Color Management in Bridge CS6

Question

Hello,
I'm having a strange color management issue in Bridge (64 bit). Essentially, Bridge is not displaying images in either the thumbnails or preview pane using the correct color profile.
Background: I'm on Windows using a dual monitor setup (both independantly calibrated) but I have the issue even when I use only one monitor. Photoshop has no issues with color settings. I've tried resetting all settings (hitting Ctrl as Bridge starts). I've tried purging my cache and having Bridge generate monitor-size previews.
The weirdest part is when I start Bridge, for a split second images appear to be in the correct profile, and then Bridge adjusts everything to the wrong color profile.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Omke Oudeman wrote:
about A:
I don't get that, I have a custom made monitor profile based on D65 and with or without this profile the only difference one would spot would be in the total picture, this screenshot shows what I see and that is not as much difference between the Bridge thumb and preview (and in the metadata placard you can see they are 16 bit ProPhoto with on top of it the floating PS panel with the same image. It is one picture of one screen, without my monitor profile (and without knowing what happens during the adding process to the Adobe site) or with, the difference between both applications would not change, only the total picture. (or I really don't understand anything anymore about color management )
The first threshold question is whether you're using a wide gamut monitor. I'm going to assume the answer is yes. The reason it's essential to embed your monitor profile in your screenshot is if you do not have a wide gamut monitor, someone looking at your image who does will be able to tell since the gamut will be smaller than it should be. If you are not using a wide gamut monitor, that would explain why you cannot see the difference. Additionally, whether you have a wide-gamut monitor or not, if you do not embed a profile, the untagged image will appear way oversaturated when brought into Photoshop (this is happening for me) unless I can guess the approximate color space of your monitor.
Admittedly, if you are using a wide-gamut monitor, then although the image will be way oversatured without a profile (until I assign one), both the Photoshop portion and Bridge portion should be way oversatured by the same amount. However it's not particularly helpful to use guesswork and approximation when trying to narrow down a problem like this. You say "this screenshot shows what I see," but you have to keep in mind you are looking at it on your monitor. Even though your screenshot will obviously look right to you on your monitor, someone looking at it on a smaller gamut monitor won't see what you're talking about.
about B:
There you have a point but this was a current project at hand and at this moment there is a bit over saturation in the wood. In real life I also almost never have to deal with the bright colors of your example. I don't want to go again messing my workspaces to create a screenshot for the files you provided but I can assure you I have less to none difference between both files in both Bridge and PS, like I never have seen your problem on my current computer (Mac Pro, 2 x 2,4 6 core intel Xeon mid 2012 and a lot of RAM and SSD etc including ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB VRAM running OSX 10.8.3) as well as my former MacPro with same graphic card - and two others - that I used since 2008 during OSX 10.5 to 10.7 with all used versions of CS.
Yea, I understand why you don't want to mess with your workflow. I wouldn't either if I were in the middle of a project. But (assuming you have a wide-gamut monitor) if you finish a project and do get the chance, I encourage you to try the ProPhotoRGB color patch in Photoshop versus Bridge. When you really stray from sRGB, you, like me and Yammer, should see a major difference. I suppose there's the possibility that the Mac version of Bridge works differently, but that doesn't seem likely. It's possible you've never noticed the difference before because (again, assuming you have a wide-gamut monitor) you've never been looking for it, or you don't shoot many subjects with colors vastly outside sRGB - things like flowers, dyes, clothing, bright lights, etc.
And as for the quote, I also never make my choices based on colors for DNG in Bridge, in fact, I always shoot with manual WB set to 5500 K, whether in daylight or artificial light, I just don't bother because I want my colors to be adjusted in ACR and refined the way I want them in PS. The plus side of manual WB is that all colors are off in the same way and can be adjusted in the correct direction in one go for a series
That's an interesting idea and really illustrates the beauty of shooting RAW - tons on flexibility. And in fact, whether you use manual white balance, or don't, with RAW everything can be corrected or adjusted from a certain baseline by the same amount after the fact anyway.