I am going insane in my attempt to keep consistent color management through all areas. Everything was fine, color was great, prints were matched to calbration, monitor calibrated, and then....I rebooted the computer since I hadn't done so for a week, and when I restarted Bridge, and Lightroom (yields same results), the color immediately drains from the photos. Similar to the screenshot, however when I initially created this screenshot, Bridge was still accepting the color. Now, the desaturation exists in all Adobe programs. (PS CS5, camera raw, bridge , lightroom 3. I feel like I'm going in circles here. I have no clue what could have changed with the reboot. One thing I have noticed is that in Window before a photo image is generated in a folder is shows as a paint pallette. And, when asked in Windows Color Management of the program I would like to use to install a profile, I am give Microsoft Color Management System (which to my understanding is designed for Vista or XP). Tried to delete the program but was denied. Not sure if that has anything to do with it either.
If you have any insight and can help me stop the madness I would be so greatly appreciative!!
Thanks! 
Windows7
U2410 Dell Ultra Sharp Monitor
Photoshop CS5 64-bit
Adobe Lightroom 3
Camera RAW
Adobe Bridge
NIVIDIA FX 580
117
Replies
MJOrts wrote:
1. The Bridge thread mentioned your monitor can be set to different "modes" by pushing a button on the monitor. Could you tell me what mode you have selected when you profile the monitor, and if there are any settings you're allowed to choose inside of the Spyder 3 Elite profiling wizard, could you mention the choices you made (anything regarding gamma, color temperature, luminance level, etc...)?
This monitor allows user to set "preset modes" Standard, Mulitmedia, Game, Warm, Cool, Adobe RGB, sRGB, & Custom Color (which allow adjustments to gain, offset, hue, & saturation. I have my monitor is set to Standard (which does not offer any adjustments for user except, brightness and contrast)
The Spyder3 basically chose everything. I only adjusted contrast and brightness.
2. Would you mind attaching screenshots of your settings in the Color Management dialog inside of the Windows Control Panel? A screenshot of the Devices tab and the Advanced tab would be helpful. If you've already posted these screenshots in a different thread, would you mind just providing the link to the thread?
3. After seeing these colors the way they are on your computer screen, have you tried viewing how these images look in their final output formats? Have tried viewing how the prints of these images look, and how they look after you upload them to your website and view them in a browser? Even though you don't like the colors the way you see them in Photoshop right now, seeing whether this color appearance is consistently reproduced in your final outputs could be a key factor in determining the solution to your issue. Please give this a try if you haven't already.
I did have them printed just to be sure it wasn't just a mixup with how the photos were being viewed online and in non-color managed software. And of course, the prints match the unmanaged renditon, not even close to what I am viewing in color managed. 
Does it matter that even after the prints are saved as PSD that they are still rendering "untagged" in Bridge?
Thanks!
again...thank you so much!
I downloaded Firefox, and the images appear the same as in IE.
-The color shift is just seconds after the correct thumbnail is rendered. It virtually looks like the color is drained out of each photos one by one, like a row of dominos.
-The exact same thing occurred on the second system with different monitor and on CS3 Photoshop and CS5 Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom.
-To my knowledge, nothing was changed anywhere on the system prior to this occurring. I know that I did not personally change anything. Now, because I am still new to Windows 7, Im not sure if there are updates that occur without my knowing, but I am not aware of anything.
Was there a particular image you were using when this occurred?
A couple of last-ditch ideas:
1. Could you post a screenshot of your color settings in Photoshop? Are you using Photoshop as a stand alone product or as a suite? If you're using it as part of a suite and have suite color management enabled, would you mind sending a screenshot of the color settings from Bridge (provided the suite color settings are synchronized)? --Stand alone product
2. Could you copy and paste your system info from Ps menu Help > System Info...? I'm afraid I'm not able to copy and paste the information here. Is there a "copy and paste" option available in the forum that I'm not aware of?Is there particular info that you are wanting to see, as there are 5 pages of info for the system.
3. Could you double check to make sure your graphics card driver is up to date? Can you reproduce the issue if you disable Open GL Drawing in Photoshop? (Edit > Preferences > Performance..., check off OpenGL Drawing and re-open the images in question...)
I had tried this step last week as well. Again, no change.
Below is another screenshot captured in the spilt second that the saturation reduces itself from the correct thumbnails.
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The images viewed on Firefox and IE are greatly oversaturated from what is viewed online.
I also unchecked "Use my settings" in color management, and there was no change. I also tried switching users on OS, but no change as far as the effects.
I'm a little confused as to your suggestion for editing in Photoshop and keeping the settings the same. The printed image was from Walmart, since I needed to see if the issue was something other than what I was viewing on screen. The print matches the photos in the non managed spaces. Here is the print in every program and a scan as well of the actual hardcopy print.
Hi Connie,
Let me resume:
Non colormanaged applications (like windows explorer) shows your images right, managed apps like LR and Bridge, which have different cache folders, shows them desaturated, even the previewed NEF.
Putting this together, it can't a problem with the cache, harddisk, CF card. I mean, a cache is a cache, and might needed to be updated from time to time, f.e. when changing the monitor- or image profile. But I expect you always have done this.
