Colors are not right.....

[Lookei]

So all I wanted to simply do was just pick a color and use it with the brush tool, but no, that would be too simple. So instead of spending time drawing and being productive like I should be I have to now go down a rabbit hole of learning about color calibration and color profiles etc where I can practically start my own tech tips Youtube channel.... Why can't photoshop just simply display the colors I picked.. like everything else on my screen normally displays outside of photoshop. I mean, in the color picker on photoshop it can obviously display the color there just fine, but when I go to draw it, it can't? Huh...?

So what's the deal? How can I get this fixed? Whites are yellows, and out of every blue, red, green etc I pick it can only draw like 3 color variations out of them even though I have an entirely different color picked.

I tried changing my settings in color management, following every guide with no results. I've read other posts on here regarding this and got no results there either.. so am I just doomed and can't use Photoshop for my drawing work? Sadly if that's the case Photoshop will lose a customer. Because is photoshop going to really force me to spend more money on a calibrator to use it? Is that what's expected on top of the monthly bill? I find this all just too ridiculous how such a simple thing is overly complicated. I select white, just draw white, I select a red, just draw that red, why's that so hard? I'm obviously pretty annoyed because I've wasted so much time on this stupid complication that frankly, shouldn't even exist.

I'm using and LG Smart TV for my monitor. But that shouldn't matter because even on my graphics tablet, the colors are still messed up too. So no matter the screen it's displayed on, Photoshops colors are still all wacked out. And like I've said, in the color picker, my TV, and my graphics tablet has no problem showing those colors, but for some reason it does in the space I draw? For a lack of harsher and more aggravated fitting words, that's just dumb.

What can I do?

Thanks

[D Fosse]

Don't change anything in Color Settings! That's not where your problem is. Reset everything to default settings. Changing things here without knowing what you're doing, will quickly get you into trouble you can't get out of. There's an incredible amount of bad and misguided advice out there.

By the sound of it you have a broken monitor profile, or one that is very wrong for the display you're using. If you're using a TV as your main display all bets are off, and I doubt you can get much further. TVs are the worst possible displays to use for more reasons than I can start listing. Get a proper display.

In the meantime, try to replace your current display profile with sRGB.

[Lookei]

Hello,

That's what I've done and meant when I said I went into color management and changed my settings. I've tried that one, and a few of the Adobe ICC's including Adobe RBG. None have worked. I've tried messing with the profiles within PS itself, same thing. I've tried setting the mode in PS to RBG and got nothing. I've tried basically everything and every variation of solutions with no changes or results.

Yes I'm using a TV, but like I said even on my graphics tablet (a seperate display from my TV) it shows up the same, so is it really the TV display? I think it's that my display/profile is broken, whatever that means. How can I fix this and how can i truly know it's broken?

By the way, I know I may come off sounding snotty and I in no way intend to. I'm just trying to be thorough as possible.

Thanks, and thanks again for the quick reply!

EDIT - I'm also watching other people draw on PS on Youtube and the colors they're using display fine as I'm watching them use PS, it's only when I personally use it that it's an issue and the colors are messed up. So I just don't understand why it looks weird for me and has trouble displaying the correct colors when anything outside of PS, even watching others use the colors I can't in PS display just fine.

[Derek Cross]

It might help to have a look at this online video tutorial on color management (you can get 30-days free access):

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-color-management

[Lookei]

Hello,

Thank you, I will give it a look if it cannot be resolved here!

[D Fosse]

Here's a basic, all-inclusive troubleshooting checklist for color management issues (which is what you have):

• does the document have an embedded color profile, and is it the correct one?
• do you have a valid monitor profile set up at system level? A valid profile is one that accurately describes the current and actual behavior of the monitor, e.g. one written by calibration software
• are you viewing the file in a correctly color managed application, one that reads both these profiles and correctly converts from one profile to the other?

It follows from this that you don't "experiment" with profiles. You use the correct one. A wrong profile will cause incorrect display. You don't "try out" different profiles - but if the correct profile is damaged or unavailable, you need to replace it with whatever is closest. Without a proper monitor profile, sRGB will be the closest for most average monitors.

Photoshop is designed from the ground up to work with icc profiles. It's a basic requirement for using the application, and included in this is the monitor profile. Photoshop loads the monitor profile from the operating system, it uses whatever is set up as default in the OS. A calibrator is the only way to have reliable control over your monitor profiles and it's an integral part of the whole Photoshop ecosystem. It is simply a very sensible investment.

Applications without color management at all may work as long as you never introduce any other color spaces than sRGB into your system. No other color spaces anywhere, including your monitor. How close to correct they display depends on how close your monitor is to sRGB natively. There's never a full match, so these non-color managed applications will never be entirely accurate.

[Lookei]

Hello,

So I feel slightly silly for this, but still don't understand why this is.

I was solely trying to edit an already created image and re-sprite it (I do pixel art/sprites) but I never tried to open up a compeltely new fresh project. I covered the canvas in black and when I went to draw white, low and behold it was actually white! I also tried every color, and they all show on the canvas as they should. I do feel dumb. BUT, reskining sprites is also a part of my work so it is still an issue that the colors are messed up when I work on something that I didnt personally create from scratch.

So how do I fix this? Also, this must mean that my color profile or whatever isn't broken right?

Thanks!

[rob day]

Can you share one of the problem files?

[Lookei]

[rob day]

I meant the layered PSD file file you are having problems with. You can share a PSD file via your CC account or Dropbox.

[Lookei]

I never saved a PSD file, I would just take that image and load it up into PS to work on. So I assume it would be considered a new project, except just with a picture I dragged in right? Like if you were to save the image I posted, then loaded it up in PS. That's all I did.

[rob day]

So I assume it would be considered a new project, except just with a picture I dragged in right?

If you dragged and dropped the PNG into a new Photoshop document it would get placed as a smart object and you would have to add a layer above, or rasterize the smart object, in order to paint color. If that was the case, the color problems could be caused by transparency effects, or even the color mode of the base document. If it happens again share the layered PSD.

If you opened the PNG via File>Open the problem couldn’t be with the layer blend mode, but it could be caused by the Blend Mode the brush was set to, so you would want to double-check that.

[Pattycake1564]

Plz stop sending emails

[rob day]

So what's the deal? How can I get this fixed? Whites are yellows, and out of every blue, red, green etc I pick it can only draw like 3 color variations out of them even though I have an entirely different color picked.

You could have a color managment problem, but it sounds more like a Blending Mode issue. Could you be working on a Layer where the Blend Mode is not set to Normal? The brushes also can be set to different blend Modes—here I’ve picked a magenta hue, but the layer is set to Difference. Maybe you could post some screen captures?

[Lookei]

Hello,

I posted a reply above. It seems the colors are only messed up when I import a picture and try to draw on it, but not when I create a fresh new project. I also tried what you said about the blending mode. It was set on normal in the layer section you showed so that wasnt it.

Any more ideas would be great.

Thanks!