I thought I had this color space thing figured out...

[Jon_Are]

As a favor, I edited some photos for a friend. They were taken with a Canon 50D and shot in JPEG. The colors look fine in LR, and again in CS4.

So, I edit in LR, then CS4. I save the edited image, then return to LR. I export them, using sRGB and JPEG, and email them.

Now, the colors are all off. When I open the email I sent, there is obviously a color space issue.

Upon opening the Color Settings in my CS4, this is what I show:
Settings: North America General Purpose 2
Working Spaces:
RGB: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
CMYK: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
Color Management Policies:
RGB: Preserve Embedded Profiles
CMYK: Preserve Embedded Profiles
Gray: Preserve Embedded Profiles

Oddly (or, maybe not), the other photos in the Canon-shot group - those that I have not edited - show normal colors when emailed or opened in Windows Picture Viewer (where my edited photo looked off).

I'm wondering if the 'Preserve Embedded Profiles' setting has something to do with it?

Thanks!

Jon

 

[Garbz]

Don't touch those settings. Preserve embedded profiles means that when Photoshop opens and image with a non standard colour profile it will load that profile, otherwise it will just assume it's the working space (sRGB in the case of a colour file) and move on.

So you shot in JPEG, awesome the camera should apply sRGB. You export in Lightroom using sRGB again fine. You open the email in what and where? I don't see where the problem could have occurred. Lightroom and Photoshop both share colour spaces quite seamlessly. Lightroom should also work in the native space of the file you opened so it should have been sRGB all the way through if that's what the camera was taking.

Diagnostic step. Open the offending image in photoshop and click edit -> convert to profile, and let us know what the colour profile actually is.
If you open the image in photoshop and the colours are wrong then something is really foobar because the colour profile is both wrong and not embedded in photoshop.


Now one more thing. Which windows picture viewer are you using? The one in vista and win7 understand colour spaces, I think the one in XP SP3 does as well. What they don't understand and photoshop does are monitor profiles. It may be worth going into windows display properties and clicking advanced and checking what colour profile is current assigned to the monitor, if any. If you have a wide gamut screen you should have one. If you don't then you usually shouldn't. You can also check this in photoshop by opening the colour settings, clicking the down arrow next to RGB working space and looking at (but don't select) "Monitor RGB - " whatever is after monitor RGB is the space photoshop is displaying for your screen. Again unless you have a wide gamut screen this should be sRGB or blank.

 

[Jon_Are]

Hi Garbz, thanks for replying.

To clarify: I didn't shoot the photo, my friend did. I assume her Canon is defaulted to sRGB and she didn't monkey with that setting. Not sure if this would even matter, though, in this case. (because the other photos she set me from the same group look fine; these are images I didn't mess with)

I emailed the edited photo, then I just opened my 'Sent' folder to view it; that is where it looks off.

So, I went into 'Computer', found the file, and right-clicked to open it (in Vista)...again, the colors are way off.

I previously had a similar problem, which I corrected within LR: when exporting, I did not have sRGB checked. In this instance, though, it is checked.

I'm at work now, but I will do as you suggest when I get home (looking at the color profile in Photoshop).

Thanks again,

Jon