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General discussion

Green Hair Photos

Dec 23, 2005 5:00AM PST

My trash Dell Dimension 8300 computer, with Window XP Pro, has decided that people with some shades of blonde, grey, or brown hair really are green heads. This is done to people pictures when I download from any web site, or try to use any photo management program such as Paint Shop, Picasa, etc. I have one of Dell's LCD dual purpose displays. The hair color on the tv bit is reasonably good, but when using the monitor part, it's a mess. The hair shows as green on the display, and prints green with my Epson Stylus Photo RX 500. Landscapes show and print almost normally (for digital). I have a new camera, thinking that would solve the problem -didn't. I wasted $160.00 on a Best Buy geek. He was such a farce the I had to reinstall the entire system with much help from Microsoft. -That did nothing fot the photos, but at least it repaired his damage to my system. The Dell techs exhibited their usual incompetence, and the Kodak people were simply at a loss -turns out, contrary to Dell, that the Kodak camera was fine. None of my friends have green hair. Any ideas, please!!!!!

Discussion is locked

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What color management tools do you use?
Dec 23, 2005 5:45AM PST
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The Gren Hair Guy
Dec 23, 2005 11:28AM PST

To show you how dumb I must be about computers, I had to wander off to your lead to find out what a color management tool is. I now assume you are talking about calibration, which neither I, nor apparently Dell or the Best Buy Geek have heard anything about. As I mentioned, I was a professional photographer, and did all (almost all) of my own darkroom work -that, of course, was in the days of flashpowder. Now then, may I assume that if I have my monitor calibrated that would (probably) (possibly) (maybe) take care of my problem? Do I have to buy the equipment and learn how to use it myself?, or could I expect to find a tech in Reno who could do it correctly in the first place. Thanks, Jack

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I rarely find such at most stores except...
Dec 23, 2005 11:35AM PST

Except the Apple Computer stores. You'll see those Pantone Spyders on the shelf and if you find the more seasoned Apple person they'll explain all about it.

For the PC world, it's short of amazing how far off the colors are from camera to screen to print. The Spyder (there are many models) would fix the issue.

None of the common PC venues may know this area very well.

Bob

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Green Hair
Jan 10, 2006 5:30AM PST

Bob: Thanks for your reply to my post. I've given up on finding anyone in Reno who might do the color calibration and am going to accept your (and others) advice to buy a color calibrator. Thanks again. Jack

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Jack the Flash Power Guy:
Dec 24, 2005 2:41PM PST

Jack,
Your remarks are hilarious. Really funny to me.
What on earth is wrong with your monitor? Or is it Dell?
Green Hair?
I guess you old enough to remember the movie??The boy with the green hair??
The movie started out in black and white. When the kid suddenly got green hair, the movie went to technicolor. The kid's name was Brendon Dewild? Am I nuts, or what?
Also starred as the kid in the western ?SHANE.?

Now, back to your green problem. Problem with the Video card? Monitor? Dell?
Do yourself a favor. Bring your Dell back to Best Buy with your monitor and get your full purchase price back. No if's and's or but's. Or should I say BUTTS?
I do not like BestBuy. Gave me a tuck when I purchased a monitor a few years ago.
I purchace from the internet exclusively now. NewEgg.com is a good source for me. 100% Guaranteed. Check them out.
From California, not Reno!
What kind of a monitor do you have? What color is it? Green?
Just kidding.
What a shame. Do not calibrate it. Just get your money back!
Something is definately wrong and it is not your fault.

I belong to AARP and their Credit Card Servive from Chase Bank.
If ever I have a problem with a purchase, such as yours, I indicate the problem to them in writing, after no satisfaction such as BestBuy, and AARP/CHASE will help to get me a refund. Part of my service with AARP. I have used it a few times, unfortunately. Check them out also. Just a great deal for anyone over the age of fifty.
I was farty-four and my wife is farty-too a few years ago.

Now, if you were Irish, had a lot of beer available, we would be over to your house viewing all your friends with green hair! :

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Green Hair
Dec 25, 2005 7:45AM PST

Kevin:

One of the many problems is that all my warranties have expired. The problem with that is Dell stalled me for over a year blaming everything on Kodak, now they don't want to even talk to me. That's probably a good thing because their techs never solved a single problem I took to them. The monitor/tv is a Dell. Before I had a clue of even knowing much more than how to turn the computer on the resolution went kooky. I called Dell, and some expert tied me up for three hours doing verious things that had nothing to do (as I later learned) with resolution. He finally referred me to customer service, who said don't worry about a thing, we'll send you a new monitor. While waiting I talked to friends, learned how to adjust the resolution, and did so. I wasn't able to be home when the ''new'' monitor was delivered -intending just to send it back. Two friends took delivery for me, and not knowing anything about the situation they accepted the new one, packed up my original and sent it back to Dell. It turned out that the ''new'' one was a reconditioned item, but being the last of the good guys (sucker) I just plugged it in. They had overcharged me six hundred dollars to start with, did not install what I'd actually ordered. Things with Dell went downhill from there.

