a much larger color spectrum, including high chroma/high contrast colors that CMYK cannot.

If you are taking these into another application to print, such as Quark or InDesign, you do not need to convert the color mode to CMYK at all. Those apps will do it for you and give you a better print/color quality.

Also when you save out as a jpg, do not turn on any compression, keep it on maximum quality.

Hope this helps!

Kevin

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the help Kevin. I have made some other observations tonight that may be helpfull in diagnosing the problem. I have been using RGB, not converting to CMYK and I have not been compressing the jpgs when saving.

Tonight I opened a RAW image and saved it as a JPG. Then I did the same exact thing and saved it as a TIFF. When I look at the images in their Windows folder (viewing as a filmstrip) the larger image of the TIFF has much better colors than the JPG. When I open them in the standard windows viewer, the TIFF looks much better also. Now, when I open them both in Photoshop they look exactly the same. I emailed one of the pictures to my work computer and the colors still look faded (just like the do on my home computer in the basic Windows viewer).

I don't know if any of this is helpful to you... or if it made sense at all. I would really just like the saved image to look the same as it does in Photoshop. Do you have any suggestions on how I should set me color settings in CS2? Thanks again for all the help.

-Chad

Answer
Hi Chad, it is a good idea to calibrate CS2 to your Computer. Heres how you do this:

First, go to (PC) the Adobe Gamma Correction in the control panel or (Mac) your monitor system preferences. Then go through the entire monitor correction wizard.

Next go to Bridge CS2 (if you can't find it, go to Photoshop and then File>Browse). Once in Bridge go to Edit>Creative Suite Color Settings and select North America General Purpose 2. This is the preferred setting for both print and web work. If you are going to only work towards print, then choose NA Prepress.

Creative suite is now calibrated. I always recommend that people go through bridge, this way everything in the creative suite is calibrated.
Hope this gets you going in the right direction.

Good luck!

Kevin