Photoshop And Color Profiles

I've just spent the last 2 days trying to figure out why Photoshop CS3 wasn't rendering my colours right... Now I don't know what made it bad in the first place (it might be Vista, it might be some warning messages that I, ahem, ignored after spending hours reinstalling programs on my new rig. Anyways, the problem was that most colours seemed warmer. For example, white was a pale yellow, and only within Photoshop. My desktop, web pages, everything was fine. However anything I would see in Photoshop was off a bit, which made it pretty hard to design anything for Project moreADS, take two.

I've finally gotten it to work, however, and here's how I did it. The root cause for this issue seemed to be that the colour profiles used by Windows and by Photoshop didn't match. Photoshop was on Adobe RGB (1998), and Windows was on LG226W (default monitor profile). At first I tried putting it to LG226W, but the colours seemed faded. The next step meant setting the profile back to Adobe RGB (1998). In Photoshop, the setting is pretty easy to change:

1. Click on Edit -> Colour Settings;
2. In the Settings drop-down, select the "Monitor Colour" option.

By default, this should assign "Monitor RGB - Adobe RGB (1998)" as the RGB Working Space. If not, you can always change it manually to that option.

Now that Photoshop is set, we need to get Windows to comply. Remember I am using Vista. I don't think the setting can be that hard to find on other versions. The easiest way to colour profiles under Vista:

1. Right-click on your Desktop and select Personalize;
2. Select Display Settings;
3. Click on the Advanced Settings button, near the bottom;
4. Select the Colour Management tab, and click on Colour Management;
5. Make sure the device selected is your monitor, and check the "Use my settings for this device" option;
6. Check the options available under "Profiles associated with this device". If Adobe RGB (1998) is there, skip to step 9;
7. Click on the Add... button;
8. Under ICC Profiles, find and select Adobe RGB (1998) (it should be near the end), and click OK;
9. Select the Adobe RGB (1998) profile and click on the Set as default profile button.

And that should do it! Restart Photoshop and your colours should be vibrant again.

Color? Colour?