Images have different Colors

[gedstar]

Seem to be having a problem with color, OK the attached image shows a tutorial that I'm learning, as you can see I have dual monitors, both are Dell 22 inch and not calibrated although they are both the same in relation to color profile and there's not a lot of difference when viewing the same image on both screens. The problem is that when I'm viewing a video tutorial on the left screen the colors are completely different from what I see in Photoshop, so when I open the tutorial image supplied the colors are completely different from what I see on the Video tutorial. Even if I change the video to the right screen and Photoshop to the left screen the results are the same. I use VLC player and have tried Windows media player but get the same results.
Graphics Card is nvidia gtx 660 2GB
All settings are set to default, Windows color profile and Photoshop are both set to ProPhoto RGB

Hope someone can shed some light on this for me. Is it something that I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in Advance
Ged

View attachment 39193

 

[IamSam]

Well........your monitors are not calibrated................ and it could be that the monitor of the person recording the tutorial could have been off colorwise?

 

[gedstar]

Hi IAMSAM,

Thanks for the reply, I don't think this is an issue to do with monitor calibration, maybe I'm wrong. If for example I view the image on both monitors at the same time whether in Photoshop or through Windows image viewer they both more or less look the same as in the image on the right of the attached photo.
I noticed similar situations viewing tutorials online, the colors on the tutorial, whether video or online look different from what I see. The problem is which is the correct color, are the colors on the left correct or are the colors on the right the correct colors. Hope you can understand my predicament when trying to do color corrections when trying to follow a tutorial.
So would calibrating the monitors make a difference.

Thanks again
Ged

 

[IamSam]

So would calibrating the monitors make a difference?

Yes! maybe not for this situation but it will be advantageous in the future. It will help you to adjust colors in images more accurately.

I noticed you have the video and what I guess is the stock photo. The stock photo would be closer to the actual color. However, if the stock photo is a different color in the other monitor (or visa versa) and all the settings are the same, then this could be a calibration issue.

 

[Paul]

I would go with monitor calibration, look at the toolbars in photoshop they have different colours never mind the jumping girl images.

 

[IamSam]

Paul, correct me if I misunderstood you. In the OP's image, the monitor on the left is a fullscreen view of a tutorial. The right screen is his version of Ps.

 

[Paul]

Sam it just looks to me as the two monitors are not set up the same, the image on the left (video) is lighter and the colours look brighter, the right hand image is duller and darker?
Sorry if i have confused the thread (not my intention) i will go back in my box now.

 

[IamSam]

Nope, makes complete sense! It was my misunderstanding! I will go to my box now as well!

 

[Paul]

It's dark in here:mrgreen:

 

[Tom Mann]

Please post the file the *exact* psd file that you were viewing on the right monitor in the photo you posted.

My theory is that the file being viewed in PS was in some wide gamut color space like ProFoto, but because of some error in color management, the data in that file was interpreted as if it was in sRGB (or some other narrower gamut space).

In contrast, my hypothesis is that the person doing the tutorial (on the LH screen) did not make the same color management error, so his system interpreted the data correctly and gave good looking colors and tones. These (correct colors) were then recorded and stored on his video (which are more or less impervious to these sorts of color space issues).

OTOH, the above is nothing but a hypothesis until I can take a look at that file.

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[IamSam]

... and it could be that the monitor of the person recording the tutorial could have been off colorwise?

Yeah, that's what I said Tom............just not in so many words! LOL!!!

 

[Tom Mann]

Yeah, that's what I said Tom............just not in so many words! LOL!!!

Sorry, Sam, but a monitor "being off" is not even close to being the same thing as PS interpreting the data in the file incorrectly because of a color space / color management error. A monitor "being off" is either a hardware problem, or, if it's a software problem, involves only the output device profile for that monitor, not conversions of the source image to /from the actual working color space.

As an example, here's an example sRGB image I grabbed off the web.



On my monitor, the colors look reasonable -- not perfect, but certainly not horrible. If I convert the data in the sRGB image to ProFoto and set my working color space to ProFoto, I can hardly tell a difference on my monitor. However, if I make a mistake and accidentally assign the ProFoto data to a narrower gamut color such as sRGB or Apple RGB, the saturation drops dramatically, hues change somewhat, and tones also change. To me, this looks a lot like what the OP is seeing on his RH monitor.



