Help! Weird colours..

[Marvin]

Since I have gotten a new (lcd) monitor (and computer) I have noticed some weird things with my pictures when I look at them in Photoshop and Nikon Capture. They are very dark with bright, unrealistic colours. If I download a picture from the internet which looks OK on the browser and put it into NC or PS it becomes dark too. When I open the pics I take in Nikon View, they start off looking good and then after a minute or so they go to the dark, oversaturated pictures. They stay that way until I close the picture and open it again. I have absolutely no idea how to fix this! I don't think it's the monitor but it happens in jpeg and NEF. ACDSee displays the jpegs fine and it happens for both my photos and other's. I have tried changing the custom settings on the camera. It doesn't seem to happen on my laptop...

Thanks!

[W00DY]

Since I have gotten a new (lcd) monitor (and computer) I have noticed some weird things with my pictures when I look at them in Photoshop and Nikon Capture. They are very dark with bright, unrealistic colours. If I download a picture from the internet which looks OK on the browser and put it into NC or PS it becomes dark too. When I open the pics I take in Nikon View, they start off looking good and then after a minute or so they go to the dark, oversaturated pictures. They stay that way until I close the picture and open it again. I have absolutely no idea how to fix this! I don't think it's the monitor but it happens in jpeg and NEF. ACDSee displays the jpegs fine and it happens for both my photos and other's. I have tried changing the custom settings on the camera. It doesn't seem to happen on my laptop...

Thanks!

Maybe something to do with ACDsee???

I know if I view my images in ACDSee they are a lot darker than in PS or Nikon View (I know this is a reverse from you though).

Sorry I can't be of more help, I'm sure someone will though.

W00DY

[leek]

I look forward to hearing the solution to this one...

I don't have a clue what could be causing that...

Do other colours on the screen change over time as well??? e.g. on your desktop / in the window header?

[sirhc55]

Marvin - a wild guess but check your colour management

[Marvin]

Thanks guys for the replies.

ACDSee doesn't display NEFs very well but it displays the jpegs of my nefs fine. The other colours on my desktop don't change and look OK.

Yes, I worked out it would probably be my colour management and I have played with the settings a bit, but I don't really know what to look for or what to change. Nothing I have tried or changed has worked. But I thought it was weird that they started out OK on Nikon View and then changed after they had been open for a while to the weird colours.

[Oneputt]

Marvin my daughter has ACDSee and compared with NC & PS I think that the colours are terrible.

[digitor]

Hi Marvin,

What sort of video card do you have? When you right-click on the desktop and get the Display Properties dialogue, and click on the settings tab, do you have an "Advanced" button on the bottom right? If so, what do you see when you click this? With a bit of luck, you'll get another dozen or so tabs, one of which will be colour management, where you select the monitor profile you've (possibly) generated using Adobe Gamma or something (I'm guessing you don't have a Spyder)

Enough questions for now!!

Cheers

[Marvin]

Hi Digitor,
Yes, I have these tabs. I have made up a couple of profiles using the software I got with my monitor (Samsung) and chosen them in the advanced settings and photoshop, which I now have looking OK, but they don't seem to make a difference to NC or Nikon View. In NV the pictures still start out looking OK and then look weird after about a minute or if I click on another program's tab and then back to NV. When I change the monitor profile in the display settings, the colours of the pictures in NC and NV change accordingly, but they still end up very saturated and different to what they look like in the thumbnails and when they first open up (and now in PS). I have played with every setting in NC and have no idea!
No, I don't have a spyder.
Thanks,
Marvin

[digitor]

I see you've got a handle on how to use monitor profiles, then! I wasn't too sure, from your question.

I don't like the sound of the change in colour after a minute or two - does this colour change happen with any other apps? Also, have you got access to another monitor you could try? I'm thinking possible hardware fault....

Cheers

[Marvin]

Hi Digitor,
No, this doesn't happen with any other apps. (and I've only just gotten a handle on monitor profiles from playing around in the last couple of days!). Now that Photoshop is OK (I changed the profile on that and it works, but using the same profile on NC or NV doesn't. I've actually just figured out that it isn't after a couple of minutes that it changes, it's whenever I switch to another app with the tab down the bottom (I do this quite often). But the colours are very strange when I open any pic in NC. I just tried another monitor as per your suggestion and it was the same.
I wonder if it could be that I upgraded NV from the USA website?? Perhaps I'll try downgrading it back to the version I have on my laptop and see what happens. I have tried every colour management thing possible I think!
Marvin

[digitor]

Hmm, interesting! I just checked my NC, it's got the default profile still selected, (NKsRGB.icm) although the box to use it is not ticked, it's set to use the colour space embedded in the file, the same as Photoshop. I don't use NV however, so I can't help you there.

It might be worth mentioning here that these are not monitor profiles - they are set as we spoke about above.

Good luck!