Need HELP from the Color Management Experts!

I profiled my monitor using Spyder Pro 3.0.4. I then upgraded to Photoshop to CS4 from CS3. When i view my

images in ACR, or photoshop, the images look great. I color correct them etc....then save them to JPEG. When i

view the JPEGS in, lets say, windows picture viewer, the images look warmer and the blacks looks somewhat

crushed.

I checked that the correct profile is the right default for windows (the one i used for the Spyder calibration).

My typical workfow is to color correct in ACR, batch process to convert to JPEG. My question is:

How do i get my photos in window based applications to match that of Adobe? I want to simply edit my photos in

adobe and be able to send those to the lab to match what i saw during editing. Also, when i burn those images to

DVD for clients, i want the clients to see as close to possible to what i am seeing (i know that they probably will not

have a profiled monitor but i don't want the images to change to warm tents and crushed blacks).

In my color settings in Adobe, it says:

Settings: North America General Purpose 2

RGB: SRGBIEC61966-2.1

CMYK: U.S WEB COATED (SWOP) V2

GRAY: DOT GRAIN 20%

SPOT: DOT GRAIN 20%

RGB: PRESERVE EMBEDED PROFILES

CMYK: PRESERVE EMBEDED PROFILES

GRAY: PRESERVE EMBEDED PROFILES

How can i acheive consistant colors in ADOBE, Windows, and for my Lab? Thank you so much for your help!

pretty much that's it. Quit looking at photos in Windows based stuff. And make sure your lab knows to NOT change

anything when they go to print.

"You could try begging Microsoft to make their apps ICC aware but good luck with that."

Very helpful Ellis. So, do you ever provide images to clients that use PCs - or do you just tell them TS - I don't work with people unless they buy a Mac?

You can only view images accurately on a PC using applications that will use the monitor profile and output profile such as Adobe PS, Illustrator, Corel Paintshop, Corel Painter X, etc. Other Windows applications will not provide accurate colors as they are not aware of profiles . If you want to give clients something that will work on Windows machines, use sRGB as the image profile - that will get you close. If you are preserving the colorspace (preserve embedded profile) - then you need to check and see that the output is being saved in sRGB.

You should be using the profile provided by your lab - or coordinate your profile assigned to the image with the lab - what you see on your screen should match the output from the lab as their applications should be aware of profiles.

Unforunately the basic answer is for display to output to the lowest common denominator- convert to sRGB.

For print, do as Steve advises and convert to the right profile they provide (or provide in your source space if they are going to do the conversion for you).