Color Settings Images are too warm and light while editing

Question

Can someone help me understand color settings in Photoshop. My images look much lighter and warmer when I edit them than when I export them using Save for Web.
For a while I though it was because I was importing a raw file with a different color depth and profile so when it got saved as a jpg that the colors and brightness would shift. Recently, I made a graphic in Photoshop and it still looked warmer than the export. I also know temperature is displayed wrong in photoshop because when I create a neutral gray color its too warm. When it's exported using save for web the temperature is shown correctly.
If it was a mis calibrated monitor it would look warm all of the time. I'm using Photoshop CS3, my color profile is sRGB with color management turned off (its off because espon recommends this setting because it can better manage colors). Although I tried changing these settings and they don't seem to make a difference. Here's neutral gray image with screen caps to show you what I'm talking about.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a317/pcofran/test/photoshop-color.jpg

Answer 1

Calibration tools calibrate your monitor to produce colors on screen that will look proper given your room lighting. Think of calibration as being a very precise, accurate adjustment to the contrast, brightness, and RGB controls of your monitor. Obviously, if these controls are set differently, your images will view differently. Calibration results in the monitor being set properly for display of images at a known gamma. You can get fairly good, but not totally accurate, calibration visually, without a colorimeter, using appropriate software tools.
Calibration tools also produce a profile that allows color managed software, such as Photoshop, to adjust its output for very precise reproduction within the gamut of your display. Again, there are some tools that produce a profile visually, but you get better results with a colorimeter.
Why should this be necessary? You want to display your images with the intended colors. You also want the proper colors to be sent to your printer or the files on your website. If your monitor isn't properly calibrated and profiled, pixels from the image file that are, say, light gray (RGB 200,200,200) might appear as middle gray, near-white, or even tinged with red or blue. If you adjust the colors in the image file so it displays the way you want it, the pixels in the file will no longer be light gray and will display as something else entirely on a different monitor, when printed, or when viewed at a website.