SAMSUNG LCD monitor driver messes up photo colors
Monday, 21. September 2009, 06:39:38
If Windows Updates offers this, don't even try to install it. I also don't recommend installing any of the SAMSUNG garbage that comes with their LCD monitors. This piece of crap always fucked up my color space. All the images viewed in Windows Photo Gallery looked like someone pasted a yellow filter over them. White was not white anymore but some ugly mix of pink and yellow. Awful. Skin tone also looked like someone run a bad sepia filter over.
How to get normal colors back?
It's quite simple. Go to folder:
C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color
Look for file named smXXXx.icm. Since i'm using SAMSUNG SyncMaster 931c, the file is named "sm931c.icm" (without quotes). If you have some other monitor model, just fit in your model number instead those XXXx. Once you locate the file, delete it. Here you go. White should again look as white in Windows Photo Gallery. Colors should also be vibrant and natural again.
This crap took me a while to fix, so i hope this guide will help all the users with SAMSUNG LCD monitors that are having the same problem.
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 22. September 2009, 22:22
This is even worse on nVIDIA graphics chips. I had a Windows Vista workstation with an 8600GT and SyncMaster 900IFT. Photo Gallery was indeed yellow and colours were awful. Took me forever to figure out what was wrong too. Of course, this was even WORSENED by the nVIDIA "calibration wizard", which added a red hue to everything.
Then I got a Mac and the OS X calibration software actually did help colours look a bit more rich...even though it did add almost a blue undertone it still looks better than stock. Best advice I can say is play around with the gamma a bit...if you know what you're doing (and as a "creative professional" working in design and graphics, I do) you can achieve a good effect.