Images Display Dark In Photoshop

[Tim Kurkoski]

Edit > Color Settings. Try setting this back to one of the default presets, like US Web Prepress Defaults (wording may be different depending on version).

For best results, you should really calibrate your monitor. Calibration spiders aren’t exactly cheap, but you can fake it by creating a profile with the Adobe Gamma control panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel). Then set Photoshop to use the monitor profile.

[Lloydikus]

Thanks for the reply. I have tried going into Edit > Color Settings and changing it to US Web Prepress Default and this has not worked. Are there other settings somewhere else that might be affecting this.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Try turning color management off altogether. You may also want to go into your Windows Display properties (via Control Panel) and turn off any color management happening there, and/or stopping it from using any color profiles for the monitor.

This is most definitely something related to color management. I’ll give you an example:

Last year I installed a new pair of Dell flatscreen monitors. I installed the color profile that came on the disc. In Photoshop, all of my blacks were slightly brown. I fixed it by removing the color profile for the monitor. Eventually I got a color profiling device and created a custom profile, and Photoshop was fine with that.

Lessons learned from this were that color management happens in more than one place, and just because the manufacturer provided the profile doesn’t mean it’s right (or compatible with your video card).

[Lloydikus]

Thanks!!! Through all of these posts I have fixed the problem. Thanks for all of the ideas everybody!!! Interesting, I had no idea that color management could be set outside the actual program you are working in.