PS7 and Custom Monitor Profile

[Leroy Knuckles]

I have a monitor profile I created with the ColorVision Spyder. I used this monitor profile at both the system level (Win98SE) and in PS5.5 with monitor compensation enabled. I upgraded from PS5.5 to PS7, and I used Adobe Gamma to load my custom monitor profile to make it available to Photoshop, per the Adobe tech docs. When I did this, Adobe Gamma re-saved my custom monitor profile, and I noticed that it grew from 1KB to 3KB. I don't know if Adobe Gamma changed it in some fundamental way or whether it added information that doesn't change the way that colors are displayed on the monitor. Does anyone know what Adobe Gamma did to my custom monitor profile? Is it really necessary to use Adobe Gamma to load my custom monitor profile, or does PS7 just use the monitor profile specified by Win98 system display settings automatically?

(Note: I have Adobe Gamma Loader disabled on start up, since I use the PhotoCAL loader on startup.)

[YrbkMgr]

wrong answer. deleted by the dork who wrote it.

[LenHewitt]

Leroy,

If you have other calibration software, DON'T use Adobe Gamma at all.

[YrbkMgr]

That's kind of what I had posted Len, but he says that he's takien AG out of the startup - so it's not running... is it?

[Ian Lyons]

Leroy,

Adobe Gamma will have overwritten the PhotoCAL profile to its own format. Whether it is good/bad I don't know but Adobe Gamma on PS5.5 did do weird things to some monitor profiles. Your best course of action is delete the profile, remove Adobe Gamma from your startup folder and then recalibrate using PhotoCAL and the Spyder. Do NOT reopen Adobe Gamma and don't bother going anywhere near the Windows display settings - the PhotoCAL loader does all the work for you!

[Thomas Madsen]

LenHewitt wrote:

> If you have other calibration software, DON'T use Adobe Gamma at all.

You mean Adobe Gamma Loader, or?
No matter which calibration software you use, Photoshop needs
to know which monitor profile to use and it uses Adobe Gamma
to figure that out. That's why you should load the profile into
Adobe Gamma in the Control Panel.

I'm using the ColorVision Spyder myself (with PreCAL and OptiCAL)
and with this software it happens automatically. When you've made
the monitor profile it's automatically loaded into Adobe Gamma in
the control panel, but Adobe Gamma Loader from the Startup folder
should be removed because with OptiCAL, the 'OptiCAL Startup'
takes over.

See the 'Adobe Gamma and Third-Party Monitor Calibration Utilities'
section here: <http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/13252.htm>.

--
Regards
Madsen.

[LenHewitt]

Thomas & Tony,

See Ian's posting!

[Leroy Knuckles]

I have always taken Adobe Gamma *Loader* out of the startup folder, since I use PhotoCAL and the PhotoCAL loader is already in my Win98 SE startup folder. I did this to prevent conflicts between AG loader and PhotoCAL loader.

Whenever I've profiled my monitor with the Spyder, I've set the Win98 SE display (under Control Panel) to use my custom profile under the "Color Management" tab. In PS5.5, I would then specify that monitor compensation should be enabled.

In PS7, I don't see a way to either enable/disable monitor compensation or to specify what monitor profile PS should use. I did follow the recommendation in the Adobe techdocs link above to make sure PS7 was using my custom monitor profile. When I did this, AG asked to re-save my custom profile on top of the original. When I clicked "OK" to exit AG, I noticed that AG changed the size my custom profile. That was when I started to wonder what AG did to my profile, and whether this process of using AG to load my custom monitor profile was really necessary. (Note, again, that in all cases I never run AG *loader*, it's not in my Startup folder.)

The questions I have are: 1) Is AG messing up my custom profile, and 2) Is it really necessary to use AG to ensure PS7 uses my custom profile, or will PS7 pick it up automatically from my system Display setting under Control Panel?

Ian's posting suggests one set of answers, while Thomas'/Adobe's posting suggests another. Does anyone know for certain what the answers are and what to do to ensure PS7 does the "right" thing with a custom monitor profile?

Thanks
Leroy

[Thomas Madsen]

LenHewitt wrote:

> See Ian's posting!