That's it - most of the rest (the tests done) provides unreliable information, sorry. I'm aware that to most of them you were forced by others, so don't take my following statements to personal.
Nevertheless I believe what we see partitial is right: some of your images are untagged (at least the PSD we see in one of the screenshots in here)
Untagged images should look the same in IE and Firefox unless you set Gfx.color management.mode to 1 and assign the monitor profile to FF. Per default CM in FF is enabled for tagged images only and by this acts like IE <V9 on untagged images 
Untagged sRGB should look oversaturated on wide-gamut monitors and browsers on which you can't apply a profile. Believe that is what you get.
You asked me
I'm confused which photos you viewed of mine that you found to be untagged?
all the images you presented in threads in here are untagged 😉
Some might think different about that, but IMHO images always should have an embedded profile, even sRGB JPEGs used for web. You already get some hints on that in the other thread and the links to Ballard - even when his webdesign is a bit odd, its worth reading.
I believe your issue is a combination of untagged images, a faulty monitor profile and maybe false handling.
As implied above, personaly I can't trust any of the tests here, because they are (including the browser test I mentioned) not consistant done - I will tell you why.
What you see next are three of the images you provided here, but stacked:
#1 (RGB/8*)*
here the second * indicates, that the image was altered (either bei assigning a colorspace or bei normal editing) after it was loaded and in a colorspace which is different from Photoshops working colorspace, which is indicated by the first *
#2 (RGB/8*)
indicates images colorspace is different from Photoshops working colorspace - that's fine when the working space is aRGB and the image f.e. sRGB
#3 (RGB/8)
no *, no # in here indicates it is in Photoshops working colorspace.
(RGB/8#) at the top would mean it is untagged, but when when colormanagement was OFF in that moment, it also would read as (RGB/8) or (RGB/16) (without an # or *) at the top, but "untagged" in the info panel at the bottom, even when the image has an embedded profile...
On the otherhand - and this is the important part - the Photoshop (import) settings you provided here, tells that your PS is at "preserve embedded profiles" BUT "ask when opening" at profile mismatches. By this you will be asked whenever an image profile mismatches the working colorspace.
The latter should be unchecked, anyway.
So what have you been doing, when you were asked for image #1 and #2? With this settings and since their colorprofiles are different from PS working space, you must have been asked and have assigned a profile different from working space or you haven't been asked (because images colorspace and the working space was the same) and you assigned a different profile initially later.
Or you have changed settings again and again when taking those screenshots....
When you say you see images as untagged in Bridge but in Photoshops info panel as "Adobe RGB (1998)" this can be, when a profile was added (assigned) after the image was imported to PS. Bridge will not know about that until you save the image.
Will say: those of us trying to help, never know exactly what they are here looking at (maybe without realizing)
Do we see a sRGB under an aRGB working space (RGB/8*) for #2? And #3, is this an aRGB image under an aRGB working space or a sRGB image under sRGB, (both would appear as RGB/8)? Or was the image untagged and colormanagement was off?
Seems a bit chaotic, sorry.
At least this is nothing on which I'ld be able to tell for sure what is going on.
Next: the monitor profile you sent to me, turns my U2410 dark and too much purple/reddish.
Of course there should be a differences (different monitor, different environment light and my old eyes), but this is far to much - it hurt my eyes 
As far I know, LR internal uses the Melissa color space (which is larger than aRGB) - I wonder what happens when RAW were processed via Meliassa to aRGB with a too reddish monitor profile and are saved as untagged aRGB....?
I also wonder how LR can be configured to export to PSD without they being tagged...? Nevertheless, I was able to reproduce this once. For one of my PSDs the profile was removed, but at the moment I don't know how to reproduce that again.
As said just make sure you images are tagged. But don't just apply a profile to those images already processed, when you don't know what really happend to them - it might get worse.
Anyway.
To solve your prob, you should forget about LR for now and remove the monitor profile made with the Spyder, set the DELL profile which comes with the CD and process images from scratch.
Means straight from NEF in one colorspace only -> via Photoshops ACR (output as aRGB and make sure aRGB is your working space in PS), save them as PSD or TIFF and make sure they get tagged as aRGB. See if it makes a difference (color shift or not), when viewed in Bridge.
If there is no shift, start over with calibrating your monitor. Calibrating means setting the hardware right, by making sure the monitor was set to aRGB and brightness and contrast was adjusted, before you profilling it with the Spyder.
If the problem still exists with this new profile and with images, which were processed by the above workflow and by the new conditions (make sure of that, the already processed images might be messed up) again let some one with an U2410 check the new profile.
If its still have a huge red shift on another U2410, it might point to a hardware fault (either Monitor or Spyder)
@MJOrts
I notice that "Use Windows display calibration" is checked on in your
screenshot.
AFAIK this setting means, that Windows is loading the LUT and not a third-party LUT-Loader, coming with the profiling device.
Message was edited by: ablichter #1 (RGB/8*)* was edited - wasn't able to mark the wrong part by formating it <s>"striked"</s>, so I removed and corrected it
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