Why do all of the images I open in my photoshop appear a lot lighter and more washed out than they print, or look in other applications? This causes me to often make graphics too dark. Should I change something in my color settings? Thanks in advance

oh before converting / printing try a touch of colour collour crrection with the greys, note (poor image example) the numbers in the info pallete.. R G (and) B are all equal who cares if it doesn't look grey numbers don' lie. (much)

Thanks for the help - In playing around I find that if I turn my color setting to "no color management," my images are not as washed out in photoshop. They appear to look the same as if I would open them up in other applications, such as the default windows photo viewer, or work, etc. It seems to print more like how it looks on the screen now. Is there adrawback to having "no color management" selected?

So then the "no color management" will make it less accurate? The thing is that it appears to print the same whether I have the color settings turned on or off, but it just looks different on my screen?

I put my color settings to "Color Management Off". Works best for me.

So I guess it's just trial an error with setting up Photoshop to look on the screen how it's going to print, or is there a better way?

It's best to calibrate your monitor and to take into consideration the lighting on the office environment as well. In the old days calibrating meant you'd synchronize your equipment. With PS it meant you'd adjust or compensate for the colour display of your scanner, monitor, and printer so that whatever you scanned, matched what you'd see on your screen and would output correctly from your printer... this of course is IMPOSSIBLE!!! it's just by calibrating you try to make it as "close-as-possibe".

How do you go about calibrating?

Photoshop has a little utility called Adobe Gamma, you can use this to create an ICC profile for your monitor...

search Adobe's site for more indepth information about this as it can get confusing. Colour Management is always a tough subject because of the sheer number of little things that can impact your settings.

:)
retrocity

Why colors sometimes don'tmatch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No device in a publishing system is capable of reproducing the full range of colors viewable to the human eye. Each device operates within a specific color space, which can produce a certain range, orgamut, of colors. The RGB and CMYK color modes represent two main categories of color spaces. Thegamuts of the RGB and CMYK spaces are very different; while the RGB gamut is is, capable of representing more color) than CMYK, some CMYK colors still fall outside the RGB range. In addition, different devices produce slightly different gamuts within the same color mode. For example, a variety of RGB spaces can exist among scanners and monitors, and a variety of CMYK spaces can exist among printing presses. Because of these varying color spaces, colors can shift in appearance as you transfer documents between different devices. * View your documents in an environment that provides a consistent light level * View your document in a room with neutral-colored walls and ceiling. A room's color can affect the perception of both monitor color and printed color. * Remove colorful background and user-interface patterns on your monitor desktop then you can View document proofs in the real-world conditions under which your audience will see the final piece. Color Management Off Uses passive color management techniques to emulate the behavior of applications that do not support color management. It is strongly recommended that you keep the AskWhen Opening and Ask When Pasting options selected.