Choose a monitor profile as a working space in PS?

Just want to thank you for the replies.  I was confused by the article because if  Windows Control Panel> Color Management is showing the correct profile, then the OS is using that profile for any app.  But I get that checking the PS settings is probably a good idea anyway.  Thanks.  One other thing: When I do a calibration with XRite, I get two sets of readings: Target and Achieved.  Is there an objective, numerical way to evaluate the delta between the two?  I have never seen any article or documentation as to what constitutes "excellent," vs. "fair" or "poor" correspondence between Target and Achieved.

Doc_Pit

Dave is right, you must never select the monitor / display profile as the working space. 

He writes [about the article]:

" All it is suggesting is that you can use that menu to check which monitor profile is being used by Photoshop."

That's right.

SO, by all means go to the Color Settings dialog to check the right display profile is being used, but never select it. 

It would be SO much nicer [and safer] if Adobe would show the currently used display/monitor profile on a separate line in the Color Settings dialog [with no option to change, of course, as it's supplied by the OS]. 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

The article you linked is not suggesting you change the document space to the monitor profile. That would actually defeat colour management. All it is suggesting is that you can use that menu to check which monitor profile is being used by Photoshop. It will be the same as that set in your operating system and should be your X-Rite produced profile. So by all means use that method to check the monitor profile but do not change the document profile to the monitor profile.

Dave

Dry Creek Photo, who made that website, for many years provided a valuable service in publishing profiles for certain printing services. However…you should know that specific page you linked to is at least twenty years out of date and not a good resource today.

The most glaring problem with that page is that it talks in terms of the Adobe Gamma display calibration workflow. Adobe Gamma used to be one of the few affordable ways to adjust a display for Photoshop, but as soon as Photoshop 5.5 and Photoshop 6 came out (21 years ago) with proper support for industry standard ICC color management, the Adobe Gamma workflow became one of the worst ways to do it and Adobe discontinued Adobe Gamma. By moving to standard ICC color management two decades ago, Photoshop ensured that the way it handles color would be consistent and interchangeable with other applications and devices.

Today, the best practice is that the display profile you set in the Display settings for your OS should be the profile that most closely represents the actual performance of the display, and on affordable displays that will be a profile generated by a profiling device like an XRite. After you run the XRite software, it should automatically set that up for you without you having to do anything more.

In Photoshop today, the Working Space should just about never be set to Monitor Color. It should be set to be appropriate for your workflow. sRGB is a safe choice; Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB can be better choices for pros who know what they’re doing. The working space is really just a default for when a document doesn’t already carry its own profile. Which means the Photoshop working space is almost irrelevant if you always open images from cameras, because the document profile is already embedded by the camera or raw processor.

If you’re not sure what to choose as your Working Space in Photoshop in the Color Settings dialog box, in the Settings menu choose the General Purpose preset appropriate for your region (such as North American General Purpose 2). That preset will change all of the options in that dialog box to reasonable settings for you, and you can move on.