Expert: LizaL - 3/9/2005

Question
I just hooked up a new moniter and things are bigger and much brighter.  I notice that there's a big difference in the color of jpg photo images when I open them in photoshop.  Although the flesh tones are very accurate and pleasing as displayed in most Windows XP applications, when they open on Photoshop for editing, they seem to have a sallow, yellow caste to them.  How can I get the images to open in Photoshop looking the way they do in my pictures folder?
Thanks - Bert  

Answer
Hi Bert,

It sounds to me like it might not be Photoshop and your images, but the need to calibrate your monitor. You should probably do that first, then see how your images look.

There's a utility for Windows called Adobe Gamma that will walk you through calibrating your monitor. Here's a link to the page with the instructions:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/321608.html

When you calibrate your monitor, you can create a "profile" that you'll name, and use as a default setting. This profile will work overall, not just in Photoshop; the settings apply to everything your monitor displays. You'll also be asked to name this profile, so name it something unique that you'll remember.

Once you've done that, if your images don't look any better in Photoshop, you can tinker with your Color Settings.

Go to the Edit pulldown menu in Photoshop and select Color Settings. There's a rather complicated dialog box there that will allow you to choose the profile you just selected. This will be the profile that Photoshop uses to display your images. And it *should* make things so that your images display correctly both in your pictures folder, and in Photoshop.

Here's my Color Settings dialog box:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/colorsettings.png

And this shot shows you how you can click on the RGB pop-up menu and access any calibration profiles that are default on your machine, or that you've created:
http://little-works.com/all_experts/colorsettings2.png

I have a Cinema HD display for my Mac, and as you can see in the screen shots, that's what I've selected.

Now, I say this *should* make your images look better, because this is just the tip of the iceberg, really -- as you can see from that Color Settings dialog box, there's SOOOO much you can do, and there are so many dependent factors on achieving good color. We can go into all the particulars of Color Settings, if you need to, but usually just calibrating your monitor and choosing that profile in Photoshop are enough.

Hopefully this will get you started on the right road. If this doesn't help, post back and we'll try something else!

Lisa