My project is all of a sudden under-saturated

Question

So I have this project that I re-use to export cards for a trading card game. It consists of a smart object inside which I paste the image of the trading card, and in the main project that smart object is nicely trimmed and with a glow effect.

I've been using the same .psd file to export images for like a year now, I changed nothing about the settings of it, but now all of a sudden both the preview and the exported images have a gray tone and are under-saturated. I'll attach a before and after so you can see.

I'm sure it's something to do with color profiles because if I enable "Proof Colors" and set the Proof Setup to "Monitor RGB" the preview looks just fine. But of course, that's not an actual fix because the exported image still has the wrong colors.

Problem is, I have zero idea how to fix it. I've been trying to switch around the color profiles, assign different profiles, convert from one another but nothing seems to help. I just want it to go back to the way it once was...

D Fosse · Accepted Answer

Is the color profile embedded? The profile is what defines the color, not Photoshop.

You can't "play around" with profiles. Any image will always be created in a certain color space. That's the profile to use, and that profile needs to be embedded in the image. Then your colors are unambiguously defined. Obviously, you need to view the exported file in an application that actually supports color management. Without a profile, color is undefined and all bets are off.

If it looks the way you expect when proofing to Monitor RGB, you have previously viewed it without any color management.

Color management isn't difficult. Photoshop will always display correctly, if there is an embedded profile, and you have a valid monitor profile set up in the system. That's all it takes. A valid monitor profile is one that describes the monitor's actual and current behavior. A calibrator will give you that.

In situations like this, people always automatically assume the most saturated version is the "correct" one. But very often it's the other way round! If, for instance, you send sRGB to a wide gamut monitor, without color management, it will appear very oversaturated.

Stephen Marsh · Answer

Post a screenshot.of your Photoshop colour settings.

Post a screenshot of the full screen window of the main document with the title bar visible and the status bar on the lower left visible and set to document colour profile.

Do the same with the edited smart object window.

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