Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) is one of the features I like most about Vista.

I started noticing that pictures viewed in WPG appear to have a yellow-ish
tinge to them and the background, instead of being white, is also yellow.

This does not affect thumbnails view, but as soon as a thumbnail is double
clicked to view as a larger image, this happens.

I've read numerous posts on various sites, including MSDN forums, with many
people experiencing this but no solution.

To verify that I wasn't just seeing things, I opened the same picture in
Photo Gallery, PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom and Office Picture Manager, at the
same time to compare side by side. And sure enough, all, except for WPG,
showed the same picture with accurate colours and tones.

Is this a bug in Windows Photo Gallery that was missed?

/Rob/ said:
> Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) is one of the features I like most about Vista.
>
> I started noticing that pictures viewed in WPG appear to have a yellow-ish
> tinge to them and the background, instead of being white, is also yellow.
>
> This does not affect thumbnails view, but as soon as a thumbnail is double
> clicked to view as a larger image, this happens.
>
> I've read numerous posts on various sites, including MSDN forums, with many
> people experiencing this but no solution.
>
> To verify that I wasn't just seeing things, I opened the same picture in
> Photo Gallery, PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom and Office Picture Manager, at the
> same time to compare side by side. And sure enough, all, except for WPG,
> showed the same picture with accurate colours and tones.
>
> Is this a bug in Windows Photo Gallery that was missed?

Compared a scanned page and a jpg photo in WPG and several other
viewers, and were identical for both images, so it doesn't appear to be
a bug in the program.

Rob wrote:
> Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) is one of the features I like most about Vista.
>
> I started noticing that pictures viewed in WPG appear to have a yellow-ish
> tinge to them and the background, instead of being white, is also yellow.
>
> This does not affect thumbnails view, but as soon as a thumbnail is double
> clicked to view as a larger image, this happens.
>
> I've read numerous posts on various sites, including MSDN forums, with many
> people experiencing this but no solution.
>
> To verify that I wasn't just seeing things, I opened the same picture in
> Photo Gallery, PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom and Office Picture Manager, at the
> same time to compare side by side. And sure enough, all, except for WPG,
> showed the same picture with accurate colours and tones.
>
> Is this a bug in Windows Photo Gallery that was missed?
Do you have any Adobe products installed?

Look for Adobe Gamma in startup and disable it.

Guy

In message <7D067B6A-477E-45F3-A8CB-6070CFD0D035@microsoft.com> Rob
<Rob@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) is one of the features I like most about Vista.
>
>I started noticing that pictures viewed in WPG appear to have a yellow-ish
>tinge to them and the background, instead of being white, is also yellow.
>
>This does not affect thumbnails view, but as soon as a thumbnail is double
>clicked to view as a larger image, this happens.
>
>I've read numerous posts on various sites, including MSDN forums, with many
>people experiencing this but no solution.
>
>To verify that I wasn't just seeing things, I opened the same picture in
>Photo Gallery, PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom and Office Picture Manager, at the
>same time to compare side by side. And sure enough, all, except for WPG,
>showed the same picture with accurate colours and tones.
>
>Is this a bug in Windows Photo Gallery that was missed?

Would it be possible to get a copy of one of those photos showing the
problem?

Email address is valid, if this is possible.

--
If quitters never win, and winners never quit,
what fool came up with, "Quit while you're ahead"?

Try deleting/recreating the color profile associated with your monitor using
Color Management in Control Panel.

General color mgmt info at
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...30c791033.mspx

--
Andy Sweet
Windows User Assistance team
Microsoft Corporation

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 13:39:13 -0700, "Andy Sweet [MSFT]"
<andysw@online.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Try deleting/recreating the color profile associated with your monitor using
>Color Management in Control Panel.
>
>General color mgmt info at
>http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...30c791033.mspx

Can you confirm Photo Galley uses some type of color management? If so
what method and can/how you modify,disable or remove it?

The reason I ask is Photo Galley does NOT accurately reproduce images
confirmed by viewing side by side in Photoshop which has the ability
to apply any number of color management options or none at all. When
none are selected, you can see Photo Galley is fudging something. Why?

Here are the two pictures:

1. http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/8...managerao3.jpg (viewing
using Office Picture Manager.

2. http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/5620/wpgzk3.jpg (using Windows Photo
Gallery)

Also, here are a couple of screen shots from my Color Management window
although frankly I don't know much about how color management works in Vista
and these profiles installed on their own during a clean Vista install.

