Exif patch is ignored in Mac OS X 10.2.6

[Klaus Schmidt]

In order to avoid a red color cast in dig. camera pictures, I installed the "Ignore Exif Color Space" plugin as suggested in support document # 328569. It had no effect. When I double clicked the plugin, it started Classic. I therefore assume the patch is not read in Mac OS X. Is this true?

[Richard Coencas]

The plug-in is carbonized. There is never a need to double click plug-ins. You should simply place it in your plug-ins folder and restart the app.

Incorrect exif color spaces, however, are not the only reason an image can have a cast. It can also be a monitor callibration issue.

Rich

[Susan S.]

Ignore Exif works fine for me OS10.1.5 (I also have a G3). And I do find there is a slight oversaturation of reds to the pictures without it. Without the EXIF plugin the images are tagged sRGB and appear the same in Elements whether or not colour management is on.

With the EXIF plugin they look best (to me) with no colour management - if you set limited colour management they wil open in sRGB and look the same (pretty much) as they do without the plug-in. In full colour management they open in AdobeRGB and look very oversaturated to me.
So if the plug in is working, changing the colour management will change the appearance of the image. I work with colour management off and embedd a profile using save as on the rare occasions that I feel it is necessary.

However if the red cast is pronounced then it is likely that there is a problem with your monitor profile - as none of the other apps you mention are colour managed they are not affected by a corrupt /poorly set profile. (they also won't respect the sRGB tag on the EXIF info!) Even if you don't think it's a problem it's worth trying to recallibrate, choosing one of the original profiles that came with your computer as a starting point. It only takes a few minutes and it can solve these problems.

susan S

[Klaus Schmidt]

I recalibrated the monitor profile and also tried various prestored profiles. The effect was hardly noticeable. The color casts are too drastic. With color management on, faces are bright red, a white and purple flower is blue-green and red, with c.m.off, yellow stairs are bright green etc. Even though the printed pictures are OK (with c.m. on), PSE2 ist practically unusable for color corrections.
Klaus

[Susan S.]

Curious. Needless to say this isn't normal PE2 behaviour! As a last desparate throw of the dice have you tried resetting preferences in Elements? - hold down command/option/shift as Elements restarts - corrupt preference files can do weird things. But the fact that it is printing out OK does sound like it is a monitor issue.

Susan S.

[Beth Haney]

Well, Klaus, just for sport... Have you looked to see if there's a newer driver available for your video card? I can never keep all those "connections" straight in my head in terms of the interrelationship between drivers, hardware, and software, but since calibration didn't work, double checking on video drivers might be one more thing you can try. This SHOULD be working! :)

[Klaus Schmidt]

I made the following observations:
(1) PE2 works perfectly on my wife's computer (G3, Mac OS 9.2).
(2) On my G4, Mac OS 10.2.6, the colors with PE2 are horrible; the skin of a tanned person shows big splotches of green slime. Other applications ( Quicktime player, Preview) produce a normal display. (3) images from sources other than the camera show the same color distortions. (4) The preview thumbnails in the Open dialog are normal. - It looks as if the problem has nothing to do either with the EXIF patch or the monitor. It may be an incompatibility of PE2 with OS 10.2.6.

[Barbara Brundage]

Klaus, all I can tell you is that many, many people are using PE2 with 10.2.6 with no problems like yours. Have you tried a running fsck -y? Is your monitor set to millions of colors in system prefs>displays? There are some applications which will change this setting, so if you haven't checked that recently, you might want to check it again.