That doesn't change that Photoshop uses Adobe Gamma to figure
out which monitor profile to use inside Photoshop.
Maybe I've misunderstood the 'Adobe Gamma and Third-Party Monitor
Calibration Utilities' section, which I referred to earlier, but
that's how I read it at least. Correct me if I'm wrong. :)

I haven't said that you should make adjustments to the profile
with Adobe Gamma if you've made a monitor profile with another
calibration software, but according to:
<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/13252.htm> you should
make sure that the right profile is loaded in Adobe Gamma.
As I wrote earlier, it happens automatically if you're using
OptiCAL from ColorVision, but I don't know if it does with all
third party calibration packages.

--
Regards
Madsen.

[Thomas Madsen]

Leroy Knuckles wrote:

> In PS7, I don't see a way to either enable/disable monitor
> compensation or to specify what monitor profile PS should use.

'Use monitor compensation' is always turned on in PS 6 and 7
and you can't turn it off like you could in earlier version.

> I did follow the recommendation in the Adobe techdocs link above
> to make sure PS7 was using my custom monitor profile. When I did
> this, AG asked to re-save my custom profile on top of the
> original.

That will only happen if you click on OK in Adobe Gamma.
If you're sure that the right profile(*) is loaded in Adobe
Gamma then you can safely cancel out of it without overwriting
the profile created with PhotoCAL.

(*) The one you've created with PhotoCAL.

When you create a new profile with PhotoCAL in the future then you
can just overwrite the previous one. If you do it that way you can
be pretty sure that Adobe Gamma always uses the right profile.
No need to make a new profile with a new name every time you
recalibrates your monitor. You'll never need to use the older ones
again anyway.

> (Note, again, that in all cases I never run AG *loader*, it's not
> in my Startup folder.)

And it shouldn't be. You now have the PhotoCAL startup to load the
right profile into the LUT of the graphic card during startup so it
can be used at system level. Adobe Gamma Loader does the same thing.

--
Regards
Madsen.

[YrbkMgr]

Leroy,

Follow Ian's advice. He's a pundit of color management issues. If I'm not sure of something, Ian's the "go to" guy for a reliable answer.

Trust me... or not, but I've never lost following Ian's advice.

Peace,
Tony

[Ian Lyons]

Leroy,

When you run PhotoCAL it builds a monitor profile and at the end of the process saves it out as the System Monitor Profile. Windows by itself doesn't have the first clue what to do with this or any other profile, hence apps like PhotoCal Loader, Adobe Loader and bunch of other loaders that have one basic function - load the gamma curves within the profile into your video card LUT. You should only have one loader app in the Startup folder. Given that you use PhotoCAL this is the ONLY loader you should use!

Photoshop uses the system monitor profile (you call it the Windows system display) and ONLY the system monitor profile - Photoshop doesn't give a rats ass who or what installed it so long as it is legitimate monitor profile. Photoshop does NOT look at Adobe Gamma - Photoshop doesn't care two damns if you deleted it completely from your hard disk.

If your PhotoCAL Loader is in the Startup folder it will load the appropriate profile (the system monitor profile) and set the video card LUTS.

BTW: you don't need to go near Adobe Gamma loader once you begin using third party monitor profiling apps. There is NO reason NONE to use it! There are VERY good reasons for not going ANYWHERE near it in Photoshop 5.5 but I'm not going there again!

[Thomas Madsen]

Ian Lyons wrote:

> Photoshop does NOT look at Adobe Gamma - Photoshop doesn't care
> two damns if you deleted it completely from your hard disk.

Okay, you're probably right Ian but then the documentation
provided by Adobe is rather obscure in my opinion.

Right now my monitor profile created with the Monitor Spyder is
called 'Default Monitor'. It's loaded in Adobe Gamma and in the
Color Settings inside Photoshop I can choose the 'Monitor-RGB -
Default Monitor' under RGB Working Space. That's the only place
in Photoshop 6 and 7 I can see which monitor profile Photoshop
uses. (I'm _not_ using my monitor profile as the working space
though).

If I change the profile in Adobe Gamma to a canned Sony profile,
for instance, then the color settings in Photoshop will change
accordingly. If I pick the 'sony_d50.icm' in Adobe Gamma and
restarts Photoshop, then I will not see 'Monitor-RGB - Default
Monitor' inside Photoshop's color settings anymore. I will see
'Default Monitor - Sony Trinitron_Std_D50' instead. Photoshop
picks up that information from Adobe Gamma.

