Initially new Photoshop CC 255,255,255 is objectionly yellow

[WayneF22]

I used CS6 for years, but this week updated to the latest Photoshop CC online version. Its Photoshop color is misbehaving from the start. White is the worst, always with an objectionable yellowish color cast, it has never shown white. It’s not the system or monitor, a white shows fine in all other Windows apps like Irfanview, but is yellowish in only Photoshop. Win10 File Explorer with Nikon raw codex shows icons white, not yellowish. ACR color is fine and white is white.

Bridge is less obvious (small), some icons are hard to decide, but an occasional white one is strongly yellowish. It is not image white balance, and 255,255,255 White sent from ACR is yellowish in Photoshop. Old existing JPG or PNG images that were always white are yellowish in PS. I cannot measure the yellow, because the Photoshop Info tool reports it to be 255,255,255, but it shows yellowish. The PS Background/Foreground tool says 255,255,255, but shows yellowish. Etc, etc. 255,255,255 is strongly yellowish in Photoshop CC.

I did have the install server fail twice on Photoshop on the 21st, but third time worked. ACR slider controls were generally inoperative, but an update next day (Jan 22) corrected that.

All the color menu settings were untouched default, and it always initially had the yellowish whites from the start. I have tweaked around since trying differences, but find no difference. All settings say sRGB.  I have no idea what to do?  Hoping for ideas about what to check?

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

That's a defective monitor profile.

This will only affect color managed software. Applications without full color management don't use the monitor profile at all, and are unaffected. Even so, color managed applications can often react differently to bad profiles.

If you don't have a calibrator to make a new profile, use sRGB IEC61966-2.1 for now. It won't be entirely accurate, but better than a broken profile. Relaunch Photoshop when done, it needs to load the new profile at startup:

[WayneF22]

Thank you, that worked great.  Since other programs showed the white as white in same images, I had assumed it could not be the device or system, but your solution worked.  It was using a Dell monitor profile (which was the correct monitor), but I added sRGB as default profile as you clearly specified, and it works fine now.  Thank you immensely.

[D Fosse]

Dell monitor profiles are notoriously bad, along with Samsung, LG, Acer and Asus as the other worst offenders.

The permanent solution here is to get a calibrator. That's the only way to have full control over this vital component in the Photoshop ecosystem. Photoshop needs it to display accurately.

A monitor profile is a standard icc profile just like any other icc profile. It's a map of the monitor's native color space - just like, say, the Adobe RGB profile is a map of the Adobe RGB color space. The map has to correspond to the landscape. That's why a generic profile like sRGB is not an optimal solution, and why a custom profile is always better.

[WayneF22]

Photoshop is cleared up, thanks again.  And ACR was always OK (apparently not using those profiles), but Bridge is not corrected, it is still showing yellow. Its Color menu is different, not offering sRGB, but instead offering "for monitors" in general, or for North America or for newspapers, or web, etc. Since it is only small icons and previews, it is less important, but still not correct?

[D Fosse]

All color managed apps, Photoshop, ACR, Bridge, use the same monitor profile. But as I said, applications may react differently to a bad profile. This is quite common. A bad profile usually means it's not written correctly according to icc spec. A "marginal" profile can work correctly in one application, but fail in another.

For Bridge you may need to refresh or renew previews (clear the cache). This forces a new profile conversion.

Generally, this has nothing to do with application color settings. Leave those alone! This is important. Color settings deal with policies for document profiles. But this isn't about document profiles, it's about the monitor profile. Two different things, serving two different purposes.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Yes,

you have a bad ICC display profile

neilB