Color setting synchronisation issue

Is this a laptop + external monitor setup? In other words there are two displays here?

When your calibrator arrives try that first. A fresh new profile is always the first step in any display troubleshooting. However - there may be a second thing to try if you still see a difference.

It could be you've been bitten by a rather obscure and unpredictable bug that causes ACR to use the wrong monitor profile. So if you have the ACR window up on the BenQ, it may still use the laptop display's profile - while Photoshop itself does it correctly.

The way it's been described to me, ACR uses the primary display's profile (in your case laptop) even when the application window is on the secondary display (in your case the BenQ). I don't know it the opposite can happen too. Anyway, this obviously isn't how it should work.

A way to test this is to switch primary and secondary display assignment in the OS if possible. You can also - purely for testing purposes! - set the BenQ profile as default for both screens. If everything then displays correctly on the BenQ (nevermind the laptop) - then this is likely the problem.

Hi Catherine,

D Fosse has made some helpful suggestions.

Rather than using your own photo or n image you've created, I would take a known "test" image and use that to make some checks,

[a "test" image is useful because it's generally a composite of various images including skin-tone and other "memory colours" - which means that even without a reference proof print you can tell pretty much is the appearance is in the ballpark.]

- you can download my test image in CMYK or RGB as preferred here for free:

[ downloads | colourmanagement.net   ].

Next, open that image in all the apps you are having issues with and compare the appearance.

Photoshop would be the reference application if I were making this test.

Note: If an app warns you about the document (image) causing an embedded profile mismatch, then just accept the document's embedded profile.

Maybe do that test now, then calibrate the Benq and repeat the test.

Testing and good notes are the secret behind a lot of such issues.

Using V2 profiles [in this case your display profile] is a good policy generally, as D Fosse wrote, V4 ICC profiles can cause issues with some applications.

Please let us know how you get on.

I hope this helps

if so, please do mark my reply as "helpful", so others who have similar issues can see the solution

thanks

neil barstow, colourmanagement

If there is a difference between color managed applications (e.g. Photoshop and ACR), you have a defective monitor profile. This often affects applications differently. You need to rerun your calibrator, and make sure it's set to produce v2, matrix-based profiles - not v4 and/or table-based. The latter policies are known to be problematic in some scenarios.

The color settings determine document profile policies. That's not the issue here. This is the monitor profile. So don't worry about the synchronisation message - there's no particular need to have them synchronized anyway (mine deliberately aren't).

Note that applications without color management will never display correctly on a wide gamut monitor. That's the deal you implicitly accept when buying one. There's nothing you can do to ever make them display correctly (except "dumb it down" to sRGB, but then it's no longer wide gamut). You need to use color managed software only.

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Color management]