Images shift to red

Upon upgrading from Photoshop 5.5 to version 6, this reader experiences a decided shift in color toward Red. Let's see what could be happening...

Paul in Hawaii running an OS 9.2.2 Macintosh and PS 6.01 writes:
I recently upgraded from v 5.5. I notice images opened in 6 are much redder than the same images opened in 5.5. This is true for a variety of file types including tif, psd, and jpg. Is there a setting or preference selection that can correct this situation? Thank you.

Your installation of either version / or both may be set to incorrect 'gamma' settings. We have had many, many letters from readers with the very same symptoms.

Photoshop v6 introduced a newly balanced color engine, and does in fact render colors slightly different than its predecessors. However, we believe the newer engine renders more pleasing colors than before, so there is a likely possibility that your v5 images were, in reality, more red all along, but not being displayed faithfully.

Choose: Apple Menu > Control Panels > Adobe Gamma

Utilize the GAMMA cdev (Control Panel) which should have been installed by Photoshop during installation. Walk through the steps to adjust your gamma. (Let your monitor warm up for at least an hour before making the adjustment.)

This will NOT tune both programs to view the images with the same color value. However, it will help you calibrate your monitor for best results in v6.

Your post has prompted our team to investigate and provide a full report on "Adjusting Color Gamma". However, this will appear in the web site later.

Please keep us informed of progress.
http://www.photoshop911.com/emergency.html
See past cases:
http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/Tips/index.html

Comments

[DaveG]

Changing the Proof Setup is not a proper solution since it will not change the appearance of colours in the the colour picker or swatches. What worked for me was making sure the hardware white point was set correctly. For me it was 9300K and make sure the "adjusted" drop down says "same as hardware".

[Jessica]

This problem, having my images open more red in Photoshop, than what I took them at, has been royally pissing me off. If I want them more red, I'll do it on my own!

So after Googling this issue and landing on this article, I finally figured I'd just try to fix the problem myself.
I have CS3 Extended for Mac. To fix this, I found out that by going to Edit, Color Settings and selecting Monitor Color, this will alleviate the problem.

[vivek]

"Ive had red tinting occur with all three versions of PS after a period of time. When I open the image up in PS7 the red tint is there. I've finally found the cure. Load the image, then go to "view", "proof setup" then choose "monitor RGB" It really works!"

Hi Andrea,

I cannot thank you enough for the above info........................
I had searched for it high and low and finally you solve it.........
God bless you man......

Thanks sooooo much
vivek.................

[Andreas]

I'm having the same problem, everything redish in photoshop. This problem accurd after switching from a nvidia 6600gt card to a ati 800xl card. The annoying thing is that switching the colorprofile to "Monitor Color" only helps if you are opening documents. If you for example create a new document and use print screen command to paste the image into photoshop the problem still remains.

A while back before encountering this problem i played around with my color profile settings in order to get my two monitors to match. I suspect this may have something to do with my problem. However as I didn't save my default settings I can't go back to factory settings. Anyway hope somebody cracks this problem soon, otherwise the only solution seems to be reinstalling windows.

[Brad]

Ive had red tinting occur with all three versions of PS after a period of time. When I open the image up in PS7 the red tint is there. I've finally found the cure. Load the image, then go to "view", "proof setup" then choose "monitor RGB" It really works!

[saturino]

Following the advice above, I figured something out.

My specs: DVI NEC monitor, CS2, ti4200 agp, windows xp sp2.-I know for a fact my monitor is calibrated correctly. Outside photoshop they turn out the way they should.

I went to Edit/Color Settings. Then under Settings, change it to "Monitor Color" and most importantly make sure that the "Profile Mismatches: Ask when opening" box is checked. Click on, and then drag a picture into your photoshop and it should present you with a warning message. Click on "Discard the embedded profile (don't color manage)" and hit ok, and viola!

[Tristan]

I'm having the same problem. running windows XP: images in CS2 are shown up with a red cast, even when converted to greyscale. while the same greyscale image looks right in any other viewer.

[alfonso sanchez]

the shift to red is due to the fact that Photoshop is expanding...

[Damion K.]

I have a problem simularly related. Although my images seem to be colored properly, the saturation level of my saved images is lower when viewed with Windows picture viewer or any other viewer for that matter. This happens when saving to any format. I am using XPpro and CS. I am not at home at the moment so I will try adjusting the gamma settings later and will repost with my results. Hmm... I also have SuSe 9.1pro and have yet to try opening the images on it, but I will when I get home. Thank you.

[bradadad]

Try either recalibrating with the same software or some new calibration software. It's possible that the monitor profile is corrupt. That happened to me once. OptiCal produced a bad profile.

[Pear]

I have this same problem with PS CS and with my Word '97, both on a PC. The images are decidedly pink/red. In Word, they come out of this mode from time to time if you just move it a bit, but reverts back at some point.

I have tried different video cards and drivers, but both were base on nVidia TNT2 chips, nothing changed. This is an ECS MB Athlon XP. My other Athlon system is just fine however.

Got me stumped.

[Johannes]

ok...repost...I think I fixed my problem. hope this helps others. it was actually really simple. go to "color settings" under the edit menu. set the rbg setting to "colormatch" and it will all go away. good luck...

(I'm not sure this'll help those who have discrepencies between versions of photoshop, but it fixed my discrepency between image ready and photoshop so....)

[johannes]

same problem here. Also running on an xp system. strangely enough, any image comes up glaringly red in photoshop, but looks the same in windows picture/fax viewer, a see d see, and even imageready! whats going on here?

[juanita]

i'm experiencing the same problems with photoshop, i can't get a gray color, its all red hues. i've messed with the color settings and changed the gamma, or so i thought, but there is no change. what really makes this frustrating is that it was working fine this morning, and now all of the colors are completely different. when i open a graphic in photoshop, its completely red, and when i try to save as.. the preview reverts back to the original, the way the colors are supposed to look.

i couldn't really understand the instructions given in correcting this problem because i'm using windows xp, not apple..