Photoshop display / workspace WAAAAAY too dark. Windows 10 recent upgrade problem?

[Daryl5C0C]

HI,

I've got a work place copy of CS6 and recently (I think since a window 10 upgrade) the disaprity between the working space in PS and any other program is untenable.  When I click 'proof colours' it display a fairly accurate brightness level (will print like this, fine, too) but otherwise things are crazily dark.

-I've reset the profile settings

-Made sure I'm using SRGB in color settings

-Calibrated my 2 monitors manually yet again using the Nvidia control panel

Prints come out OK.

Both monitors show basically the same thing. (two different sized ViewSonic monitors, calibrated by eye)

The problem is the actually working view of the image. The app interface itself seems to display fine, but any photo is too dark within normal working mode.   I don't want to work in 'proof colour' all the time but don't know what else to do.

It used to be fine!  

Please help it's driving me bonkers. I'm not a novice but I can't find any oither settings to tweak.

I've attached a screen grab to show the difference between a normal windows photoviewer window and the same inage within PS. 

[davescm]

Photoshop is colour managed which means it uses the monitor profile to translate the colours in your document so that they display correctly on the screen. Some other image viewers ignore that profile. Your symptoms show all the sign of a broken monitor profile. 

So put your settings back to where they were previously and in Windows type Color management into the Windows search box. As a temporary fault finding measure, set the monitor profile to sRGB (or Adobe RGB if you have a wide gamut monitor). If that improves the image then you need to create a new profile that actually describes your specific monitor. You cannot calibrate by hand visually as that immediately invalidates any monitor profile which is a description of your monitor in its current state. Adjusting controls changes that state. Use a hardware device such as the i1Display which will both calibrate the screen and produce a profile for the calibrated screen that will be used by colour managed applications such as Photoshop.

Dave

[Daryl5C0C]

Thanks Dave.

I've reset the colour calibration via windows again and that seems to have cured it. The Windows 10 upgrade must have thrown out the previous calibration profiles, and when I couldn't see the old way to get to the colour calibration, I investigated the NVIDIA control panel instead.

Frustrating because the NVIDIA tweaks I'd discovered made things look much better and crisper. I guess although the GPU allowed these setting to take over, they were not channelling through the OS in a way that PS could see them. Oh well. 

At least now the difference I see when I put 'proof colours' on for 'Internet standard sRGB' is negligible, and things look more or less equal with the Windows10  photoviewer window. 

These aren't the best monitors natively anyway so I guess I can't expect too much.

Thanks again.

[davescm]

Yes we have seen Windows updates install incorrect profiles before.

If you calibrate and profile your monitors correctly, with a hardware device, then the Photoshop display (and other colour managed applications/browsers) will be as accurate as the monitors allow.

The images in colour managed applications will not, and should not, match Windows Photo Viewer. That viewer is not colour managed and will always display incorrectly. Don't make matching Photoshop to that incorrect view be your aim.

Dave