Photoshop workspace: is using "Monitor RGB" bad???

[aaronrider]

Well, i have been struggling this past week trying to get my color in photoshopped JPEG's to look good on different computers and I couldnt really figure out why. They would always look good on my computer in photoshop, and usually really bad soon as I would view them somewhere else. I messed around with the color profiles and im using sRBG now. But that still didnt fix things.

Now, I just discovered that when I set Photoshop to use "monitor RGB" with "proof colors" it pretty much worked like magic and my pictures look much much better. Before, my pictures would have more of a yellow cast to them and be alot brighter. Then when saved as a JPEG and viewed elsewhere that yellow cast would turn red, thus, throwing off all my colors. My saturation would look terrible and my pictures would look alot darker also. wierd..

BUT! I heard somewhere that "monitor RGB" shoudnt be used as a workspace when editing photos! GAH!! Any ideas why? Why would my photos look better in this setting? Does it mean my monitor is crap or something? I have been messing around with photoshop for days, and as you can see im still up and its 4:21 in the morning! haha.

Thanks!!

 

[Digital Matt]

Dude, use Adobe RGB and convert to sRGB like I told you yesterday. If your photos have a yellowish cast, then you probably have your white balance set in correctly when shooting. You can't tweak your monitor to make your photos look good. You have to make your photos look good first. In lieu of a hardware calibration system, use adobe gamma to calibrate your monitor. If you have photoshop installed, you'll find adobe gamma in your control panel.

 

[PhotoPhoenix]

hah, good luck trying to make the photo look as good on different monitors.. there is always going to be changes between photos viewed on different screens.

 

[aaronrider]

Oh whoops, sorry. For some reason yesterday I thought you said start in sRGB and just save it. My bad. Let me go try it and see

 

[Digital Matt]

Do some reading.

http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml

This article is about using Profoto RGB, which is even wider than Adobe RGB. It's almost overkill, but this article should help you understand what color profiles are and how they work.

 

[aaronrider]

Hey thanks, i was looking around on google earlier but didnt come across that page. I am just kinda new to all this color profiling.

One more question though just to make sure..

While editing a picture in Abode RGB, I should have my working space in Adobe RGB also, correct? Then when finished CONVERT the image to sRBG and save.

 

[Digital Matt]

While editing a picture in Abode RGB, I should have my working space in Adobe RGB also, correct? Then when finished CONVERT the image to sRBG and save.

Yes, set your default workspace to Adobe. Adobe RGB is the preferred color space if you are going to be converting anything to CMYK for offset printing, so it's a good habit to get into. When saving for the web, convert to sRGB. If you are having prints made, check with your printer as to what color profile they would like the photo tagged with.

 

[glaston]

Then when finished CONVERT the image to sRBG and save.

Actually you'd be better off saving a copy and in the save dialog box choose the sRGB profile to embed in the image. That way your PSD file in photoshop still uses AdobeRGB, but your jpg copy has sRGB embedded for the web.

 

[Digital Matt]

You'd have a hard time publishing a psd to the web, so yeah, that was kind of implied.