A few weeks later I did some really good portraits and printed them without any problem. A few days later the newest prints and images had green hair. I called Dell and was informed that this obviously wasn't their fault, and that I should call Kodak. Did so, and wound up going back and forth for over a year.

My experience with Best Buy was just with the Geek Squad. I'll be going down to them after the first of the year to show how wonderfully helpful their last effort was.

I think I've heard my Grandparents talk about B&W movies and some guy named Brando DeWilde. Being just a hair over 70 I don't go all the way back to Shane. (Even if he was Alan Ladd.)

Thanks for you note. Jack

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Green Hair and having been off.
Dec 25, 2005 2:47PM PST

Jack, what a shaaaaaame. You just have to respond to this quickly with your credit card providor. Do it within thirty days or after receiving the bill. Check out the four point type with your bank and their agreements and use a magnifying glass to read this.
My bank and AARP/CHASE is wonderful. They have solved problems with me before. The key is to do it quickly and post with your bank documenting all correspondences to them and your dissatisfacation with them.

I just thought of something that may or not be helpful to you. Did you get a new CD to install with your new Dell monitor that was delivered as a replacement and to install their software?
Have your monitor numbers handy and go to Dell to download their drivers and software for this replacement monitor. That may be the key and a solution for you.
I have a Viewsonic G90fb flat-screen CRT monitor. The Monitor comes with a CD disk to color manage the monitor (Viewsonic Wizzard). Just great!
Hope this helps and to get rid of the Green Hair.

Brando DeWilde was the kid in the movie starring Alan Ladd in the movie: SHANE.
Shane, Shane, Shane!?Get the hook!
Boy With The Green Hair?OK!

-Kevin

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It is common practice for digital photographers to need to
Dec 25, 2005 2:07AM PST

calibrate their monitors although it does seem a bit unusual for the colors to be that much off. The camera stores like Ritz or Wolf barely know what color management is when you get prints made. The retail stores like Bestbuy don't have a clue. That kind of question is far beyond their marketing interest. Bestbuy doesn't even sell good photo printers.

Another thing usually done is to use the color profile for the ink/paper combination being used for the prints. That needs to be correct to get a good print. If you are using paper or ink that was not made by your printer manufacturer, your colors may be poor.

Finally, you need to be clear about what software is doing the color management. If your printer driver is doing it, then your photo software should not. If, for example, both Photoshop and an Epson printer driver perform color management, the color on the print will have lots of problems like green hair.

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Green Hair
Dec 25, 2005 8:08AM PST

Kiddpeat, thanks for yiu note:

I did a long apprenticeship when I went into photography, But as I said the was in the days of flash powder. Ok, assuming that I had the colour profiles, what then? With enlargers all you needed (basically) was the right light bulb. I really knew papers and their importance as to quality. Knew developers and fixers. Worked with platinum and so forth. Won more awards than I can remember. But left the business a long time ago. I can still take great (I'm not particularly modest) photos. I don't do snapshots.

How do I find out which driver is doing my photo management? I use Paint shop (Photo Shop is over my head and present need). I also use Picasa for quick work. I'd go to school if there was one here in Reno.

Would it be be simplier to just toss all the Dell stuff and go the Mac? What is the meaning of Life. I'm so confused. I want my Mommy.

Thanks again. Jack

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I apologize for just getting back to this forum. If the
Jan 9, 2006 10:05AM PST

question is still open, let me try to answer it.

First, it doesn't matter if you use a PC or a Mac. You still have to perform the same color management. The college I go to has Macs. They have to be calibrated in exactly the same way as my PC at home.

First, the monitor. It has to be calibrated. If you use Photoshop, a rather crude calibration tool is supplied with it. We are taught that it is far better to use a calibration tool to set up the monitor. I use the MonacoEZColor system with the OPTIX-XR PRO device. This device is suspended in front of the monitor while software fires a series of known colors at it. Based on what it 'sees', it creates a profile for the monitor which will allow the monitor to display colors accurately. The profile is passed to the operating system which uses it to determine how colors are displayed. The profile is used independently of your photo software. Competing devices are available from GretagMcBeth, and, I think, from Pantone. The monitor will drift out of alignment, so recalibration needs to be done on a regular basis.

That allows an image to be accurately displayed although your imaging software will also get into the act via your choice of color space to be used when working with the image. The Adobe RGB(199Cool color space is usually recommended. Photoshop also is able to simulate how an image will look when printed using a particular ink and paper combination. It can also simulate some choices of presses used to print images. It does, however, need printer/display profiles before it can simulate the appearance. I don't know what abilities are present in your Paint Shop software. The basic idea is that some displayed colors are outside the gamut available for printing. Corrections may be needed to prevent problems.