You're right that the colors on the monitor doesn't change one
bit and neither outside nor inside Photoshop when I change the
profile in Adobe Gamma. That's probably because the 'Default
Monitor' profile is already loaded into the LUT at startup by
'OptiCAL startup' (in my case) and can't be changed before I
restarts the system with another profile.

--
Regards
Madsen.

[Thomas Madsen]

Leroy Knuckles wrote:

> When I did this, Adobe Gamma re-saved my custom monitor profile,
> and I noticed that it grew from 1KB to 3KB.

I have just tried the same and mine grows from 492 bytes to 2116
bytes. In 'ICC Profile Inspector' I can see that Adobe Gamma tags
it with a tag called 'vcgt' and that's the main reason why it grows
significantly in file size. I can't figure out what that tag does
and frankly I don't care because I never let Adobe Gamma overwrite
my monitor profile anyway :)
Adobe Gamma doesn't change anything else exept for the 'cprt' tag.
(Copyright information).

<http://home18.inet.tele.dk/madsen/spyder/profile>

--
Regards
Madsen.

[Leroy Knuckles]

Interesting. I don't have a profile viewer, so I couldn't see what AG was doing to my custom profile. It seems the safest thing to do is to reinstall a copy of my original custom profile (or create a new profile) and check to make sure that it shows up as "Monitor-RGB - MyCustomProfile" under the RGB Workspace options in Color Settings. I use Adobe RGB 1998 as my working space; I won't change this, but this seems to be the only way to check what profile PS7 is actually using for the monitor.

In any case, PhotoCAL loader is in the Startup folder, and I *won't* let AG over-write any profiles.

I agree the Adobe documentation is very confusing with regards to this whole business of how to get PS7 to properly use custom profiles, hence my posting soliciting help from the experts here. Many thanks to all who replied.

Regards
Leroy

[Thomas Madsen]

Leroy Knuckles wrote:

> Interesting. I don't have a profile viewer, so I couldn't see
> what AG was doing to my custom profile.

You can download ICC Profile Inspector here:
<http://www.color.org/membersonly/profileinspector.html>.

> It seems the safest thing to do is to reinstall a copy of my
> original custom profile (or create a new profile) and check to
> make sure that it shows up as "Monitor-RGB - MyCustomProfile"
> under the RGB Workspace options in Color Settings.

I would just create a new profile with PhotoCAL and then overwrite
the old one, if you don't want to use the profile that Adobe Gamma
has overwritten.

> I use Adobe RGB 1998 as my working space; I won't change this, but
> this seems to be the only way to check what profile PS7 is
> actually using for the monitor.

You can just roll out the drop down box inside Photoshop's color
settings. Right above Adobe RGB you'll see 'Monitor RGB' followed
by a dash and the name of the current monitor profile. It should
match the name of the profile created with PhotoCAL. Maybe it
doesn't matter which profile Photoshop shows you there, but I
must admit that I feel most secure when it matches the name of
the profile I've created with OptiCAL.

--
Regards
Madsen.

[Thomas Madsen]

Thomas Madsen wrote:

> I will see 'Default Monitor - Sony Trinitron_Std_D50' instead.

Wrong. I will see 'Monitor RGB - Sony Trinitron_Std_D50'.
'Default Monitor' was the name of my OptiCAL profile. :)

Sorry.

--
Regards
Madsen.

[Ian Lyons]

The vcgt tag is the Video Card Gamma Tag.

[Ian Lyons]

I can't recall the exact makeup of OptiCAL profiles but the gamma part was at one time separate from the profile you see. I thought they had changed this on the PC version. They have on the Mac versions I have just built. These PhotoCAL and OptiCAL profiles are both 4KB and contain the vcgt tag.

If you don't see the vcgt tag then they are probably applying the same thing in a different way

[Thomas Madsen]

Ian Lyons wrote:

> If you don't see the vcgt tag then they are probably applying the
> same thing in a different way

I can't see the vcgt tag on my OptiCAL profile when I load it in ICC
Profile Inspector. I'm using the newest version of Optical for Windows
(3.7 from March 2003) on WinXP Pro SP1. Everything seems to work fine
though. I haven't experienced that Photoshop won't accept the profile,
or anything like that.

--
Regards
Madsen.