Impossible to keep color in Save for Web dialog in Photoshop

This isn't complicated - or it wouldn't be if Adobe had only enabled color management in SFW and Export. That's what complicates it.

First of all, don't do anything in Photoshop Color Settings. They are safe settings. If you do, return to default settings, which you can do by picking the North America General Purpose preset. That's what Photoshop ships with. The most important thing is that policies are set to "Preserve Embedded Profiles". The other two policy options are legacy settings that IMO should be removed permanently. They only do damage.

Now, as for Save For Web/Export. I posted the settings above. Embed Profile should be checked, and Preview should be set to "Use Document Profile". This last one is what will actually show you the color managed version on screen, same as Photoshop shows you. If you set that to "Monitor Color", what you see is not color managed, even if the profile gets embedded in the file.

The Export dialog has simplified this a bit, so that Preview is baked into "Embed Profile". In other words, when you check Embed, the display automatically also changes to a color managed view. But it can be slow! - I've seen it take several seconds before the view changes into the correct one.

With these settings, Photoshop and SFW/Export should display identically. If they don't, something's wrong, or you still have some incorrect settings somewhere.

Finally, a crucial point: some applications (photo viewers, file browsers) don't support color management at all. They will never display correctly, whether the monitor is calibrated or not. Color management goes beyond simple monitor correction. Color management doesn't work on the monitor, it works on the actual data sent to the monitor. It has a much higher precision level than the calibration, and it corrects using many more parameters. But to fully take advantage of it, you need a good monitor profile, and a calibrator will make that in addition to (crudely) adjusting the monitor.

Another tip:

Set the Status Bar to »Document Profile« and include the pertinent UI elements in screenshots when posting them here.

Hi Tim,

That does not sound like a typical experience, let's make it right.

As the color is changing in Save for Web dialog, could you please check this forum thread and let us know if it helps? Save for web - different colors

If that does not help, then please try the steps mentioned below and see how it goes:

1. Close anything that is open in Photoshop and click Edit > Color Settings. From there switch the color profile to Monitor Color and uncheck Ask When Opening.
2. Click View > Proof Setup > Monitor RGB
3. Now when clicking Save for Web, uncheck Convert to sRGB. This item may be a check box or underneath the little arrow on the top right depending on Photoshop version

Regards,
Sahil