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What do you have your workspace background in Photoshop set to? I recently encountered a sort of funny problem in Photoshop. I'm not sure I would even call it a "problem", but it was causing me issues regardless.
I've always set my workspace color to "Medium Gray". Not because anybody told me too, but because I felt that it was good for determining color accuracy (this being because you can use a physical medium gray card held by your model to set your white balance in Photoshop). My head just related the background color to that, and I didn't question it, I just assumed it was correct to also have the workspace background set to medium gray. As a result however, I felt like it was causing me to edit my photos a little too dark. Against a white background, my images just weren't popping out the way they would in front of the medium gray background in Photoshop. It was having the same effect on my printed photos. They were just coming out too dark.
So I got to thinking, maybe if I set the background color to White, I would be able to see it differently and be able to give it proper brightness and contrast. It seems to have worked and the result is punchier edits that are more satisfying to me, but I would love to know the opinions of others on this. Have you experienced this issue or anything similar to it? How did you fix it? Is switching to a white background a bad idea, and will it effect my color accuracy? Honestly I could likely just set it to white to get the proper brightness and contrast, and then switch it back over to medium gray for color accuracy, but is that really necessary, and does a medium gray workspace background even have an effect on the way we see color?
I've always set my workspace color to "Medium Gray". Not because anybody told me too, but because I felt that it was good for determining color accuracy (this being because you can use a physical medium gray card held by your model to set your white balance in Photoshop). My head just related the background color to that, and I didn't question it, I just assumed it was correct to also have the workspace background set to medium gray. As a result however, I felt like it was causing me to edit my photos a little too dark. Against a white background, my images just weren't popping out the way they would in front of the medium gray background in Photoshop. It was having the same effect on my printed photos. They were just coming out too dark.
So I got to thinking, maybe if I set the background color to White, I would be able to see it differently and be able to give it proper brightness and contrast. It seems to have worked and the result is punchier edits that are more satisfying to me, but I would love to know the opinions of others on this. Have you experienced this issue or anything similar to it? How did you fix it? Is switching to a white background a bad idea, and will it effect my color accuracy? Honestly I could likely just set it to white to get the proper brightness and contrast, and then switch it back over to medium gray for color accuracy, but is that really necessary, and does a medium gray workspace background even have an effect on the way we see color?