Photoshop and color profiling masters needed!

aaronrider · Jul 2, 2007

Hi,

First off, i am a aspiring motocross photographer and have been doing it for a few years. I also have been using photoshop quite a bit. But anyways...

I have been having some issues getting my pictures to look good on different monitors after I photoshop them. I can get my pictures to look good on my screen, but when I view it on a differnet computer it looks horrible! The colors/ saturation/ brightness changes like crazy. Im not sure whats going on. I noticed the red color esspecially changes. I even bought a new LCD monitor (probably not the best, but shoud work ok) just to make sure I wasnt working with a bad monitor, but the pictures still look bad on many other computers. If I go look at other peoples photos, they usually look pretty good everywhere. I dont get it. I realize that monitors are all different, therefore, i can expect my pictures to change somewhat. But mine are REALLY changing. Now I have three monitors set up next to eachother so I can see what pictures look like on all of them but still cant figure it out. Any ideas? THANKS!

Digital Matt · Jul 2, 2007

You are correct in realizing that all monitors will display the same photo differently. That being said, there are a few issues you need to be aware of. You should get some kind of hardware calibration device for your monitor. Look for a Monaco Optix or a Colorvision Spyder.

After you calibrate your monitor, you need to look at color profiles in photoshop. What is your default color space? If you are using a wide color space like Adobe RGB 1998, or Profoto RGB, you'll need to convert to sRGB before displaying outside of photoshop. You can do this through the edit menu (assuming CS or later), convert to profile. Keep the intent at "perceptual". You won't notice a change in the colors when you do this, but you also won't notice a change then when you view in a web browser or other image viewer.

aaronrider · Jul 2, 2007

By the way, the monitor I bought is a 22" viewsonic LCD. Its a cheaper one. How important is having a good monitor for editing? Could it be a monitor problem? I dont see how it could, mainly because other peoples photos look good on here and all the rest of the monitors. Maybe my monitor isnt capable of displaying certain colors that shows up on other screens making the pictures look bad? GAH I this is frustrating.

Thanks!

aaronrider · Jul 2, 2007

Hmm, I'm not sure exactly. I'll go check it out and see what color space i have been using

Digital Matt · Jul 2, 2007

Having a good monitor is very important, but that's not your problem here. Check your color settings.

CRTs are still preferred for graphics and photography.

aaronrider · Jul 2, 2007

Hey, looks like I have probably been using adobe RGB 1998. I just saved a photo in sRGB and it looks like the colors are little more consistant. They are still off somewhat, but better. Maybe now I just need a properly calibrated monitor and it will help some more. Thanks! Any other settings I should know about for photoshop that may help? I noticed there are some settings such as "proof setup" and "proof colors"