Window 7 Photo Viewer Color Depth?

PilotBrad

I am having a slight color problem when viewing images through Win7's native photo viewer. Take a look at this example...

http://pilotbrad.smugmug.com/Photography/Window-7-Photo-View-Color/11007960_6EufY#769757583_VTzh9

If you zoom in X3 or Original size you will see that there is some banding and color degradation in the image on the right, which is as it is presented by Win7's photo viewer. The image on the left is the exact same JPEG file, viewed at the exact same time, as presented by Photoshop and/or Picasa.

If you are having a problem seeing the differences, look at the coloring around her nose, or in the shadows on her leg to the right of her face.

I've checked my display settings and I am running at 32-bit color, and I am using the latest drivers for my Nvidia 8800GT based video card.

I could perhaps understand (and thats stretching it a bit) if the pictures displayed differently at different times, but I am seeing these differences when the same files are opened in two viewers simulateously.

Anybody have any idea what could be going on here?

Or should I just throw it all away and run to the nearest Apple store?

Pittspilot

PilotBrad wrote:

I am having a slight color problem when viewing images through Win7's native photo viewer. Take a look at this example...

http://pilotbrad.smugmug.com/Photography/Window-7-Photo-View-Color/11007960_6EufY#769757583_VTzh9

If you zoom in X3 or Original size you will see that there is some banding and color degradation in the image on the right, which is as it is presented by Win7's photo viewer. The image on the left is the exact same JPEG file, viewed at the exact same time, as presented by Photoshop and/or Picasa.

If you are having a problem seeing the differences, look at the coloring around her nose, or in the shadows on her leg to the right of her face.

I've checked my display settings and I am running at 32-bit color, and I am using the latest drivers for my Nvidia 8800GT based video card.

I could perhaps understand (and thats stretching it a bit) if the pictures displayed differently at different times, but I am seeing these differences when the same files are opened in two viewers simulateously.

Anybody have any idea what could be going on here?

Or should I just throw it all away and run to the nearest Apple store?

You probably should run to the Apple store!! :-))

However, in real life it MUST be a shortcoming in the rendering in Win7 photoviewer. If you can see images in other apps OK (and I see the 'posterization' you mean) then it must be the app.

Lesson? Don't use that viewer for serious work.....

Cheers

PilotBrad

Pittspilot wrote:

Lesson? Don't use that viewer for serious work.....

Thanks, and I agree... but we do use MS viewers for family stuff and for media sharing throughout the house.

I guess I am just frustrated with the fact that despite all the praise and acclaim Win7 has received, much of it with regards to digital media, I have now encountered several issues with it. I guess I'll just have to hope SP1 fixes some of this stuff.

Pittspilot

PilotBrad wrote:

Thanks, and I agree... but we do use MS viewers for family stuff and for media sharing throughout the house.

I guess I am just frustrated with the fact that despite all the praise and acclaim Win7 has received, much of it with regards to digital media, I have now encountered several issues with it. I guess I'll just have to hope for SP1 fixes some of this stuff.

Ah, lipstick on the pig huh?

Seriously, I have both platforms, but choose to use Mac for all my productivity work....

PilotBrad

I don't have another screen shot to show, but last night I was sharpening a photo (jpeg) in Photoshop and and after exporting it I double-clicked on the exported jpeg file to check the results. The photo opened in Win7's photo viewer and it was horribly "posterized" leading me to believe I must have done something wrong during the export from PS. I then opened that new jpeg in PS and it looked just fine... perfect in fact. So I opened it in Picasa, again it looked perfect.

I've got just under 30,000 photos on my PC taken with a variety of P&S cameras over the years and I've looked at MANY of them in PS, Picasa and Win7's photo viewer but have NEVER seen any discernable difference in the photos.

So that then begs the question... what is different about photos taken with my Canon DSLR? Could it have something to do with the color space selected in the camera?

Pittspilot

PilotBrad wrote:

I don't have another screen shot to show, but last night I was sharpening a photo (jpeg) in Photoshop and and after exporting it I double-clicked on the exported jpeg file to check the results. The photo opened in Win7's photo viewer and it was horribly "posterized" leading me to believe I must have done something wrong during the export from PS. I then opened that new jpeg in PS and it looked just fine... perfect in fact. So I opened it in Picasa, again it looked perfect.

I've got just under 30,000 photos on my PC taken with a variety of P&S cameras over the years and I've looked at MANY of them in PS, Picasa and Win7's photo viewer but have NEVER seen any discernable difference in the photos.

So that then begs the question... what is different about photos taken with my Canon DSLR? Could it have something to do with the color space selected in the camera?

Color space is a possibility. If you are set to sRGB in camera though, you are using the same as the web / desktop.

PilotBrad

Problem solved!
Just a quick follow up... the problem has been solved!

It turns out it had something to do with Win7's color management and my monitor's profile. I solved it by turning off the config file made specifically for my monitory (Dell), and using a custom calibration.

Pittspilot

PilotBrad wrote:

Just a quick follow up... the problem has been solved!

It turns out it had something to do with Win7's color management and my monitor's profile. I solved it by turning off the config file made specifically for my monitory (Dell), and using a custom calibration.

Welcome to the fun world of workflow!