Photoshop Color Glitch?

[ak13]

I am having this really strange issue where photoshop will draw some colors incorrectly. I did a screen shot of a webpage, and then opened it in photoshop and realized that the main background color had been distorted. I took a screen shot of the original and the photoshop and pasted it into MS Paint, and was able to show you the picture below. I haven't a clue as to why it is doing this so if you can offer any advice I'm all ears.

I even tried dragging the eyedrop from photoshop into the IE window, and it gave me the same color it found when I pasted it.

I am using photoshop cs2, pasting int photoshop as a rgb 8bit 72ppi image, from IE7


Thank you in advance!

If there is any other info you might need let me know

[Excruciating]

Yeah, which image is in which program on the screenie you've posted, the arrow doesn't say much

[Isick]

I think it has something to with the color type.
When you create a new file in Photoshop you can chose between 5 different color modes (RGB, greyscale, CMYK, Lab color, and bitmap). I don't know what bitmap or Lab color are, but I do know that CMYK is for printers (subtractice coloring), greyscale just gives you the 256 black and white colors, and RGB is for digital arts that aren't to be printed (additive colors).
Now, I believe CMYK is linked with your printer so it will automatically display the image as it will appear once printed. My guess is your a pasting the file into Photoshop with a CMYK color mode instead of an RGB thereby changing its appearance.

[ak13]

Isick
As I stated in the first post I am pasting into photoshop as an RGB and pulling from a Screen shot of a webpage.
I thought of this and tried pasting the image into all possabilities

And saving in Paint under .jpg,.bmp(8 or 24) yield the correct result.

Excruciating
Left is what the Photoshop image looks like, and the right is what it should look like (pulled from web browser)

I use photoshop mostly for web-design, so issues like this scare the crap out of me.

Unfortunetally I do not feel comfortable posting the url, but I have provided a screen shot (saved with paint) below. Feel free to try and take a screen shot, then paste into photoshop and see if you can recreate this issue.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one, it's a toughy!

Addition:
Even opening a saved copy of the image below with photoshop forced that same color change.

[Excruciating]

okay, I need you to do this:

Go to the site and hit the Print Screen button.
Open up photoshop.
press file > new
Take a new screen shot of the menu that pops up and post it here.

[Medley]

Go to Edit> Color Settings. You'll get this dialog box:



Two things to note here. First, look at the RGB setting under 'working spaces'. Chances are, it's set to one of two settings: Adobe RGB(1998) or sRGB IEC61966-2.1. The first is the most common RGB setting for items destined for print. The second is the most common setting for items destined for the web. You should choose whichever is most appropriate for the work you do. Of the two, Adobe RGB is the larger colorspace and provides the most available colors. As a photographer, it's the one I use most often. All of this is good to know, but not the point of my post.

Here's the point: halfway down the dialog box is the text "Profile Mismatches" with two available checkboxes, "Ask When Opening" and "Ask When Pasting". You should check both of these. Here's what will happen:

When I open an image that was created in sRGB, Photoshop tells me that the image I'm opening doesn't match the profile I have set (Adobe RGB) and asks if I want to: 1) Use the image's profile, 2) Convert the image to my profile, or 3) Use neither profile.

If you don't have these boxes checked, Photoshop will automatically convert the image to your chosen profile. However, using the image's profile is generally the best way to ensure the colors don't change. This will solve 90% of your color problems.

Now, I believe CMYK is linked with your printer so it will automatically display the image as it will appear once printed.

It's not that easy, Isick. If you look under the Color Settings dialog box, you'll see a setting for CYMK as well. "US Web Coated (SWOP) v2" is a generic profile for U.S. based inks on coated paper- again a default setting.

To match it to a specific printer, you need to either download or create (a HUGE pain in the....) an icc printer profile for the specific printer, ink, and paper used. To create an icc profile, you would have to use a specific printer to print a range of colors on a specific paper type, then use a colorimeter (a device used to measure the amount of color) to read the colors directly off the paper. Fortunately, most commercial printers already have icc profiles available. This is the biggest reason that I don't do my own prints (well, that and the fact that it's cheaper not to, in the long run).

Once you have an icc profile, you then load it into the "profiles" folder of Photoshop. Then, once you open an image, go to Edit> Convert to Profile and choose your printer profile from the list. Here's my setup:



The profile is for the printer and inks used at the Hillsboro, Oregon Costco on glossy paper, last updated Feb 13th. Guess you know where I make my prints now.

But that STILL doesn't ensure that what I see is what I get. Have you ever been in a large store, and looked at a row of TV's for sale? Notice how the color looks different from TV to TV? Computer monitors are like that too, and if my monitor isn't displaying the right colors, things will still be off. Remember the colorimeter I mentioned? They have them for monitors too. Spyder2Pro and EyeOne Display are two of the better known ones. I personally use the Spyder2Pro. Once every two weeks, I color-calibrate my monitor to ensure it displays the colors properly. Now my monitor displays the same colors that are in my prints, and I know that what I see is what I get.

Color management is one of the trickiest aspects of Photoshop, but if you want prints that "pop", it's absolutely essential.

Hope this helps.

-Medley.

[ak13]

Thank you all for the assistance, I think excruciating was actually on the right path (despite your posts looking like forum-spam). When I went to create a new document the advanced settings were sRGB... and when I changed them to my monitor it pasted correctly. Weird and a pain in the butt.
Also going to save for web didn't distort the color (I was a bit worried about that happening).

Thanks yall!