Color Problems with CS4 Upgrade

Hi All,

I just upgraded to PS CS4 and have noticed the same problem.

I have a 24" iMac with a 23" Apple Cinema Display. The ACD is calibrated with ColorEyes Pro.

When I open an image in PS CS4 and move it to the ACD, the color profile for that monitor doesn't seem to get applied.

As a test, I opened the same image in PS CS3 and PS CS4 and moved them both to the calibrated ACD. The CS4 image looked reddish, the CS3 looked correct.

Rob

Wow. I have been struggling with this same problem for 2+ weeks and thought I was going to pull all my hair out.

PS CS4 is essentially unusable to me at this point. I really can't tell what's real anymore within PS.

I have tried everything mentioned in this thread - plus some - to no avail.

I "upgraded" from PS CS2 and did not experience this problem in CS2.

All my work looks perfect in just about any application I open it in (including Adobe Bridge!), but PS mucks it all up. I found adjusting the "Exposure" up ~0.5 or so in PS brings the image almost back to normal, but this PS behaviour is unacceptable.

I'll be watching for a fix for PS CS4, as I am quite certain the problem lies within.Meanwhile, it's back to CS2 for me.

I may have a different problem then the rest of you. Adobe accepted my report and opened a case so we'll see what that brings.

I have been able to isolate this down to a program error in CS4. The reason why I believe this to be true is because of observed behavior that I was able to reproduce in Bridge.

Let's say I have a folder with four images in it. If I open Bridge (filmstrip mode) in my primary monitor - the images all look good. However, if select one image from the content panel, observe the image in the preview and move the entire window to my secondary monitor - the preview of the selected image does not change - however, the filmstrip appears to modify itself to compensate for the secondary color monitor that I dragged the window into. If I now select another image in the same filmstrip the color appears to snap to the secondary monitors profile and all works as expected. As long as Bridge opens and closes on the same monitor all is well. As soon as I start to move the window to the other monitor I get the same initial bad color in the preview panel until I click another image in the filmstrip panel. It appears that the preview image does not compensate for the monitor change.

The preview panel image behavior is exactly the problem I see in Photoshop. However, I can not just tell Photoshop to always open images in my secondary monitor - it seems to always default to the primary. Since I'm unable to refresh the image, like I did in Bridge, the colors are consistently wrong.

CS3 did not work this way - if I closed an image in my secondary monitor the next image would open in the same space I closed the previous one and moving the window with the image from one monitor to the next always compensated for the color profile in the target monitor.

I believe that if I had a system with two identical monitors that the problem would be less noticeable. I believe I am able to see this better since I always use my secondary color calibrated monitor for editing since my primary is a laptop with an LCD which is unreliable for color reproduction even if I calibrate it all the time, which I do not.

So we will we what Adobe comes up with.

Update on my situation.

I changed three things, and my color problems appear to be fixed...

(1) Changed the default ACR profile back to ACR 4.4, it somehow got changed to something else...?

(2)unchecked "Desaturate monitor colors by..." in the advanced color settings box. I have no idea how it got checked in the first place...

(3) re-calibrated my monitor to 6500K instead of 5500k.

I never changed these settings,so I have no idea how they got changed, but these changes resolved my issues

Thank you to all who have responded. Right now I'm taking the easy way out - editing in ACR CS4, saving the file, opening and printing from CS3.

> Should hear from them soon.

:D

I've sent in a case to Adobe. Should hear from them soon.

Correcting an obvious typo in post #29:

The Preview panel is on the right, occupying the entire area of the primary monitor.

should read: The Preview panel is on the left , occupying the entire area of the primary monitor.

I am having this same problem after upgrading from CS3.

Images in Bridge look fine, but they drastically change when you open them in CS4.

CS4 images are darker, have more contrast, and have a definite red cast to them.

From the camera I import into LR 2.2 and convert to DNG, make my adjustments, then open in CS4 and save as PSD. CS4 converts the final images to jpeg level 10 for submission to the lab (WHCC).

The last two sets of images from the lab went right into the trash. All were too dark, contrasty, and have bad red cast, even though I ended up making the image look okay on the monitor.

I'm using softproofing with WHCC's ICC profile.

I'm using Vista, single monitor, and Canon 5D.

I have never experienced this type of color mis-match problem before.

I'm going to re-process the images in CS3 and resubmit to WHCC and see if that corrects the problem.

The prints are even darker, more contrasty, and redder than what is on the screen.

There is something going on in CS4.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

I count on these images to come back the way they look on the monitor.

I calibrate the monitor weekly, and use Adobe RGB 1998 as my color space.

All settings are the same between CS3 and CS4. They just look and print differently in CS4.

Phil

Having dfferent bad profiles on each monitor you're bound to have different bad rendering of your colors on both monitors. That's why I say your suggested experiment is of dubious value.