Hello, all.

I've been here several weeks and my wife is ready to kill me. I had enough obsessions before I found this site. I'm spending far too much time in my crummy little basement office massaging pictures into different pictures. It's a lot of fun, though, and you folks are remarkably polite and helpful. Thanks.

I have a problem, however, that is likely just my ignorance. I produce an image that I like on my basement PC, but when I look at it on my family room PC or my work PC the colors are pale and washed out. The machine I'm working on is an older AMD 1.7 ghz. I have a decent graphics card (NVidia GeForce 4, I think). I have an ancient 17" Envision super VGA monitor that produces a fine display. I have the brightness, contrast, and temperature cranked up as high as they will go. If the image I've created on this machine is dark and warm in a Rembrandty kind of way (not the quality--just the color), it has the anemic glow of an operating theater on another machine. I don't know if it matters, but I'm not using PS (can't afford it at the moment). I'm using Paint Shop Pro v. 7.04.

Does anyone have a clue how to correct this? Is there some standard PC setting that I have not adjusted to account for variations among displays? I've been viewing the images on two machines and re-uploading darkened versions for contests. This is apparently not a good way to do things, though, because it adds to my view count. This somehow affects my statistics--the statistics I don't understand yet.

Anyway, sorry to prattle on.

Thanks again.

--twk

Howdy TWKman

Colour (as we say in Canada) management is a HUGE issue. So I'll skip almost ALL of it.

One BIG issue to deal with is your monitors. All monitors have the wonderful capacity to look totally different from one another - even same models from same companies. There are a million (literally) ways you can tweak a monitor. And an old VGA monitor is usually a NIGHTMARE OF DEEPEST OPTICAL HELLACIOUSNESS. As CRT (tube type) monitors get old they get gray and shaky (much like the ReinMan! ) so the sooner you get away from that one the better!

I use one of those wacky Spyder electronic eyes on my monitors and they all look dandy. I realize that most don't want to invest the $100~$300 a colour alignment doo-hicky can cost. But my point is you need to get ONE of your monitors into a setup that you can trust.

Anybody here know of a simple, freeware, colour calibration APP that can help tweak out? Heck, I bet even a COLOR calibration APP would work too!

P.S. don't trust your eyes. EVER!!!

P. P . S. don't trust TOFU.
EVER! (I mean, think about it: he's, like, TOFU!!!! )

Color profile is different. Ran into that myself. Here's a couple threads to read up on:

http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=144924
http://photoshopcontest.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=6626

Hopefully they'll be of some help.

Maybe if you didn't call it "photo massaging" she wouldn't mind so much

Thanks, ReinMan. Just as I thought: buy a new monitor! I'll pass on the Spyder thingy for now.

Btw, I grew up in Niagara Falls, eh. And the Sabres will spank the Canucks should they meet in the finals.

Thanks for the fast response.

--twk

Thank you, TofuTheGreat. I'll check these out.

--twk

Good point. That's why I've told her I'm working on the Great American Novel.

Hah! Niagara Falls - I actually spent my first 21 years in a place called Fonthill (middle of the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario). Summers, we would go down to N.F. and watch the tourists from the patio bars. You could get GREAT pitchers of beer!

Speaking of that: you monitor WILL function worse proportionally to the amount of beer you drink.

[quote="twk"]

Tofu,

I checked my advanced display settings and found that I had no color profile--not even a default of any sort. Oddly, no profile was listed that seemed to match my monitor. I'll have to pick through them one by one, I guess. At least I have a clue no how I might get by until I can afford a new monitor.

Thanks again.

--twk

Careful with those profiles: if you pick one that makes your (potentially crappy monitor) look good that means that any image you do on YOUR system will look crappy on any system that is somewhat correctly set up....

Get A New Monitor
Get A New Monitor
Steal A New Monitor
Get A New Monitor
Get A New Monitor
Get A New Monitor
Get A New Monitor
Get A New Monitor

TOFU: LOVE YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!

I agree with Mr. ReinMan on the Spyder thingy or any other colorimeter-based monitor calibration solution.

The issue of Color Management can easily become mind-boggling (just google Color Management), but even an inexpensive colorimeter will beat hands down a software-based eye-balled color adjustment (read Adobe Gamma or the NVidia Display Optimization Wizard).

And do not (I repeat DO NOT) crank up the brightness, contrast, and temperature as high as they will go.

On a side note - avoid the cheapest LCD monitors. The brightness and contrast are usually preset to extremely bright, it is almost impossible to get accurate colors.

I discovered that quite some time ago tossing back Labatts while killing one thing or another in Doom. And Quake. And the rest. Did I mention Molsons? I killed a few of those, too.

I'm not going to jail for PSC! But if I see a nice one unattended ...

Thanks, Vokaris. I was merely attempting to compensate. I will dream of new monitors tonight.

Molson or Labatts... I can't drink Canadian beer anymore since they were bought by (those fine yet sometimes confused - don't hate me for saying it here, but its gotta be said) Americans.

I mean BIG BREWERY Canadian beer.

I like little BREWERY Canadian beer very much. No chemicals of a mysterious nature. No mice in the bottle. No EVIL CORPORATE CONTROLLED SCANTILY CLAD BABES distracting me from my carbonate consumption!