Dual monitor colour issue

[bend68200695]

Hey all

I've got an issue that's driving me nuts and I don't know where the fault lies so was hoping I could get a few pointers.

I have a dual monitor set up, my primary screen is a Wacom Cintiq 27QHD, secondary is an Asus ROG Swift 27. Both have been calibrated using an XRite i1 colour profiler and both have their individual colour profiles active and assigned correctly. I'm running Windows 10 64bit (Version 1607, build 14393.1198) and Adobe Photoshop CC 2017.

In Photoshop I have:

Colour Settings (Edit > Colour Settings) set to North American General Purpose 2.

Proof Setup (View > Proof Setup) set to Monitor RGB

The colours are completely perfect inside of Photoshop on both monitors (new workspace on second screen) - absolutely identical.

But once I save out as anything (png, tiff, jpeg) the colours no longer match on both screens. I can open the image on both screens and the image on my primary display (my cintiq) will be over-saturated while on my second monitor it will be perfect. I've tried a few things, though admittedly i'm overwhelmed by the number of colour options and settings all over the place so I've totally lost track of anything productive.

If i hit CTRL + Y or enable the View > Proof Colours option then Photoshop will display the image as it does externally (oversaturated). The problem really is if I activate the proof mode and adjust the hue/saturation accordingly then it'll be desaturated on the secondary monitor.

If anyone could shed some light on this I'd truly appreciate it - all I want is for my images to match on both screens (doesn't have to be identical but at least not like night and day difference).

Thanks

[davescm]

As far as I can tell from a quick search, one of your displays (the Cintiq) is a wide gamut display and the other (the ASUS) is not. With proper colour management you are able to view similar image colours on both displays as the application and system ensure the correct converted values are sent to each individual monitor to display a given color correctly i.e. each monitor is actually being sent a different numeric value for the same image colour.

In a non-colour managed environment (most browsers outside of Photoshop) then the applications will send the same values for a givenn image colour to both displays which will display them very differently.

You need to work in colour managed applications 100% of the time.

Dave

[bend68200695]

Hi Dave, thanks for the information. Do you know how I would go about making my second monitor display images the same as the Cintiq? I tried opening an image in a photo viewer on another computer that isn't colour managed and it was oversaturated just like my Cintiq. This suggests to me that my Asus is displaying colours incorrectly despite being calibrated with the i1 colour calibrator and software.

Any idea how I go about balancing these displays if a calibrator says they're both correct?

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Hi

If they have both been calibrated properly then they are both correct - but they are different in that one is capable of displaying a wider range of colours than the other. That is why we work in colour-managed applications where all the work to get the images to display correctly is done by the colour management system. Don't try and "balance" them - work in the colour managed environment.

The usual advice for sending an image into the big wide world is - Export it, and in the export Convert it to sRGB and Embed the ICC profile with the image.

That way it will be viewed on one of teh following:

a. A colour managed system - in which case it will display correctly

b. A none colour managed system with a monitor that is close to sRGB (like your ASUS and most monitors) where it will look sort of close to correct

c. A wide gamut monitor in a non colour managed system, where it will look over saturated.

If you try and adjust it to look correct on c. it will look under-saturated on a. and b.

Dave