Help! My head is spinning from color spaces...

Please tell me there is a simple solution to this...cause I can't find one...

My friend has a new copy of CS2, and we loaded my recent raw's into it. I adjusted them perfectly in CS2, save them, and look at them elsewhere, even on the same computer, and the colors go flat (in all other programs but photoshop, where they still look fine.)

I then did some research and found out that by going to "proof color" in CS@, and setting 'it' to the monitor profile, my pictures look as flat in CS2 as they do everywhere else, on all other monitors.

So I looked into my Dell monitor profile, and set the color space thingy in CS2 to that, and get the picture looking fine again by bumping the saturation. Then just for fun I switched back to 'Adobe RGB' and it looks super unfricken believably over saturated.

The fox picture looks flat on my normal monitor, but I don't know if / what / how 'color space' I'm looking at there. What color space does everyone else look in. Does my fox look like it does in CS2 to you. I guess I can't ask that...that probably all doesn't make much sense.
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Alright, boiled down, I always had fine prints in Photoshop 7 with my normal work monitor, and it looked close to all the other monitors I looked in...So how do I get my pictures that I edit on his CS2 to look the same after I save them and view them on the web or in another program on his same computer...

Or do they look fine to everyone else, and I'm just on a bad monitor profile, but then why did it always work before.


Circular thought

Can't help you much here JIm, but I know your frustration. Sounds like it's probably just a simple setting that's gone unchecked somewhere. I would go back through the settings for color preferences and your general settings and re-check them once again. Good luck.

There can be a lot of controls between an image and its display on the monitor. Especially suspect is something with gamma settings. Not all programs will use the same image path before displaying an image with Photoshop particularly capable of being different if set up less than in usual defaults. One would need to know more specifics about your hardware and software starting with the OS. One thing you can do to establish a base of what ought to look correct by displaying an image you know ought to appear with average luminance and color saturation. Don't use one of those early/late light or quite contrasty pics. If you don't have any available of your own you could look at those on someone else's website. All those on my website for instance will print out quite accurately at one of the most highly used by pro labs in the country. All are directly downsized from the print files thus ought to view so too. If they don't then something is out of whack. ...David

Jim,

Don't "space" out on us, now.

I ran into a very similar problem when I installed CS2. Images looked great in sRGB in PS2. After they were saved for the web, they looked darker and with more contrast. After much agonizing, I figured out that CS2 was not seeing my custom monitor profile.

First: Be sure your friend has removed Adobe Gamma from the Startup folder in Windoze

The fix I used: I generated a new monitor profile by recalibrating my monitor. In CS2, I went to View>Proof Setup. I chose "Custom". In the "Device to Simulate" drop-down, I then selected my new monitor profile. Click "OK". Voila!

In order for this to work "globally" in CS2, be sure there is NO PS document open.

-PB

Thanks guys, totally a gamma issue, you nailed it! My buddy and I just got everything profiled alot better, and I'm gonna go have a drink! Not a fun day worrying about my images!

Thanks for your quick responses!