Color Management strange colour

[barkerphotography]

I am running Photo Mechanic version 4.6.9 on a Windows 7 Professional 64bit system with NVidia quadro video card (NVS 300).  I have just bought this PC and notice that the colour of thumbs and previews goes yellowish when I have the color management toggle on, and is a lot cleaner and looks right when the toggle is off.  My colours look great in Photoshop. On my OLD computer the colour looked best with the toggle on...so, I'm wondering what do I need to do to get things right?  I've tried clicking different colour spaces under the preferences tab but no success yet.  I attach a photo to illustrate.

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[Kirk Baker]

What profile is assigned to your monitor?  Have you created a calibrated profile?

-Kirk

[barkerphotography]

Hi Kirk, in PM I have Adobe RGB (1988) selected.  In CS6 Photoshop I have the same preference selected.  Um, re the monitor, do I make a colour setting by going through the monitor menu itself?  It is an AOC i2352Vh.  As for the generic colour settings, i.e, right clicking on the desktop/screen to view the NVIDIA Control Panel, I have only made small adjustments to a brightness, contrast and gamma (see attached screenshot)

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[Kirk Baker]

Hi Kirk, in PM I have Adobe RGB (1988) selected.  In CS6 Photoshop I have the same preference selected.  Um, re the monitor, do I make a colour setting by going through the monitor menu itself?  It is an AOC i2352Vh.  As for the generic colour settings, i.e, right clicking on the desktop/screen to view the NVIDIA Control Panel, I have only made small adjustments to a brightness, contrast and gamma (see attached screenshot)

Do you have a Colorimeter or can you borrow one from a friend?  It's a device that you place over your screen and the software it comes with tests the gamut of color your monitor can produce.  Then it assigns the color profile it creates to your monitor.  Without one you're going to get unreliable color management.

-Kirk

[barkerphotography]

Hi Kirk, no I don't have a colorimeter but I have a friend who does.  I could contact him to discuss.  The CD software that came with the monitor has this ICC profile (attached).  I clicked to "load profile" so I assume that it is in place...or is it?  Can I load this ICC profile into PM somehow?

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[Kirk Baker]

Hi Kirk, no I don't have a colorimeter but I have a friend who does.  I could contact him to discuss.  The CD software that came with the monitor has this ICC profile (attached).  I clicked to "load profile" so I assume that it is in place...or is it?  Can I load this ICC profile into PM somehow?

No, you assign the calibrated profile to your monitor with the Displays control panel.  PM will ask the system what profile is set on the monitor and use it for color matching.

-Kirk

[barkerphotography]

Yes, I have checked and the display control panel is using the monitor profile i2352Vh.icm as the default colour profile.  PM has this profile selected also.  The colour shift still appears however.  Are there any more settings to adjust?

[Kirk Baker]

Yes, I have checked and the display control panel is using the monitor profile i2352Vh.icm as the default colour profile.  PM has this profile selected also.  The colour shift still appears however.  Are there any more settings to adjust?

When you say that 'PM has this profile selected also' do you mean to say that you've selected this same profile as your default profile to be used for images that do not have profiles?  If so, you don't want that profile as your default profile.  You want to choose a profile that your 'images' would likely be represented with when they have no profile.  Use something like sRGB or Adobe RGB in that popup menu.  Not your monitor's profile.  By choosing your monitor's profile you're saying that your images already have the same color description that your monitor has.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

Further to Kirk's comment, perhaps your file simply doesn't have an associated colour profile? Can you check the value of variable {icc} for your file? What does it say?

Cheers,
Hayo

[barkerphotography]

Thanks for your help. Sorry , I realise this is all important to get right, but I might just leave things for now and see how consistently my colour workflow goes.  I'll get a print done of a test chart I know well and see how it compares to my monitor.  Sorry Hayo, I couldn't figure out how to check the value of the variable for that file.

[Hayo Baan]

If you upload (a small version) of a file that gives you this problem I'll analyse it for you. Just attach it to your reply here (click on “+ Attachments and other options” to be able to do so)