Photoshop CS4 wierd color issue

[Matthew...@adobeforums.com]

Hi,
When I paste something into photoshop cs4 it seems that the colors are washed out or a little off. I noticed this one day when I was working and I haven't been able to fix it since. I even deleted the photoshop profile which didn't seem to fix the problem. How can I reset all of the color settings/presets.

<http://homepages.wmich.edu/~m6newton1/washed%20out.bmp>

I also don't know if this helps but... When I do a "save for web," the preview there shows the correct color. But when I open up the file it produces with MS Paint/Windows Image Previewer it shows a washed out version.

Any suggestions are welcome, Thank you for your time.

[Matthew...@adobeforums.com]

I spent some time looking into this and I got it working... The problem lies in two spots.

Under VIEW > Proof Colors was check which was forcing the preview to have a different tint... BUT also... EDIT > COLOR SETTINGS had some weird stuff set.

I set my own to RGB: Dell 2208WFP (my monitor's name)
CMYK: US Web coated swap v2
GRAY dot gain 20%
Spot dot gain 20%
then saved it as a preset.

That seemed to fix the issue

[Bart_...@adobeforums.com]

Matthew: Change the RGB to Adobe RGB, you should never use your monitor profile.

[pfigen]

Bart's only partly right here. What's going on is that you haven't activated the color management in Firefox, and since it's now showing you "monitor RGB" any difference between your working space and your monitor space will show up.

Photoshop doesn't show the difference because it uses both the working space profile AND your monitor profile to display your file. Setting your Photoshop RGB working space to your monitor profile effectively hides the problem by forcing Ps to act like a non color managed app, but doesn't really fix it.

Make sure that your web destined files are in sRGB, that you embed that profile in your images, and you turn on the color management in Firefox. At least you're not using IE which doesn't even have that option.

The last part of the equation here is the type of monitor you are using. sRGB is the standard for the web and until recently most monitors WERE more or less sRGB. Now, with more and more wide gamut LCD screens available, it gets even more confusing as your "monitor rgb" is no longer close to sRGB, making color management in web browsers and image browser all the more necessary.

Your problem is pervasive today and one of the most complained about problems out there. Understanding basic color theory explains it, but users need to insist that application vendors implement profile awareness in their products. It's only going to get worse going forward.