PSE 9 is saving my colors incorrectly?

Snacko · Sep 7, 2011

Hi, I'm a noob to this forum and also new to photography. And new to using Photoshop Elements. I have PSE 9 and have edited an image .psd file and saved it as a .jpg, .bmp, and .tga and none of them display the same image color that I see when I am editing the image in PSE 9.

Below you can see the photo in PSE 9, compared to the .jpg that I saved. Even the .psd looks like the .jpg with the colors less intense when viewed outside of PSE 9. This is weird. I have not noticed this in other photographs. Does anybody know why this could be happening?

Thanks,
Snacko

Big Mike · Sep 7, 2011

Sounds like a color space issue.
Do you know what color space you are editing the image in?

I haven't used PSE since version 3, but in Photoshop, I would go to the 'Image' menu and choose 'Mode'. That would allow me to choose which color space the image is in.

The most popular color space is sRGB. So that is what most program/browsers expect...but if your image is in another space, you may get weird color shifts. So first try to change the color space to sRGB, then save the image and see what you get.

Snacko · Sep 7, 2011

Thanks for replying Big Mike.

That mode is in 'RGB Color' mode. I have never changed that, ever..

spacefuzz · Sep 7, 2011

if its the same as regular CS, there should be a file -> save for web and devices option. That will export it in sRGB for you.

The_Traveler · Sep 7, 2011

Many programs don't support different color spaces than sRGB and so if you are looking at something in a photo-processing program and export it in color space RGB, it will look muted and off-color when viewed in a browser.

If you don't understand what has been said in these posts above you need to do a search on 'color space photography' and read a bit.

Snacko · Sep 7, 2011

Thanks, I'll look that up.

I wonder if it may be the process that I went through to get the image where it is now? I took the photo with my Nikon D5100 two days ago. 5 images with EV Bracketing. I loaded those 5 images into PhotoMatrix to make a HDR image and Processed it, then saved it as a .jpg.

Then, I took that .jpg image into PSE 9 and applied 3 effects to it that I downloaded from two sites. (The one site is called Pioneer Woman and the other is called Coffee Shop.) After applying the effects and adjusting them, I Save As different image files and view them all with different programs and they all look the same, but all are different than in PSE 9.

>> I am new to all this. I wonder if PSE 9 Displays images different than other programs do? Could it see that I processed it with PhotoMatrix to create HDR, and decide to display it differently?

I am a software engineer with 25 years experience, build computers, and have played with graphics programs for years, and have been using PSE 9 for about 5 months and this is he first time I have seen this happen. This is weird...

clanthar · Sep 7, 2011

You are most certainly having a color space conflict problem. And from the looks of your screen shot I'd guess your JPEG photo is mapped to the Adobe 1998 color space.

I can see that your right-side window displaying the photo is Elements. I'm not sure what the program is on the left that's displaying the photo but I'll guess it's IE. IE does not correctly display RGB photographs as it does not recognize the photo's ICC profile. If you displayed the photo simultaneously in Elements and Firefox or Safari it would appear the same in both windows.

The root of the problem is that a pixel in a JPEG image has RGB values, for example R = 124, G = 102, B = 45. Without reference to a color space those numbers are undefined. They can only identify a known color with a reference color space. The necessary info is contained in the photos embedded ICC profile. Unfortunately there's heaps and piles of cr*p software out there that doesn't correctly process the photos ICC profile and nonetheless displays the photo. The result is what's happened to you.

There are two solutions:

1. Only use good software that correctly processes the photos ICC profile.
Secondary problem: Most people don't do that, for example people use IE to view photos even when it trashes all photos.

2. Make sure your photos saved color space is sRGB. This is a cludge solution since sRGB is not the same as no color space. However since sRGB was created specifically to be a best fit match to current RGB displays it's the best option. This way people viewing it with cr*p software won't necessarily see a big change and people seeing it with good software will see it correctly.

Here's the reading material you need: WEB BROWSER COLOR MANAGEMENT Tutorial - Test Page FireFox Safari Chrome Internet Explorer IE 9- FILES have embedded ICC profiles Photoshop ColorManagement

Joe

Snacko · Sep 7, 2011

Thanks a lot clanthar. I will read that tomorrow.

I was using a few programs to compare to PSE9. I used Irfanview, a program called Directory Opus, Paint. I just tried Windows 7 Preview and that did look closer to the correct image.

So, I went into that Image menu in PSE9 again and the Mode is set on something called 'RGB Color'. When I always do the Save As there is a checkbox that is checked for ICC sRGB.

There is another menu item on the Image menu called 'Convert Color Profile', and it has a sub menu item called 'Convert to sRGB profile'. So I just did that, and that fixed it. Now when I save the image as a .jpg it looks just like in PSE9.

Thanks for your helps guys. I will read up on that stuff tomorrow. There must be something maybe in PhotoMatrix, or the camera that is going on that I need to understand. I had a Nikon D40 (my first DSLR) for a year, and I just upgraded to this D5100 last week. So, that may be it.

Snacko