Tom

 

[gedstar]

I would go with monitor calibration, look at the toolbars in photoshop they have different colours never mind the jumping girl images.

Hi Paul, I think that's just to do with the fact that I have my color theme in preferences set to the darkest color, while the tutorial video is set to a lighter color theme.

 

[gedstar]

Hi All

Thanks for the input, Tom not sure if I can post the image as it may violate copyright stuff, although I could PM it to you if that's allowed. No matter which monitor I view the image on they both look similar, so if I view the image on both monitors at the same time, there is little difference between the colors of both images.
If I view the video tutorial on the right hand monitor and the image on the left hand monitor it still looks the same as my original post screenshot.
Could this be anything to do with my color profile settings, below is a screenshot of my color profile settings, both monitors are set to ProPhoto RGB as well.

View attachment 39223

 

[gedstar]

Hi Tom

That looks similar to what I see, but I see the same thing on both monitors, no matter which monitor I view the image on I get the same result. It's not just this tutorial I have issues with. Sometimes when I download images from tutorials on this site http://www.photoshoptutorials.ws/ the colors can look different from the tutorial.

 

[IamSam]

Sorry, Sam, but a monitor "being off" is not even close to being the same thing as PS interpreting the data in the file incorrectly because of a color space / color management error.

Yes.........that was why I was farcical with my earlier comment!

 

[gedstar]

Just an update, decided to test this on my Laptop and I get the same color difference on the Laptop as well. So don't think it's to do with the monitors. Here's the image in question, hope I'm allowed to post it, please remove if there's any issue with copyright stuff

Cheers

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Gedstar -

Thanks for the image you just posted. Viewing it with Firefox, or downloading it and then viewing it on any of several applications, the colors look quite reasonable. Several metadata viewers (EXIF tool, Opanda, Photome) report that it has no color space tag, so the default for most simple image viewers is that they will assume it is in the sRGB color space.

In contrast, Photoshop is a bit more sophisticated. So, when you bring that image into PS, and your default working space is ProPhoto, you should get a warning dialog box asking you how you want to handle the color space mismatch. How do you respond?

Given that you said that the same image when displayed in the tutorial always looks brighter, could the reason be something as simple as the guy who produced the tutorial just jacked up the saturation and/or otherwise tweaked the image because he thought it looked too dull? From what you wrote, I wasn't 100% sure if you already addressed this possibility.

Tom

 

[gedstar]

Hi Tom

Thanks for the reply. Don't remember getting a color space mismatch when opening the image although I could be wrong. Is this the dialogue you are talking about.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-set-color-management-policies-in-photoshop-.html

If so I think I need to read up more about color profiles as my knowledge on them is slightly limited. Found this so hopefully I'll gain a better understanding.
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/color-settings/

Looking at the other video tutorials in the series, it looks like you could be correct in what you said.

"Given that you said that the same image when displayed in the tutorial always looks brighter, could the reason be something as simple as the guy who produced the tutorial just jacked up the saturation and/or otherwise tweaked the image because he thought it looked too dull? From what you wrote, I wasn't 100% sure if you already addressed this possibility"

Thanks again for your help and hopefully my understanding of color profiles will improve with age, so much to learn you tend to forget about the important things

Cheers Again

P.S. just realized that I have them options unticked in the color profile settings hence me not getting the mismatch dialogue

View attachment 39236

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi again, Gedstar -

Yup, the two links in your last post address exactly the issues I am talking about. Specifically, if you don't know exactly how the color is managed at each step of the way, you can wind up spending hours trying to figure out issues like this. I remember a particularly perplexing case about a year or so ago here on PSG where a woman where everything that came out of her copy of PS had a pink cast. It turned out that she had selected her scanner profile as her working color space!!! Unfortunately, it took quite a few messages and several man-hours of work to clear that one up.

Anyway, two more thoughts on your situation:

1) Can you send me (or post) a link to the video that corresponds to the picture you posted -- not a screen grab, but the tutorial itself. I'll check if I see the same color change on my system that you do, and I'll also take a look at the color-related metadata for the tutorial.

2) Can you open that image up in your copy of PS (ie, exactly as you did in the photo of your two monitors), save it as a PSD file, and then send me (or post) the PSD file. If the forum uploading software rejects the PSD file, just zip it and upload the zip file. The uploader will tell you that it doesn't recognize that format, but won't prevent it from being uploaded.

These two bits of information will tell us a lot.

Best regards,

Tom