Color management problem with calibrated monitor

[Luke_...@adobeforums.com]

I'm using a Samsung Syncmaster T220 LCD profiled and calibrated with a Spyder2Express. PC runs Vista 32 SP2, Photoshop CS4. Using Adobe RGB for workspace profile. System profile is set to the Spyder2Express profile.

Open up photo in Photoshop. Colors fine.
Resize for web, convert to sRGB, then check preview in "Save for web..."

Under preview, I preview the following:
-Monitor Color
-Windows (no color management)
-Macintosh (no color management)
-Document Profile

The Preview of Windows, Document Profile settings look exactly right, whereas the Monitor Color setting looks badly darkened. I preview with Firefox, save and view image using IrfanView and Firefox. It's badly darkened. I'm stumped. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. This is similar to another recent posting here, except that I am using a calibrated display with profile.

Anyone know what I'm missing?

Thanks, Luke

[pfigen]

Document Profile should look the same because it is. Window (no color management) is assuming the file to be sRGB, so that looks right too. Previewing Monitor Color is darker, suggests that the monitor has been calibrated to a higher gamma than the standard 2.2. That's the first place I would check.

[Luke_...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the suggestion. I checked and indeed the Spyder calibrated to gamma 2.2. I also double checked that this was the only profile associated with the device in the Windows color management dialog.

To reiterate:
Monitor profiled/calibrated with Spyder, profile installed.
Photoshop workspace is AdobeRGB.
Load photo to Photoshop, looks fine. Convert to sRGB. Save. Comes up too DARK in Firefox and IrfanView.

Double check "Save for web" options. Preview with "Windows (no color management)" looks correct. Preview with "Monitor Color" looks too DARK, just as it does in the browser.

I'm perplexed. What does "Monitor Color" show? Does this circumvent the monitor profile to display raw RGB numbers directly to the screen? Or what?

[pfigen]

What is the white point luminosity of your calibration?

[Luke_...@adobeforums.com]

Where can I locate the white point luminosity number?

Might there be some interaction with Windows Color System that I don't know about? I'm stuck for the moment.

[pfigen]

In your calibration software. You should be setting a white point luminosity target as well as color temperature. You're looking for something measured in candelas per meter squared or cd/m2. CRTs should be around 85-90 cd/m2. LCDs more like 110-130 cd/m2. A lot depends on your ambient lighting levels.

[Luke_...@adobeforums.com]

The Spyder2express calibration app is very black box, and does not offer up anything in the way of parameter adjustments or report much data. I know the display believes it is gamma 2.2, and that it's native color temp is 6500. I am calibrating in the dark (speaking literally now), so I'm pretty sure ambient lighting isn't bleeding in. I tried recalibrating just now for good measure, but the results are still the same.

[Bob_Wei...@adobeforums.com]

Luke -

The "Monitor Color" preview in PS, as you surmised, bypasses the monitor profile and sends RGB values straight through the video card to the display. In other words, it shows how an image will appear on your monitor when viewed through a non-color managed application.

Irfanview is not fully color-managed. It converts from image profiles to sRGB but ignores monitor profiles. Color management is turned off by default in Firefox but can be enabled starting with version 3. To do so, type "about:config" in the address bar and then toggle the setting for "gfx.color_management.enabled".

The fact that sRGB images look different on your monitor in color-managed apps like PS versus non-color managed apps simply means that, after calibration, your monitor differs from sRGB. That's why calibration software generates a profile which characterizes the actual behavior of a monitor after calibration is performed, allowing fully color managed applications to render images correctly.

[Luke_...@adobeforums.com]

I'm a little confused. Previewing through "Monitor Color" and "Windows (no color management)" are both technically not color managed. Perhaps we should distinguish further between "colorspace aware" and "device profile aware". So I can understand when you say that Irfanview will do some color management, but does not use the monitor device profile. But I would have thought that Firefox in non managed-color config would still use the monitor device profile.

I would have thought (and I might turn out to be wrong) that previewing using "Windows (not color managed)" would be the standard for previewing images for stock browser configurations. What photoshop shows me is correct rendering of the image based on what I edited in this mode. But the browser shows me a version that looks like it is not device aware, counter to photoshop's prediction. What is going wrong here? Do none of these major window apps use device profiles? Why does photoshop think that they will?

Another thing that has been suggested is that my monitor is calibrated so far from the stock configuration that sRGB photos displayed on it without the benefit of device profiling will come out far off the mark. But I profiled the monitor in stock hardware configuration and made no adjustments, and don't think that the hardware config of the monitor has changed.

If this turns out to be just a practical issue, then it leaves a major question. What did I accomplish by calibration if my calibration doesn't look like anything I actually display with? I can guess that prepress work will be more accurate in most respects, or I hope so anyway. But how should I manage workflow for developing images for web content if I am unable to match up what I'm editing with what the end user will see?

Or maybe I'm just doing something wrong...or maybe photoshop is...or I don't know what. Where do I go from here? Is WCS implicated in this somewhere?

Luke