Why are colors in Photoshop not displaying correctly?

Question

I've got Photoshop CS2 and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what's going on. In the last week, I've noticed that colors aren't displaying correctly. Now, with regards to open images, I can enable Proof Colors and get them to display correctly. But in the actual application dialogs, such as the color picker, the reds look orange. Also, for example, when I'm looking at a quick mask, it looks orange (whereas the mask usually is red). I've changed the color profiles, the monitor profiles and whatnot to no avail; reds are still orange and I'm out of ideas.

I know this is something stupid that I'm just overlooking; so who can give me some ideas?

Answer 1

Do colors seem normal everywhere other than Photoshop? Such as fleshtones on websites, and things are the correct color you know they should be, such as the red in a traffic light?

If the colors are incorrect EVERYWHERE, I would think you have some kind of monitor problem. Maybe calibrating it with an device such as the Spyder will fix it.

If colors are correct on websites, and are only wrong in Photoshop, I think I would just completely un-install the program, then re-install it. You do have the disc don't you? This may not be the best way to do it, but I would think this would cure the problem. *Something* has gone haywire with the program, and obviously you have tried to find the problem and can't. Just dump it and start fresh.

steve

Answer 2

It sounds like you did the right thing by messing with the monitor profile.  I would check under the View tab... to Proof Setup... and check to see if either the profile you created is selected, or else select windows or mac rgb. Or, I often work in Working CMYk. Are the colors in the images correct? Or only the oranges and reds in dialog boxes?  Sometimes the default color for my layer masks changes itself to red from black if i double click on it too quickly.  It might be something as simple as that.

Answer 3

Make sure your camera and your editing software are using the same colorspace. After that if you have not done so in a while calibrate your monitor. It may not be showing you what is really there