Finally, if the image is printed, a conversion needs to be done to determine how to accurately convert the image to printed form. Again, a profile is needed for the printer/ink/paper combination to tell the software how to convert the image for an accurate rendition. Higher end Epson printers, for example, are shipped with profiles for the various Epson papers which can be used with the printer. If no profile is available, it can be constructed by color measuring equipment. Monaco/X-Rite has such equipment, but it is, unfortunately, fairly expensive. Epson printer drivers will usually apply the profiles, but can be told not to do so. In that case, the software (i.e. Photoshop) printing the image must apply the printer profile. Severe color problems occur if the profile is applied twice; once by the imaging software, and a second time by the printer driver. As before, I don't know how all this works in Paint shop.

How do you know what profiles are being used? In my system, I right click on the PC screen and select Properties. One of the tabs in Properties is 'Settings'. In 'Settings', I click on the 'Advanced' button. One of the Advanced tabs is 'Color Management'. It tells me what profile is being used for the monitor. My video card is a fairly high powered one (ATI 9700 Pro AIW), so you may not have this final set of tabs. In that case, I can only suggest a bit of research to find out how one finds the monitor profile Windows is using.

How do you know what driver is being used? The printer driver is the one which comes up every time you print something. It should have a tab or button which says properties. Explore those to see if there is any sign of a color profile or type of paper being used. By paper, I mean something like 'Epson Premium Glossy' or 'Epson Enhanced Matte'. If you see that, that's how you select the profile. If you don't, the printer probably doesn't offer that level of control. In that case, you may have to go back to Paintshop to see if it supports printer profiles.

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Back to the forum
Jan 9, 2006 11:00AM PST

Better late than never.
Nice post!
I worked for a company that calibrated all their monitors on a weekly basis in their production department so that a worker would be able to go from one station to another and all the monitors were identical using, I think, the OPTIX-XR PRO device.
That way, color corrections would be identical using Adobe Photoshop with each station and monitor.

Bob Proffitt suggested using also the Pantone color management system. Together,
I would bet that the color you see on the screen would be the color printed.
I use Quark Express at work and at home. Quark has a color management process also called Swop that shows correct color I believe for print-out.

Kidpeat, I have a Viewsonic Graphic Series G90fg at home. The color and deffinition is really amazing compared to the piece of junk that I use at work.

Care to comment on monitors also for us. We would welcome your input.
I will start a new post right now headed: Monitor, Monitor?Which one is best? Post your thoughts there for us. Maybe you could have a nice discussion on that subject and help us all out.

Thank you,

-Kevin

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Mine is a NEC Multisync FE991SB or so it says on the
Jan 10, 2006 3:27AM PST

front panel. I have a CRT because, at the time I bought my system, CRTs had the best and fastest color renditions. This has probably shifted now as LCDs and other flat panel technology has improved.

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Thanks
Jan 10, 2006 5:38AM PST

To up date: Best Buy has given up on their Geek Squad getting anything done with my color, and has refunded my payment. They have probably offered up sacrifices in the hope that I do not return.

My thanks for your suggestions. I am going to go ahead and buy a color calibator. Might wind up being the color calibating specialist in Nevada. Thanks again. Jack

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Thanks!
Jan 10, 2006 5:27AM PST

To update: Best Buy has given up on anything due to my problem and refunded what I previously paid for their Geek. I'm going to bite the silver bullet that a masked man left with me many years ago and simply buy one of the color calibrators that you and others have mentioned. Perhaps I can go into the business of calibrating other sets -no one in Reno seems to be able or care to do so. You've been very helpful, and patient, and I appreiate it very much. When I get this solved, I'll get back and tell you how. Thank agains. Jack

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Best Buy is a mass merchandiser. They wouldn't recognize
Jan 10, 2006 6:52AM PST

color management if it hit them over the head. I cannot find things like paper or ink at Best Buy. They only stock high volume stuff. Most camera stores, especially chains, don't know squat about it either. Interestingly, Costco is dialed into the process via a web site called Dry Creek Photo. Dry Creek has the color profiles 'for Fuji Frontier and Noritsu digital printers' including those used by Costco. You can find your local Costco's printer profile on this site, download it, embed it in your image, and tell Costco to print it without any automatic adjustments. The result should be a print that looks exactly like what you see on your own system. Many photographers around here use Costco to get their prints.

Unfortunately, although this process works well in Photoshop, I don't know if it will work in your software.

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Follow up
Jan 10, 2006 11:41AM PST

Again my thanks. Will try. Jack

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Calibration of Monitors
Dec 26, 2005 5:26AM PST

Good post. What's wrong with the color with this new replacement monitor?