[creativ82]

Hi everyone,

I've recently begun experiencing a problem in Photoshop that displays all greyscale colors as brown. I discovered a solution somewhere that said I needed to uninstall my monitor drivers from Device Manager to fix it and sure enough, if I uninstall them, it fixes it just fine. However, each time I reboot my computer, the drivers reappear and I need to remove them to fix the discoloration problem.

I know others have experienced this discoloration problem but I have not discoverd anyone having this variation of it.

What's curious is that I started experiencing this problem after installing one of the recent Windows updates (I'm running XP Pro). I don't know which one but it was from a couple weeks ago.

My monitor is a Gateway FPD1930 and I'm running Photoshop CS. Device Manager lists two identical drivers called "Gateway FPD1930" under the Monitors section. Is this normal?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[erick295]

Go into this directory and delete (or change the extension) of your monitor's color profile:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color

I had your exact problem, and this solved it. I found mine because it had "Samsung" in its name (I have a Samsung monitor). Otherwise, I don't know if there's a way to tell which one is being used.

It's not normal to have two monitors listed, but deleting both of them from the device manager, along with removing the color profile, should make your problem go away.

[creativ82]

Hi Erick,

Thanks for your quick reply. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one with this problem. I can't figure out which color profile I should delete/rename though. In that directory, the following 55 color profiles are listed:

Adobe Monitor Settings.icm
AdobeRGB1998.icc
AppleRGB.ICC
BlackWhite.icc
CIERBG.icc
ColorMatchRGB.icc
EE049__1.ICM
EE119__1.ICM
EE251__1.ICM
EuropeISOCoatedFOGRA27.icc
EuroscaleCoated.icc
EuroscaleUncoated.icc
EWadobe.icm
EWapple.icm
EWcie.icm
EWcmatch.icm
EWntsc.icm
EWpalsec.icm
EWSRGB.ICM
EWide.icm
is330.icm
JapanColor2001Coated.icc
JapanColor2001Uncoated.icc
JapanColor2002Newspaper.icc
JapanStandard.icc
JapanWebCoated.icc
kodak_dc.icm
mon078A.icm
NTSC1952.icc
PAL_SECAM.icc
pdc4050e.icm
pcd4050k.icm
pcdekycc.icm
pcdkoycc.icm
Per126_r.icm
Per126_t.icm
PER166_R.ICM
PER166_T.ICM
PER240_R.ICM
PER240_T.ICM
PER245_R.ICM
PER245_T.ICM
Photoshop4DefaultCMYK.icc
Photoshop5DefaultCMYK.icc
ProPhoto.icm
SMPTE-C.icc
sRGB Color Space Profile.icm
stdpyccl.icm
USSheetfedCoated.icc
USSheetfedUncoated.icc
USWebCoatedSWOP.icc
USWebUncoated.icc
WideGamutRGB.icc

Since this seems to be related to the color profiles, I've also attached a screenshot of my color settings.

Any thoughts, Erick or anyone else?

Nick

[erick295]

You might have to experiment. The color settings in Photoshop never helped me. Look at the dates on the files and see which ones are the newest. You might want to just start picking random profiles and changing their extensions.

I don't have Adobe Monitor Settings.icm on my computer, so maybe start with that one...

[DarqueMist]

I'm sorry I can't help with your problem creativ82, I know how frustrating that can be as I had it suddenly start after an update as well (as a temp workaround I set the View Proof Setup to Monitor RGB and then checked View Proof Colours ... this makes the image colours right but unfortunately you will still have the "wrong" colours showing in the colour picker). I just wanted to give erick295 a shout out and say thank you, I've searched high and low, found all sorts of people with a similar problem but no fixes. Your sugestion worked for me

[edit] just checked out your deviant account creativ82 .... had to pop back to say sweet, love your fractal work

[wilson44512]

rite click on your desk top. go to properties. click on the settings tab, click on the advance tab. click on the color management tab. an see whats in the color profile. if you can take a pic of it. an put it here. i had that trouble once an i deleted the color profile that was there. if there some thing there you could delete it . an see what happens. you could always hit add. an restore it. this is mine

[creativ82]

Erick, Wilson,

Thank you both. Erick's solution was right on and Wilson's instructions helped me implement it. I had completely forgotten about the color management tab in the display properties. After I found the profile in use there (it was mon078A.icm), I renamed it in the directory Erick mentioned and that fixed it. After a reboot, the discoloration problem didn't show up again. (It always reappeared after rebooting.) Thanks a bunch, you two. This is why I love these forums.

Nick

[creayta]

I went in to color management in Desktop properties, but when i attempt to remove the color settings, it says it can't, so i tried to add Adobe RGB (1998) on top of the default choice. This changed my colors in Adobe CS3 so that my "gray" colours were no longer brown!

[wortell]

thanks again, i deleted all profiles (mine was listed as expected - as I (we) all think it should be for my Dell 2208WFP Monitor - as DELL 2208WFP). It's kinda wierd, but completely fixed the brown to gray issue altogether .