Why are colors different on my MacBook Pro?

I am struggling with some color issues and am wondering if anyone can
help shed some light on what's going on.

We have several macs in our office that we use for developing printed
and interactive materials. We occasionally need to grab files from
clients' websites for editing or reference. When we spec colors for web
use, we typically use 8-bit hex. Here is where the problem begins:

If we all open the same webpage in Safari, then check colors using
Apple's DigitalColor Meter (RGB 8-bit hex), everyone gets the same
colors numbers -- except me. For example if everyone checks the same
blue background on a page, they all get 163B98 except me. I get 153997.
The diffence is small, but it is still different.

Everyone is running custom monitor profiles based on their individaul
calibration settings, however it doesn't seem to matter which color
profile is being used for the display profile. Switching profiles
changes the appearance of the colors, but not the numbers.

I rebooted into Safe Mode to see if something like Adobe CS2's color
sync or some background daemon might be the cause, but nothing changed.

Can anyone suggest why my colors numbers would be different? Most of
the machines are G5's or Powerbooks running the most recent OS, except
me. I'm on a MacBook Pro with an Intel procressor. Could that have
anything to do with it?

jshock <> wrote:

> I am struggling with some color issues and am wondering if anyone can
> help shed some light on what's going on.
>
> We have several macs in our office that we use for developing printed
> and interactive materials. We occasionally need to grab files from
> clients' websites for editing or reference. When we spec colors for web
> use, we typically use 8-bit hex. Here is where the problem begins:
>
> If we all open the same webpage in Safari, then check colors using
> Apple's DigitalColor Meter (RGB 8-bit hex), everyone gets the same
> colors numbers -- except me. For example if everyone checks the same
> blue background on a page, they all get 163B98 except me. I get 153997.
> The diffence is small, but it is still different.
>
> Everyone is running custom monitor profiles based on their individaul
> calibration settings, however it doesn't seem to matter which color
> profile is being used for the display profile. Switching profiles
> changes the appearance of the colors, but not the numbers.

No, it *is* the profile that is making this difference. When I change my
display profile in the Displays > Color panel of System Preferences, all
values read by DigitalColor Meter change. Use the Swatches palette in
Photoshop as a standard and you'll see. The palette has tooltips that
tell you what colors Adobe thinks you should be seeing, but you won't
get those same values in DigitalColor Meter unless you match the display
profile (OMM, that means using Adobe RGB as my display profile). m.

--
matt neuburg, phd = , http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
Tiger - http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
AppleScript - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102119
Read TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com

matt neuburg wrote:

> No, it *is* the profile that is making this difference. When I change my
> display profile in the Displays > Color panel of System Preferences, all
> values read by DigitalColor Meter change. Use the Swatches palette in
> Photoshop as a standard and you'll see. The palette has tooltips that
> tell you what colors Adobe thinks you should be seeing, but you won't
> get those same values in DigitalColor Meter unless you match the display
> profile (OMM, that means using Adobe RGB as my display profile). m.

Once you switch to Photoshop the profile you're using in Photoshop's
color setting overrides the monitor. Don't use photoshop - adobe's
color management confuseds the issue -- just use a web browser and
DigitalColor meter. If you change the monitors color profile, the hex
color values should remain the same. At least they do on every machine
in our office.

jshock <> wrote:

> matt neuburg wrote:
>
> > No, it *is* the profile that is making this difference. When I change my
> > display profile in the Displays > Color panel of System Preferences, all
> > values read by DigitalColor Meter change. Use the Swatches palette in
> > Photoshop as a standard and you'll see. The palette has tooltips that
> > tell you what colors Adobe thinks you should be seeing, but you won't
> > get those same values in DigitalColor Meter unless you match the display
> > profile (OMM, that means using Adobe RGB as my display profile). m.
>
> Once you switch to Photoshop the profile you're using in Photoshop's
> color setting overrides the monitor. Don't use photoshop - adobe's
> color management confuseds the issue -- just use a web browser and
> DigitalColor meter. If you change the monitors color profile, the hex
> color values should remain the same. At least they do on every machine
> in our office.

Okay, agreed - I'm wrong (and confused, since I don't get why Photoshop
is behaving differently).

The only other thing I can think of is that you're right about the Intel
difference. It may be that DigitalColor Meter has a bug where the
byte-reversal on Intel messes up its calculations or something... Does
it work right if you force it to run under Rosetta? m.


--
matt neuburg, phd = , http://www.tidbits.com/matt/
Tiger - http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
AppleScript - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102119
Read TidBITS! It's free and smart. http://www.tidbits.com