First (Profiles) http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6972/profilesjv3.jpg

Second (Advanced Screen)
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6...olormgtom8.jpg



"DevilsPGD" wrote:

> In message <7D067B6A-477E-45F3-A8CB-6070CFD0D035@microsoft.com> Rob
> <Rob@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >Windows Photo Gallery (WPG) is one of the features I like most about Vista.
> >
> >I started noticing that pictures viewed in WPG appear to have a yellow-ish
> >tinge to them and the background, instead of being white, is also yellow.
> >
> >This does not affect thumbnails view, but as soon as a thumbnail is double
> >clicked to view as a larger image, this happens.
> >
> >I've read numerous posts on various sites, including MSDN forums, with many
> >people experiencing this but no solution.
> >
> >To verify that I wasn't just seeing things, I opened the same picture in
> >Photo Gallery, PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom and Office Picture Manager, at the
> >same time to compare side by side. And sure enough, all, except for WPG,
> >showed the same picture with accurate colours and tones.
> >
> >Is this a bug in Windows Photo Gallery that was missed?
>
> Would it be possible to get a copy of one of those photos showing the
> problem?
>
> Email address is valid, if this is possible.
>
> --
> If quitters never win, and winners never quit,
> what fool came up with, "Quit while you're ahead"?
>

Hi Andy,

I'll have to read through that - hopefully it's not too technical and over
my head (I'm still trying to understand color profiles and how windows
gallery is affected by them, yet all other viewers are not?).

I attached a few images in my reply above, maybe they're useful?


"Andy Sweet [MSFT]" wrote:

> Try deleting/recreating the color profile associated with your monitor using
> Color Management in Control Panel.
>
> General color mgmt info at
> http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...30c791033.mspx
>
> --
> Andy Sweet
> Windows User Assistance team
> Microsoft Corporation
>
>

I'd seen a problem simialr to what Rob was describing (Windows Photo Gallery
rendering excessively yellow), and the culprit seemed to be a problem with
the color profile attached to the monitor.

Restoring the Vista default (sRGB) color profile fixed the problem, so
that's what I was suggesting (that or restoring/recreating the color
profile).

--
Andy Sweet
Windows User Assistance team
Microsoft Corporation

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 14:48:02 -0700, Rob <Rob@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>Here are the two pictures:
>
>1. http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/8...managerao3.jpg (viewing
>using Office Picture Manager.
>
>2. http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/5620/wpgzk3.jpg (using Windows Photo
>Gallery)
>
>Also, here are a couple of screen shots from my Color Management window
>although frankly I don't know much about how color management works in Vista
>and these profiles installed on their own during a clean Vista install.
>
>First (Profiles) http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6972/profilesjv3.jpg
>
>Second (Advanced Screen)
>http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6...olormgtom8.jpg
>

This comes up a lot in other Microsoft groups that deal with video and
graphics as well as on countless forums and newsgroups not specific to
Microsoft.

Color Management deals with how color space is managed. This can get
to be a highly technical topic, but the good news is there is a wealth
of information on the web about it. Throughout this and similar
threads you often see ICC and color profiles pop up and I'll bet few
people know the orgins. ICC actually stands for INTERNATIONAL COLOR
CONSORTIUM which is a good starting point to learn more.

http://www.color.org/

Other good topics to Google range from color theory to how television
was developed, (important if your make videos or sideshows played of a
TV) advanced topics on video editing and general photography. Enough
stuff out there to keep you busy reading for months, much of it quite
good.

Adobe (creators of Photoshop) has many detailed sites on some of these
topics and if you have Photoshop or some other Adobe products they
cover it pretty well in their help systems too.

Basically what gets a lot of people confused in what's meant by color
space. Most web pages that discuss it quickly get into other terms
like Gamma, Color Temperature and setting black and white points and a
few dozen other things.

In a nutshell EACH device; your computer monitor, your television,
your digital camera, scanner, printer, actually nearly everything
electronic operates it it's own color space. This simply means how a
'device' handles color both in hue and how overall a image's intensity
(brightness) is governed by it's limitations. So any device's unique
color space, no surprise, won't match another device's color space
exactly for a host of reasons. The good news, is you can work around
these limitations. How much effort you put into it depends on how good
you demand your final results to be and what tools you choose to use.

It can vary due to something very basic like an advanced graphic
application like Photoshop displaying 'out of gamut' warnings which
means if you're attempting to create a file to send to some commercial
printer that's going to print a color catalog for you he'll use CMYK
color space since that's what the inks he'll use is based on. The
problem being some colors can't be produced accurately and will look
very different in your computer monitor's RGB color space. If you're
not aware of this, can be a very expensive lesson.

The same is true for video work, since if you intend to play that DVD
you just made on a set top DVD player and you foolishly color
corrected it looking at a computer monitor, sorry you messed it up and
it will never look the same as it did on your computer monitor. This
time it isn't so much a gamut problem, rather a color temperature
issue. This time hue gets shifted because when television was first
invented to accommodate color they cheated and on purpose shifted how
certain colors get treated differently. Ideally, a TV should be
configured to 6500 Kelvin while a computer monitor can range between
5000 Kelvin to 7500 or even higher. Obviously colors appear warmer or
cooler based on their perceived "temperature".

To further muddy the waters the more towards blue you go on any
intensity scale the "hotter" the light actually is, however the
opposite is true in human perception with people seeing yellows,
oranges and reds as warmer with blues and violets being cooler.

That is by no means the end of it. There are different set points in
the states as opposed to Europe as to what things should be set to and
there are differences between gamma levels in a Mac and in Windows
which means what looks like a correctly adjusted image on one platform
can look either too dark or washed out on the other.

What a color profile attempts to do is adjust TO the device it will be
seen on while working on something else. Since you'll usually work off
a computer monitor or a external monitor set to PAL or NTSC specs for
video work the goal would be to make what you see on those devices
match that destination's color space. Same if your intent is to print
out a image on your printer. Better graphic applications like
Photoshop let you pick a profile BEFORE you print it, thus assuring
the colors get produced in that device's color space not in the
default monitor's color space which usually is going to be very
different.

So all of what I said above boils down to Microsoft's Photo Galley
leading you down the garden path. Clearly it IS applying some color
management, but it doesn't say which method. The result of that
depends very much on the end use of your images. If they remain on
your computer, no real damage, adjust in your favorite graphics
application and be done with it and you should get reasonably good
results.

HOWEVER, if you want more professional results you need an application
that can TELL YOU what color management if any has been applied, allow
to you pick others keyed to the final destination ie your printer,
back to your camera, end up on a DVD, etc.. And of course you really
need to be able to adjust the things I mentioned, otherwise you'll
never get the optimal results you otherwise could have.

Today's color printers are capable of rivaling even surpassing the
quality of professional labs but only if you understand what's
required and begin to understand what color management is really all
about.

Thanks Adam, for a very thorough and informative post.

I completely agree about Photo Gallery applying its own "colour profile" of
some sort that all my other viewers are not, resulting in photos that are
colour distorted at best, rendering the whole Windows Photo Gallery, for me
personally, useless.

My wife purchased a copy of Adobe Lightroom and that seems to work really
well, displaying accurate colours and is quite a user-friendly program for
organising, basic editing and stuff like that. I'm just going to forget about
Photo Gallery for now.


"Adam Albright" wrote:

> On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 14:48:02 -0700, Rob <Rob@discussions.microsoft.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Here are the two pictures:
> >
> >1. http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/8...managerao3.jpg (viewing
> >using Office Picture Manager.
> >
> >2. http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/5620/wpgzk3.jpg (using Windows Photo
> >Gallery)
> >
> >Also, here are a couple of screen shots from my Color Management window
> >although frankly I don't know much about how color management works in Vista
> >and these profiles installed on their own during a clean Vista install.
> >
> >First (Profiles) http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6972/profilesjv3.jpg
> >
> >Second (Advanced Screen)
> >http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6...olormgtom8.jpg
> >
>
> This comes up a lot in other Microsoft groups that deal with video and
> graphics as well as on countless forums and newsgroups not specific to
> Microsoft.
>
> Color Management deals with how color space is managed. This can get
> to be a highly technical topic, but the good news is there is a wealth
> of information on the web about it. Throughout this and similar
> threads you often see ICC and color profiles pop up and I'll bet few
> people know the orgins. ICC actually stands for INTERNATIONAL COLOR
> CONSORTIUM which is a good starting point to learn more.
>
> http://www.color.org/
>
> Other good topics to Google range from color theory to how television
> was developed, (important if your make videos or sideshows played of a
> TV) advanced topics on video editing and general photography. Enough
> stuff out there to keep you busy reading for months, much of it quite
> good.
>
> Adobe (creators of Photoshop) has many detailed sites on some of these
> topics and if you have Photoshop or some other Adobe products they
> cover it pretty well in their help systems too.
>
> Basically what gets a lot of people confused in what's meant by color
> space. Most web pages that discuss it quickly get into other terms
> like Gamma, Color Temperature and setting black and white points and a
> few dozen other things.
>
> In a nutshell EACH device; your computer monitor, your television,
> your digital camera, scanner, printer, actually nearly everything
> electronic operates it it's own color space. This simply means how a
> 'device' handles color both in hue and how overall a image's intensity
> (brightness) is governed by it's limitations. So any device's unique
> color space, no surprise, won't match another device's color space
> exactly for a host of reasons. The good news, is you can work around
> these limitations. How much effort you put into it depends on how good
> you demand your final results to be and what tools you choose to use.
>
> It can vary due to something very basic like an advanced graphic
> application like Photoshop displaying 'out of gamut' warnings which
> means if you're attempting to create a file to send to some commercial
> printer that's going to print a color catalog for you he'll use CMYK
> color space since that's what the inks he'll use is based on. The
> problem being some colors can't be produced accurately and will look
> very different in your computer monitor's RGB color space. If you're
> not aware of this, can be a very expensive lesson.
>
> The same is true for video work, since if you intend to play that DVD
> you just made on a set top DVD player and you foolishly color
> corrected it looking at a computer monitor, sorry you messed it up and
> it will never look the same as it did on your computer monitor. This
> time it isn't so much a gamut problem, rather a color temperature
> issue. This time hue gets shifted because when television was first
> invented to accommodate color they cheated and on purpose shifted how
> certain colors get treated differently. Ideally, a TV should be
> configured to 6500 Kelvin while a computer monitor can range between
> 5000 Kelvin to 7500 or even higher. Obviously colors appear warmer or
> cooler based on their perceived "temperature".
>
> To further muddy the waters the more towards blue you go on any
> intensity scale the "hotter" the light actually is, however the
> opposite is true in human perception with people seeing yellows,
> oranges and reds as warmer with blues and violets being cooler.
>
> That is by no means the end of it. There are different set points in
> the states as opposed to Europe as to what things should be set to and
> there are differences between gamma levels in a Mac and in Windows
> which means what looks like a correctly adjusted image on one platform
> can look either too dark or washed out on the other.
>
> What a color profile attempts to do is adjust TO the device it will be
> seen on while working on something else. Since you'll usually work off
> a computer monitor or a external monitor set to PAL or NTSC specs for
> video work the goal would be to make what you see on those devices
> match that destination's color space. Same if your intent is to print
> out a image on your printer. Better graphic applications like
> Photoshop let you pick a profile BEFORE you print it, thus assuring
> the colors get produced in that device's color space not in the
> default monitor's color space which usually is going to be very
> different.
>
> So all of what I said above boils down to Microsoft's Photo Galley
> leading you down the garden path. Clearly it IS applying some color
> management, but it doesn't say which method. The result of that
> depends very much on the end use of your images. If they remain on
> your computer, no real damage, adjust in your favorite graphics
> application and be done with it and you should get reasonably good
> results.
>
> HOWEVER, if you want more professional results you need an application
> that can TELL YOU what color management if any has been applied, allow
> to you pick others keyed to the final destination ie your printer,
> back to your camera, end up on a DVD, etc.. And of course you really
> need to be able to adjust the things I mentioned, otherwise you'll
> never get the optimal results you otherwise could have.
>
> Today's color printers are capable of rivaling even surpassing the
> quality of professional labs but only if you understand what's
> required and begin to understand what color management is really all
> about.
>
>

Andy,

You are correct. And for anyone else having the same issue;

I was feeling adventurous so I just went into Colour Management in Control
Panel, under Advanced Tab, at the bottom click Change System Defaults (Admin
rights required) - then goto Devices Tab with Display selected under Devices
- goto the bottom under Profiles Associated with this Device, I removed the
only profile there which was for my Samsung Monitor (it must have been
installed with the Monitor Device Driver through Windows Update). And VoilÃ*!!

My Gallery is NO Longer displaying any yellow-ish hue and the picture
colours are accurate!

I guess Gallery was using this colour profile and it's not a very good one
to say the least, the profile that is.

"Andy Sweet [MSFT]" wrote:

> I'd seen a problem similar to what Rob was describing (Windows Photo Gallery
> rendering excessively yellow), and the culprit seemed to be a problem with
> the colour profile attached to the monitor.
>
> Restoring the Vista default (sRGB) colour profile fixed the problem, so
> that's what I was suggesting (that or restoring/recreating the colour
> profile).
>
> --
> Andy Sweet
> Windows User Assistance team
> Microsoft Corporation
>