Colour Rendering with different programs.

[Mychael]

It's never been an issue for me in the past but since I've started mucking about with photography I've noticed there can be big differences to how an image will appear depending on which program it's opened with.
For instance Windows Live photo and Windows Photo viewer give quite different display of an image then say Paint Shop Pro or XN viewer for windows or infranview.

There does not seem to be a way to calibrate the program itself and they only match each other in colour display whereas just about every other image display program I try displays the same.

The colours and contrasts with Windows live and windows photo are just wrong but why should this be?

 

[TrainableMan]

I can't speak for Windows Live Photo but this is how I fixed my Windows Photo Viewer. It's worth a shot.

A yellowing effect by Windows Photo Viewer may occur because an incorrect color profile is used for the monitor device in the Color Management setting.

To fix it:
1. Control Panel->Hardware and Sound->Color Management
2. Select your display device
3. Check the box “Use my setting for this device”
4. Click Add
5. Choose “sRGB IEC61966-2.1” (this is the color profile that IE is using)
6. Set it as default.

NOTE: I had to reboot before the fix was effective.

 

[Mychael]

Thanks Tm, it improved it a little but not entirely and made no difference in live photo. I notice it most in black and white images. In my photo manipulation programs and other photo display programs apart from Windows Live and Window photo the B&W look correct. In W.live or W.photo the whites take on a cream coloured cast and the blacks look more dusky grey. Greens and blues are also effected but to a lesser degree.

 

[TrainableMan]

Can you open up the same picture in side-by-side windows of W.L. and your paint pgm and then do a screen capture. Save that screen shot picture and open it up in your paint pgm to see if you can still make out the difference; if you can see the difference then maybe post it here?

You might also run this Fix-it tool.

 

[Mychael]

Yep, I can probably do that. I'll get onto it.

 

[TrainableMan]

Also try that fix-it tool I added to the previous post.

 

[Mychael]

Ok, I have not tried fix-it as yet. Here is the example.
If it uploads correctly you should see the L) image with the colour cast, thats from W.Live and the R) image in true B&W.
If I were to re-open that saved image again in w.live or w.photo then the colour cast photo would be even worse and the true B&W would have a cast to it.

I should add that the R) image is the colour it should be and is the colour I get in everything except W.live and W.photo.

 

[Mychael]

I've now run fix it and it makes no difference. Every one of the other display programs shows the images correctly and oddly enough when I accidently opened the image with W.live movie maker it was the correct colour also. So problem confined to w.live photo and w.photo.

 

[TrainableMan]

Yep, I can see the red hue of the one on the left.

(I was only saying for you to open the screenshot in photo shop so you could verify you actually see a difference in the saved screen shot because sometimes it is only on the monitor not actually part of the image - but not in this case, I can see it in the pic).

 

[TrainableMan]

Have you rebooted your machine since you started trying these things?
Please do so and then go back to
Control Panel->Hardware and Sound->Color Management
and verify it stayed set to “sRGB IEC61966-2.1”.

 

[Mychael]

I re-booted after the first thing I tried which was the control panel settings.. Not re-booted since I used fix it. I'll do that a bit later and report back how it went.

 

[TrainableMan]

I also saw a suggestion to delete the Windows Live Photo Gallery Color Profile

To fix this problem, you have to remove the incorrect color profile. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, type Color Management in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
2. In the Color Management dialog box, click to select the Use my settings for this device check box.
3. In the Profiles associated with this device list, click the color profile that you want to remove, and then click Remove.
   
   Note If you receive a warning message, click Yes.
4. Close the Color Management dialog box and then restart the computer to apply the setting.

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