Why do images look darker outside Photoshop after display calibration?
Asked 3/26/2021
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2 answers
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I calibrated my monitor with DisplayCAL and created a monitor ICC profile. In Photoshop, images look correct, but when I save them as JPG or PNG and open them in other programs, they appear darker. I also noticed that if I set Photoshop to use sRGB as the working space, the image no longer matches the desktop/background exactly.
How should a calibrated monitor profile be used with Photoshop? Should the monitor profile ever be set as the working space, and what color settings should I use so exported images look correct in other applications?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
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You should never use a monitor profile as your "working space" color profile. They're two different types of profile that should be applied at two different steps in the processing pipeline between the image file and your monitor.
If you apply a monitor profile as your "working space" color profile and then it is applied again when sent to your monitor, you're applying the same "correction" twice and whatever you "corrected" will no longer be correct.
If I use the srgbIEC61966-2.1 working space with my calibrated DisplayCal profile U32H85x #2 2021-03-26 13-08 2.2 F-S 3xCurve+MTX the calibration does not look the same in Photoshop when comparing to the desktop background.
It appears in your case Photoshop is smart enough to figure this out and let your GPU apply the profile only when sending it to your monitor. The desktop background application doesn't seem to have the same capability.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
5y ago
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Your DisplayCAL monitor profile should not be used as Photoshop’s working space. A monitor profile and a working-space profile do different jobs:
- Monitor profile: used by the OS and color-managed apps to display colors correctly on your specific screen.
- Working space: a standard editing color space such as sRGB.
If you assign your monitor profile as the working space, Photoshop can effectively compensate twice, and saved files may look wrong elsewhere. That’s why images can appear darker or off-color in other programs.
Use your calibrated monitor profile as the system default display profile (set by DisplayCAL/OS), and in Photoshop use a standard working space like sRGB IEC61966-2.1 with Preserve Embedded Profiles.
Also note: not every image viewer or part of the desktop is fully color-managed, so exact matches outside Photoshop are not guaranteed. Photoshop is color-managed, so it will usually show the most accurate result.
In short: calibrate the display, let the OS/app use that monitor profile for display only, and edit/save images in standard spaces like sRGB for widest compatibility.
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