Participant

Answered

Photoshop bounces back and forth between saturated and muted colors

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
January 2, 2018
5 replies
13333 views

In the middle of working on both CMYK or RGB images, the photoshop interface will suddenly display a muted/unsaturated version of my document.

It only happens while I'm actually working on the document. If I save out the graphic (even while it's displayed as the muted version) the saved file will look fine. Sometimes I'll just keep working on the document and photoshop will unexpectedly revert back to the fully saturated version - but not always. When it doesn't revert back, simply closing out the document and reopening it magically fixes the problem every time.

This only happens within photoshop. I haven't had any other color issues like this in any other program.

Any thoughts?

photoshop-color

Correct answer D Fosse

Ahhh...the F key. That's a Mac OS bug that has been reported before, although I thought that was fixed a long time ago.

Sudden Color-Change when switching to Fullscreen Mode (F) ?!?

Why does color shift using the full screen mode?

Photoshop: Colour shifts when switching to fullscreen mode (CS5, Mac 10.7) | Photoshop Family Customer Community

jefff32917505

Participant

I know this is an old thread but I recently switched to a desktop PC from an Imac and I have this issue big time. I have a Windows 11 PC connected to single profiled Benq SW321C monitor and I'm running Photoshop version 23.5.1. I get the colour shift only when I go into full screen no menus mode, mostly to muted colours but sometimes it displays correctly and sometimes it displays over saturated colours. No issues in using the Lights out feature in Lightroom which always displays correctly. Turning off the GPU option in preferences removes the issue but of course disables some PS features. I'm at my wits end with this issue and any help or pointers would be most appreciated.

D Fosse

Community Expert

If disbling GPU corrects it, then it's most likely a buggy GPU driver.

It should also be said that the BenQ software doesn't have a good track record. It has been known do do things like this, where the monitor profile isn't correctly loaded. Since display color management is actually performed in the GPU, these two may be connected. One may trigger problems in the other.

Do you have any other calibration software you can try? Or maybe test with Adobe RGB (assuming it's a wide gamut model).

MDIJK

Participant

Hi,

I have the exact problem. CreativeCloud Adobe Photoshop 22.1.1 on a MacBook Pro, 15-inch, 2018 with a external DELL screen. The color changing is absolutely horrible and it's affecting my work!

..oh and why does is say SOLVED? it ain't solved at all.

GET YA SHHH TOGETHER ADOBE!

D Fosse

Community Expert

The problem is that the wrong monitor profile is loaded, and it is most likely an Apple bug. It has been reported quite a few times recently, always MacBook Pro/iMac plus an external connected display. In other words, an integrated display plus an external display. That's the common factor.

Some years ago there were a few cases with Windows laptops, also with an external display connected. But never desktop systems with multiple displays connected. Recently it has only been Macs.

All of which strongly suggests a problem with how displays are assigned in the video card/operating system.

Photoshop has no influence over which monitor profile is used. It just loads whatever it gets from the operating system.

A workaround is to switch primary/secondary display assignment in the OS. That seems to get around it for most people.

C

Corbin Wesler

Participant

Which makes me wonder why Affinity Photo doesn't have this issue. I've made the decision to switch over to Affinity from Photoshop since it's been more stable and reliable. Adobe doesn't really seem to care about the quality or custom service of their products, and the [removed] call center people get REALLY defensive if you say something is a Photoshop issue.

I will back the claim that switching the external monitor to be the primary monitor will solve this as a work around.

D

dri22451

Participant

i am having the exact same issue, and for me it is not the F key , it happens randomly when i am brushing, cloning, sometimes zooming, it is extremely frustrating. I am a photo retoucher for hi end beauty cosmetics and skin color is extremely important. seems like i am getting kicked out of my monitor calibaration, i use a Ben q SW270 C on a mac pro. when it kicks me out, my screen gets saturated and red. like a flash, i have to launch the photoshop color settings dialog box, and just launching the window and not doing anything else, it resets my monitor profile. I have been working on this system for a very long time, . This started , id say, last week? SUPER annoying, Needs to be addressed, nothing changed for me, same graphic card, same hardware, same OS catalina . i just recently updated photoshop to the latest and greatest, i was one upgrade behind, with hopes that it would go away, but no. problem still there..

M

mbergsma

Participating Frequently

I recently upgraded my old mid-2010 Mac Pro 5.1 to Mojave. This is when I first started seeing this problem. It was very frustrating until I found this thread. I must have spent over 4 hours trying to figure out what the problem was. Currently, I am using photoshop 22.3. I would hit the F key to view in full-screen mode, and the color would have an obvious shift to over-saturation. I am using 2 monitors to work with. One is an old Apple 23" Cinema Display and the other is an NEC PA271Q. I really love the NEC monitor and I can rely on it for accuracy for printing on an Epson P9000 printer.

I found that I was actually using my old Cinema display for the main monitor. I used system preferences > monitor to change the arrangement to have the NEC become the main monitor. I simply dragged the menu bar indicator from the Cinema to the NEC in the Arrangement tab and tested the change. Magically my problem was solved. Thanks so much for your input in this thread.

"I smell victory"!!!!

amye34953020

Participant

Mine is doing the same thing. I just started my creative cloud subscription and noticed it right away when looking at a portrait. Although for me it doesn't shift to desaturate or mute... it shifts to suddenly oversaturate. Which of course is frustrating because it causes your eyes to sort of bug out. Definitely need consistent color when working on fine detail color balancing.

It seems to do this when I am shifting viewing modes. Not touching any other keys.. not changing any profiles. But simply hitting the F button on a mac to toggle between full screen mode and the work screen.

The only thing I can think of is that this is because it is cloud based software and is depending on internet? Maybe a lull in processing power? I have no idea. It's odd that only one other person is experiencing this here.