Skip to main content
L
Lance22237697q35g
Participant
August 2, 2024
Question

Photoshop not properly displaying blacks after monitor calibration

  • August 2, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 216 views

After calibrating my monitor using calibirite hardware and software everything looks great, but for some reason photoshop seems to have issues displaying blacks. This is really apparent in dark photos as the blacks look lifted, gray, and don't have any detail. These images look fine when displayed anywhere else (including Lr and ACR). I'm editing in Adobe RGB and have RGB, CMYK, and Gray set to preserve embedded profiles in my color settings if that is at all helpful. I have tried recalibrating the monitor, uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop, and restarting my computer to no avail. Unless I'm mistaken, I think this has to be an issue within Photoshop as things look great everywhere else, including when I open the image in Adobe Camera raw within Photoshop. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 2, 2024

This is popping up quite frequently on Mac. In most cases it turns out to be a LUT (table)-based monitor profile, which doesn't work well in MacOS.

 

In any case there is little reason to use LUT profiles. Matrix profiles are always safer and always one - or the only - option in all calibration software.

 

Another thing you can try is switch from the Adobe color engine to the Apple color engine. If that works (as some have reported) it would qualify as a bug in MacOS, but at least it gets you back in business.

    L
    Lance22237697q35gAuthor
    Participant
    August 2, 2024

    The calibration was done using a matrix-based profile, so that isn't the issue. I did try switching from Adobe to Apple Color in Photoshop's color settings, and that appears to have resolved the issue for new files. I just wish there was some other workaround, as working in Apple RGB is less than ideal. Thank you. 

    L
    Lance22237697q35gAuthor
    Participant
    August 2, 2024

    One thing I've just discovered that is alarming is that when I export an Adobe RGB image like I would for printing, the strange blacks are visible in the image regardless of the application viewed in. This doesn't happen if I export in something else like Srgb though, so I'm wondering if there is any way to troubleshoot this? I am alright with dealing with the ugly blacks in Photoshop, but if they are visible in print or on other mediums that is somewhat catastrophic and my workflow needs to be done in Adobe RGB.

    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices