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I am currently editing and fixing photographs I did for a friend's 21st and am going to put them online to sell.

The strange thing here is:

I edited them with Photoshop CS5. They look perfect, black backgrounds and everything. Yes, I edited using RAW format then opened them and finished them off in normal mode and saved as JPGs. Quality = 12. (Best)

When I open the pictures to view them in Windows Picture Viewer, they still look perfect.

BUT when I click on the slideshow button and start watching, you can see the edited colours and deleted parts and it looks terrible to be frank. WTF?!?!?!

I think I'm going to have to go to the shop and print a test sample of several pictures to make sure...

See the attached picture for a clearer explanation of what I'm referring to. Should I worry? In photoshop, it was COMPLETELY fine and I played around to ensure it was fully dark enough to hide the details yadaddadada and I'm not a noob at this. It's ONLY in the slideshow that it shows up... Very weird.
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This question / problem has been solved by Stuffimage
Make a "levels" layer on top of everything, hold ALT and pull the black slider to the right until everything you want to be black IS black. ALT being important because it lets you see much more easily what is black and what's not (same thing with the white slider, it lets you see what'll be pure white in the final image).

Beyond that, I can only attribute it to two things: JPEG compression with its horrendous artefacts, and Windows' strange behaviour with image-embedded colour profiles. JPEG can never be fully lossless and is really retarded with large areas of the same colour (JPEG2000 can, but that's a completely different format).

Whether or not you should worry, that depends on how you're going to display the images. If you're selling prints, they need to look good on print (and reasonably well for any "example" display you might have on screen/web). Preferably your computer and printer should be colour synced, but as you're using a print shop, that's not your concern.
Post edited February 28, 2011 by Miaghstir
I have not used CS5 or RAW edit (no real reason for me to use RAW) but it looks like a case of editing on several layers and then changing the bottom / background layer contrast. You get similar results since all edit layers above remain unchanged.

When you edit the layers, everything looks great. After editing if you decide to change the background / lower layer contrast / color cast etc etc without combining your edits into a single layer first, your layer edits will not change with the layer below. Your background blacks were lightened but the edit layers stayed jet black. It may be that your monitor is not showing / displaying the differences but other programs make it very apparent due to the difference in the way some programs render an image.

I combine all linked layers ( CTRL - E ) during the edit process to avoid similar problems. I only suggest doing that if you are confident with your editing. You can also merge all layers into a new layer without affecting your original edit layers. Otherwise, make a dupe psd file, merge your layers and change the contrast to the merged image. It's best to get your background layer adjusted prior to editing to avoid these kinds of problems.

Edit: BTW, all layers are merged when you save as a jpg so the subtle differences may not be apparent until the layers are merged. Also check your edit layers modes. If one is set to screen or lighten above the BG layer and below the black edit layer you might try moving the black edit layer below any layers with a the layer mode set to screen / lighten.
Post edited February 28, 2011 by Stuff
Nice tips but that isn't the question I'm asking.

I know how to use photoshop.

What I'm asking here is WHY is Windows Picture Viewer (I'm using Win 7 64 if that makes any difference??? I doubt it but hey.) showing the editing ONLY IN SLIDESHOW MODE??? It doesn't even show up when I open the pictures in WPV, nor in Photoshop when I open the JPGs again.

ONLY in slideshow mode does it show. Which is very weird and bugs the shit out of me.

If no one can help by Wed I am going to have to go and print out some samples to ascertain whether it is simply a fuck-up in the code and if it is necessary for me to re-edit all these pictures...

God, I hope not.
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Virama: What I'm asking here is WHY is Windows Picture Viewer (I'm using Win 7 64 if that makes any difference??? I doubt it but hey.) showing the editing ONLY IN SLIDESHOW MODE??? It doesn't even show up when I open the pictures in WPV, nor in Photoshop when I open the JPGs again.
I mentioned colour profiles, and Windows' erratic behaviour using them. It's possible that picture viewer is using different profiles in normal viewing mode and slideshow mode (one being Windows' current profile, the other being the one embedded in the image). If you can try removing the profile embedded in the image, that might make a difference.
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Virama: What I'm asking here is WHY is Windows Picture Viewer (I'm using Win 7 64 if that makes any difference??? I doubt it but hey.) showing the editing ONLY IN SLIDESHOW MODE??? It doesn't even show up when I open the pictures in WPV, nor in Photoshop when I open the JPGs again.
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Miaghstir: I mentioned colour profiles, and Windows' erratic behaviour using them. It's possible that picture viewer is using different profiles in normal viewing mode and slideshow mode (one being Windows' current profile, the other being the one embedded in the image). If you can try removing the profile embedded in the image, that might make a difference.
Hmmm. How would you do that?
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Virama: Hmmm. How would you do that?
Edit -> Assign Profile...

I think. The Photoshop at work is in Swedish, so I'm not entirely sure of the translation.
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Virama: Hmmm. How would you do that?
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Miaghstir: Edit -> Assign Profile...

I think. The Photoshop at work is in Swedish, so I'm not entirely sure of the translation.
That is correct.
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Virama: ....
Still seems to be a layer merge problem to me . . . =)

Did you try saving as a png or tiff and opening in WPV to see if the problem was specific to the jpeg format or if it was obvious in all images made from your edit psd?
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Stuff: ............... I combine all linked layers ( CTRL - E ) during the edit process to avoid similar problems. I only suggest doing that if you are confident with your editing...
I have no idea why it is suddenly working fine - I was flattening the image but now that I'm using CTRL + E then saving as JPG, it's absolutely fine.

Either it was a glitch or just something so retarded that no sane human will ever understand it.

I want to thank Miaghstir too for the really good advice - I WILL be keeping that in mind if anything else happens in the future... But Stuff's answer was the more comprehensive and, well, to be frank, the only one that was "closest" to what I did to try and fix the problem...

For future reference for anyone else:

What I was doing was simply this -

1.) Opening the RAW and fixing sharpness, contrast, noise etc...

2.) Opening as JPG and cropping, using the eyedrop to get the same colour for the background and paintbrushing with a soft brush around the people etc.

3.) Putting watermark on top (transparent layer)

4.) CTRL + E, CTRL + S then CTRL + W

5.) Rinse and repeat.

Now, onwards! 506 pictures... *sigh*. Not doing ALL of them! Just the best, but as of now I'm up to 136 cleaned up and ready for print pictures and I'm just under 3/4 of the way through the folder. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.....
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Virama: Now, onwards! 506 pictures... *sigh*. Not doing ALL of them! Just the best, but as of now I'm up to 136 cleaned up and ready for print pictures and I'm just under 3/4 of the way through the folder. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.....
Why don't you use Lightroom? It works great for what you're doing and you can sync changes like that to multiple similar images.

Then just do a fast review at the end and import the ones you want into Photoshop for further editing (or just do it in LR, it covers around 80% of what you can do in PS).
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Virama: Now, onwards! 506 pictures... *sigh*. Not doing ALL of them! Just the best, but as of now I'm up to 136 cleaned up and ready for print pictures and I'm just under 3/4 of the way through the folder. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.....
Might I suggest recording an action?

Of course, you've probably already thought of that as well. I mean no disrespect, but even the best can miss obvious options (I know I do after fifteen years of extensive Photoshop use).

Lightroom is awesome as well, but that requires you have the program.
Post edited March 01, 2011 by Miaghstir
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Virama: Now, onwards! 506 pictures... *sigh*. Not doing ALL of them! Just the best, but as of now I'm up to 136 cleaned up and ready for print pictures and I'm just under 3/4 of the way through the folder. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.....
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Miaghstir: Might I suggest recording an action?

Of course, you've probably already thought of that as well. I mean no disrespect, but even the best can miss obvious options (I know I do after fifteen years of extensive Photoshop use).

Lightroom is awesome as well, but that requires you have the program.
I DID think of making an action but decided against it due to there being too many variable factors in the photos... If it had been, for instance, a father christmas photo shoot, yeah, sure but in this case, there were various different light levels and situations.

Best to simply sit down, grin and bear it and DO IT. Also, the watermark could not always be put in one corner, sometimes it had to be on the other or even on the top left/right. ON TOP OF THAT, I had to put the copyright watermark on top of every single face to stop them from simply going "Oh cool!" *steals picture and puts as profile picture and forgets about ever wanting to buy a copy*

Etccccc..... :)

Lightroom I have heard of but meh, I've got the complete CS5 suite so I'm good.
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Virama: Etccccc..... :)
Completely understandable. Creating a script to handle various factors would probably take longer than to just go through each image manually, and that's not taking into account learning Photoshop's javascript hooks, or the language itself for that matter.

(Yes Photoshop can be almost completely scripted through Javascript... as well as Applescript on Mac OS and VBScript on Windows.)
Post edited March 01, 2011 by Miaghstir