Photoshop ruins images on import

[rastkoni]

Upon uploading any image (of any extension, initially I had thought this was a RAW problem but it seems to screw up .jpegs, .jpgs, ,pngs, etc.) Photoshop AND Lightroom will automatically apply certain adjustments to it, completely ruining the photo and leaving me in a state where I can't work on any projects. I've attached examples on what both programs do to a .jpg, and also added an extra comparison with a random meme i pulled, because I believe it better illustrates what exactly is adjusted in the photos.

I'm using Photoshop 2020 and Lightroom Classic. Thanks in advance

[Test Screen Name]

Looks like a problem with colour profile settings. So... to get closer to the problem...

1. What app do you use for the "good" view (that is, where the image looks "right" compared to PS and LR)?

2. What is the profile in use in Photoshop for that image? You can change the status bar to display the profile name, and show a screen shot or tell us what profile it says?

3. What is your operating system?

4. What is your exact model of monitor?

[Test Screen Name]

By the way, to me (but possibly not on your screen, with your settings) the cat image looks much better in Photoshop than the mysterious "other app". It looks bleached out (to me) in the other app. 

[rastkoni]

For the "good view" I simply use the windows photo viewer, but that one stays faithful to how the image looks on my phone, other devices, rendered online, etc. Addressing your cat image comment, I agree that the photoshop one "looks better", but it's not what the original image looks like. The original one is the one next to it, and Photoshop screws it up.

The profile used by default is "North America General Purpose 2", and switching it to "Monitor profile" seems to fix my issue; although I don't know if that's going to show an unfaithful representation of what the image is.

I'm using Windows 10 and a... Samsung SyncMaster 2333HD monitor... 

Also, during the 15 minutes I've been troubleshooting this, while rotating through color profiles I got the "request cannot be completed because scratch disk is full" error. Photoshop (or Lightroom) seem to have filled up over 15GB of data during the past few minutes of use. Jesus.

[Per Berntsen · Accepted solution]

First of all, try to disable the GPU in both Lightroom and Photoshop. If this fixes the issue, check if your graphics driver is up to date (go to the manufacturer's website, don't rely on Windows to keep drivers up to date). If it isn't, update it, and try to turn the GPU back on.

Another possibility is that you have a defective monitor profile, probably installed with a Windows update, which is known to install low quality profiles from monitor manufacturers. These profiles are often defective out of the box.

Try setting the monitor profile to sRGB. If this fixes the issue, you should ideally calibrate the monitor with a hardware calibrator. This will also create and install a custom monitor profile, which will be more accurate than sRGB.

Close Lightroom, Photoshop and the Photos app.

Press the Windows key + R, type colorcpl in the box and press Enter.

Add the sRGB profile, and set it as default.

[rastkoni]

Suprisingly enough, just switching the color profile in Photoshop to my monitor's one completely fixed the issue. At first at least - when using the default PS profiles it would still ruin my images. Then, I updated my drivers and checked to see that I was already using the sRGB profile for my monitor - the difference between the monitor and default profiles in photoshop dissapeared. Probably a driver issue imo, considering Lightroom seems to be fixed as well. Thanks a lot!

[D Fosse]

just switching the color profile in Photoshop to my monitor's one completely fixed the issue.

By rastkoni

Hold on, not so fast. What you did there confirms that you have a broken monitor profile, but it does not fix the problem.

It's not the document profile that is the problem here, but the monitor profile. Those are two different things, serving very different purposes! You don't fix the monitor profile in Photoshop, in fact Photoshop has no way to control the monitor profile at all. That is fixed in Windows, in system settings.

But when you set up your monitor profile at document level in Photoshop color settings, you disabled all color management. That bypasses the bad monitor profile entirely, and makes Photoshop behave like it has no color management at all.

But you still have a bad profile, and if you continue with what you did, your files will look very wrong to anyone else if you send your files out. They just look OK on your system. You swept the problem under the carpet.

Read Per Berntsen's post carefully again, and look at the screenshots. Follow those instructions. As he said, the proper fix for this is to use a calibrator to make a new profile, but in the meantime, sRGB will usually be close enough for non-critical work.

[NB, colourmanagement]

"Suprisingly enough, just switching the color profile in Photoshop to my monitor's one completely fixed the issue."

Yeah, don't do that, it basically disables colour management - and as D.Fosse wrote almost certainly reveals that you have a bad display / monitor profile. 

I too suggest you follow the steps above to set the display profile to sRGB. - as a test

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[PECourtejoie]

Moving this to discussions, as it is not a bug, but a configuration problem.